Page 11 of Appointment in Bath

“Not an intimate one. But I d-do know her a little. She c-calls sometimes at the Hall. She’s very pretty.”

Ivo smiled slightly. “Is she? Lucky me.”

Miss Burton-Smythe flinched. “I really m-must get home, sir.” Turning away from him, she gave her bay mare a kick in the direction of Letchford Hall. The mare sprang forward.

Ivo was close enough to set a hand on the horse’s bridle, preventing the beast from cantering off. “Miss Burton-Smythe—”

“Please let m-me go,” she said, refusing to look at him.

An unsettling weight formed in Ivo’s chest. Despite his experience of the world, he wasn’t accustomed to conversing with ladies who were as sheltered and innocent as she was. It was rather like dealing with a wild woodland creature—a shy doe he was persuading to eat out of his hand. The smallest noise seemed to startle her.

“I will,” he promised. “But first…I must tell you…”

Her eyes reluctantly met his.

They were a delicate shade of China blue. Wide, round, and fringed with thick, ink-black lashes. Beautiful eyes, really. Ivo couldn’t recall when he’d seen the like of them.

“It’s lovely down by Sefton Bridge at this time of year,” he heard himself saying. “The place where you fell from your mare? Along the edge of the woods as it runs toward the river? I’ve been riding that path in the mornings. If you’d like to join me for a gallop tomorrow—”

She drew back. “Oh, but I c-couldn’t!”

“Only if you’d like. I ride at eight o’clock sharpish. There’s never anyone else about down there at that time of day.” He released her horse. “You would be doing me a kindness, really. Unlike you, I’m not made for being alone.”

She bit her lip as she stared at him. The torment of indecision clouded her cinnamon-freckled brow. “I-I do like to ride by the river,” she admitted at last.

A triumphant smile curved Ivo’s mouth. Here was progress at last. Though to what end, he hadn’t the faintest idea. He hadn’t come home to Somersetshire to foster a friendship with a Burton-Smythe. And he certainly hadn’t come to spark up a romance. He was here for one reason only.

He nevertheless felt a certain satisfaction. “Tomorrow, then,” he said. “And don’t be late.”

Chapter Four

“A railway in Maidenbridge?” Mr. Colfax examined the prospectus that Ivo had given him. Smoke swirled from the cigar dangling from his fingers. He took another thoughtful puff. “That is an idea.”

“A brilliant one,” Ivo said. “Think of the benefit to the local tradesman. A railway would bring all sorts of new people into the village.”

“Precisely.” Mr. Colfax handed the prospectus back to Ivo.

The two of them were seated in front of a blazing fire in the vicarage’s bookroom. It was a smallish parlor at the back of the house, distinguished by an inordinate amount of plaid. Bright red tartan draped the windows and covered the worn sofa and overstuffed chairs. It was a remnant of the last vicar, old Mr. Applewhite, a staid traditionalist who had been firmly tethered to the past.

Mr. Colfax, by contrast, was a younger and more progressive clergyman.

Or so Ivo had been led to believe.

“There are many who would object to it for just that reason,” the vicar said. “I admit to reservations myself. Do we really wish to encourage strangers coming into the village?”

“You’d rather Maidenbridge be preserved in aspic?” Ivo set his teacup and saucer down on the table beside his chair. “I must tell you, it’s an impossible dream. No place can exist in isolation forever.”

“My dear Mr. Beresford, we are hardly isolated here. I dined with twenty families last month.”

Ivo suppressed a dismissive retort. What were twenty well-to-do country families in comparison to the hundreds—nay, thousands—of people who might benefit from a railway line?

“It isn’t only the people that the railway would bring to Maidenbridge,” he said calmly, “it’s the benefit our own residents would have of easy access to Taunton and Bath.”

“Your business partners mean for this railway line to traverse the whole of Somersetshire?”

“The line would be built in stages. First, the track to Taunton and then beyond. If all goes to plan, we anticipate the project could be completed in seven years.”

The vicar raised his cigar back to his lips. “As I understand it,” he remarked before taking a puff, “such a scheme would require an authorizing act of parliament.”