Page 46 of How to Cross a Marquess (The Way to a Lord's Heart 3)

“We were just going,” she said.

“Were we?” said Roger. “I didn’t think we were.”

“It’s time I was getting back.”

“Or thatother peoplewent on their way.” Roger threw the boys a discouraging glance. Tom clearly understood it.

“I’ll go with you,” said John, oblivious. “I want to fetch the small cage that William made for me.”

“Not likely to need that,” said Tom. “This snake’s gone to ground. Better we go to the stream.”

“Far better,” snapped Roger. He looked at her. “I must speak to you.”

Torn between chagrin and laughter, Fenella retreated toward her horse. A gentleman would propose after the interlude they’d just shared, and she was not averse to the idea. But Roger had been pushed into an offer before, following a stolen kiss. It might be silly, but she didn’t want their agreement to go like that. Not as it had been with Arabella. And they couldn’t speak freely in front of the boys. Tom’s amiable curiosity was all too evident.

Roger had followed her. “Not now,” she said.

“When, then?”

“When you’ve had time to think it over. And to be certain.”

“I am certain. Are you saying that you—”

John popped up behind him. “Can I ride with you, Aunt Fenella? I have to be quick if I’m to—”

Roger rounded on the boy. “Will you go away?”

John stepped back, startled. Then the cowed expression with which he’d arrived in Northumberland descended over his face.

“Chatton,” said Fenella.

“Aren’t children meant to be seen and not heard?” said Roger angrily. “And haven’t we heard more than anyone wishes to know about snakes?”

Tom moved to stand beside John, a silent protector.

“Enough,” said Fenella, the steel of her grandmother’s training in her voice.

Roger had the grace to look ashamed.

“You may ride with me if you like,” she said to John.

The boy came to her as if to sanctuary. Tom followed along and helped Fenella mount. Roger stood alone, like a man wrestling with a thorny problem. Fenella set her heels into her mare’s flanks and turned her toward home.

Nine

“I’m going to ride over and take a look at the place,” said John the following morning. He and Tom sat under a tree in the Clough House garden, and John was feeling both resentful and bored. He didn’t see that Lord Chatton had any right to speak to him as he had. He wasn’t his father, or even his uncle. Aunt Fenella never treated him so. Also, he’d had to release the smooth snake, much as he would have liked to keep it for observation. The creature hadn’t been doing well in a dark cage in the old playhouse. Snakes could be tricky to feed, too, and John didn’t want to be responsible for another one’s death. But he regretted the loss. All in all, life seemed vastly annoying just now. He’d had more than his fill of being a child. “It’s only a few miles,” he added.

Tom tossed a pebble onto the path. He’d marked out a grid in the gravel and was aiming at the squares in order. He looked tempted.

“I can go and be back before anyone knows,” John said. He wanted to saywe, but Tom hadn’t agreed yet. Still, ever since they’d heard of the path across the sands of Lindisfarne, they’d both wanted to see the place.

“You’d have to ask permission,” said Tom.

“They’d say no.” It seemed to John that a vast web of authority surrounded him. So many people seemed to have the right to tell him what to do. He was more than impatient with it. Tom was not one of them, however. “I can go by myself. You can’t stop me.”

“I could tell yer aunt.”

“If you are a snitch!”

---