Page 25 of Appointment in Bath

“Of Lord Allendale?” Meg queried numbly. Her hands fell away from the coverlet. At last, she understood. “You m-mean to say that you…you n-named me out of hatred? As a…a sort of revenge?”

“You’re disappointed?”

“I’m humiliated. What must his lordship have thought of m-me?”

“Don’t look so cast down. The man’s never noticed you, nor has his wife, or that passel of spoiled brats he’s sired. They none of them care tuppence what you’re called. They don’t even know you exist.” He leaned back against his pillows with a groan of pain. “Serves me right for indulging in a bit of spite. In the end, your name didn’t matter in the slightest.”

Meg’s chest tightened with suppressed emotion. It burned to the point of pain. “It matters to m-me. I th-thought you had named m-me out of love.”

It hadn’t been for love of her. It had been for love of another. But all these years, Meg had still cherished the belief that it meant something. That by having the same name as her father’s beloved, she might—to some small degree—have some of his affection as well.

The look of growing disdain on his face told her how wrong she’d been.

“More romantic claptrap,” he muttered harshly. “If this is how you’ve been focusing your mind in Miss Adams’s absence, I shall see to hiring another governess for you without delay. Now make yourself useful. Fetch Church. Find out where that bloody doctor is.”

Meg withdrew without another word.

* * *

“You lost him?” Ivo came to a horrified halt at the entrance to the Beasley Park stables. Snap was obliged to stop short beside him. He bumped Ivo hard with his nose. The stallion’s white coat was damp after a hard gallop across the moors. He required a warm blanket and a bucket of hot mash, and was impatient for both.

Partridge hovered outside the stable doors in his heavy coat. He’d been pacing there on Ivo’s return from his meeting with Miss Burton-Smythe, waiting to impart the bad news. “There was a letter delivered from the vicarage. An invitation for you and the signore to dine on Friday—”

“Me and the signore?” Ivo echoed in disbelief.

“The vicar mentioned that Mr. Pinnock might be interested in hiring a tutor for his younger sons.”

“Good God.”

“Ruggiero said he was in need of a new suit for the occasion. I thought I’d dissuaded him. But when next I looked—”

“Has he taken a horse?” Ivo handed Snap’s reins off to Andrew. The groom’s face was peculiarly pale. “You didn’t saddle one for him, I trust.”

Andrew hung his head. “He being a guest and all…I didn’t know I shouldn’t—”

“It isn’t your fault,” Ivo said. “It’s mine. I should have locked the devious scoundrel in his room until I got back.” He turned to Partridge. “Pray tell me he wasn’t drunk.”

Partridge was silent.

Bloody blasted hell. Ivo was trying to win over the people of Maidenbridge, not the reverse.

“Saddle another horse for me, Andrew,” he said. “Snap is spent. With luck, I can catch up with Ruggiero before he does any lasting damage to my reputation.”

Less than five minutes later, mounted on his sister’s bay gelding, Ember, Ivo cantered off in the direction of the village. A chill wind bit at his face.

Rain clouds were looming on the horizon, darkening the morning sky. Within an hour, they’d be facing another downpour. Ivo didn’t fancy Ruggiero falling victim to it. A drunken signore was bad enough. One crippled by double pneumonia was too tedious to contemplate.

Fortunately, Ivo didn’t have to ride all the way back to Maidenbridge in order to find the escaped lunatic. He’d gone no more than a mile when he spied the back end of a chestnut horse ambling slowly down the lane in a zigzag pattern, absent the guidance of a rider.

Ruggiero was slumped in the saddle, his double chin cushioned on the thick wool scarf he wore wound around his neck. He was a portly fellow of indeterminate age. Not more than forty if Ivo was to guess. It was difficult to tell. The signore’s heavy black beard and thick side-whiskers obscured his features.

Ivo trotted up alongside him, careful not to spook the man’s horse. “You careless blighter,” he muttered, catching hold of the horse’s reins. “Have you no thought for anyone but yourself?”

Ruggiero snuffled awake. His eyes were bloodshot. “Master Ivo. Buongiorno.”

“I’ll buongiorno you, you scoundrel. What do you mean by riding out in this condition? Are you trying to ruin my plans?”

“I require a suit for the dinner party,” Ruggiero said in faintly accented English. “To make a good impression on Mr. Pinnock.”