He led Old Nick across to the man who stood at the foot of the Channel Star’s gangplank, a list in one hand. ‘Sorry, sir. Full complement of passengers and we don’t take animals.’
‘I don’t want to sail with you. I’m interested in your last load of passengers. Was there a young lady, brown hair, hazel eyes, slightly above average height, slender, accompanied by a maid?’
‘Aye.’ The man sidled round behind a bollard out of range of Old Nick’s teeth. ‘Poor lass.’
‘What? What’s wrong with her?’
The man took another unwary step back, his heels on the edge of the dock. ‘Dreadful seasick she was. It was a right rough passage and I don’t think she was too good to start with. I’d have thought her a lady what’d lost her husband in the late battle if it weren’t for the fact she wasn’t in mourning and she didn’t have a ring. White as a sheet, hardly a word to say for herself, then she took to the cabin.’
‘Where is she?’ In mourning? Perversely the thought raised his spirits despite his worry. If she was grieving over leaving him then there was hope. Just as long as Rose was not simply laid low by the fact she thought he had lied to her. ‘Did she go to one of the inns?’
‘No, sir. Sent a boy to the livery stables for a chaise and pair, had her bags loaded and off they went. Not what I’d want, one of those yellow bounders to travel in, not right after a rough voyage.’
Neither would Flint. He led Old Nick to the livery stable the seaman described, and fed and watered the stallion while he questioned the staff.
‘Aye,’ the head ostler confirmed. ‘Right poorly she were, the young lady. Still, she’d not far to go, which would be a mercy.’
‘Not London?’ Flint eyed Old Nick, solidly demolishing a bucket of feed after inhaling a bucket of water. He wouldn’t want to push the animal on to London, but if Rose had gone to the Kent house that was not such a stretch.
‘No, sir. Whitstable way.’
She had gone to her own house and that, he reckoned, was twenty miles or so. He could do it by evening without killing the stallion. Flint pushed aside the urge to gallop the entire way. Years of army manoeuvres had taught him the importance of rest, of food, of getting where you were going in a fit state to fight.
It was just seasickness. No one died of seasickness, he told himself. But they did die of broken hearts, he thought as he led Old Nick out an hour later. I love you, she had said when he had given her the ring and told her that he loved her, too. But there had been sadness in her kiss, he recognised it now. She had believed he was lying to her and he hadn’t explained, hadn’t let her see how he felt, explained his inner confusion, his feelings.
That honesty had been what she had asked him for and he had been too much of a coward to let Rose see just how vulnerable he was to her, so he had sounded awkward, clumsy, like a man lying when he had never wanted to be so honest in his life before.
*
That thought kept him company on the easy ride to Whitstable, a black crow of conscience on his shoulder. Coward, it croaked in his ear as he reined the stallion into a walk down the hill into the port. Half-breed excuse for a gentleman, it muttered as he rode out of town again with directions to Knap Hill House, rehearsing all the reasons why Rose would be better off without him.
‘Can’t miss it, Major,’ said an innkeeper with the unmistakable look
of an old soldier about him. ‘Up the hill, bear to the west, fork right at the gibbet. Two miles on you’ll see the gatehouse.’
*
The middle-aged woman who opened the gate for him curtsied politely. ‘Yes, Miss Tatton arrived yesterday, sir. We weren’t expecting her, but there’s always a skeleton staff up at the house.’
He touched his hat to her, tossed a coin to the small boy hiding behind her skirts and let Old Nick walk slowly up the curving driveway towards the house. It was old, he could tell that, and of no style he recognised. One wing looked ancient, built of brown stone. A more modern redbrick central mass was flanked by what once might have been a barn, now much altered. It looked like an overgrown farm that that collided with a small castle, he decided as he guided his horse towards the stableyard arch.
A groom on a sturdy cob clattered through the arch and reined in as he approached. ‘Sir?’
‘I have a message for Miss Tatton from her father.’ That was true enough.
‘Don’t rightly know if she’ll be able to see you, sir.’ The man circled his mount impatiently. ‘She’s none too well, I’m off for Dr Fowler now. If you put your horse in the stable there, sir, I’ll see to him when I get back. There’s only me…’ And he was gone, cantering down the drive.
Flint did not recall afterwards getting Old Nick into the stable or stripping off saddle and bridle. He pushed past the footman who opened the door and was halfway up the stairs before the man panted to his side.
‘Sir! You can’t go up there, sir!’
‘Where’s Miss Tatton’s woman? Jane, isn’t it?’ Flint took the remaining steps in two strides and found himself confronted by three corridors, more steps, endless doors.
Naming the maid seemed to reassure the man that he at least knew the family. ‘If you’ll wait here, sir.’ He hastened down one of the corridors and tapped on a door.
Jane emerged, pushing her hair back under her cap, her freckled face pale and drawn. ‘Major!’
‘How is Miss Tatton?’ Flint demanded.