‘Miss Wingate, while not wishing to denigrate your pastime, I venture to suggest that it is not one which would be considered suitable for a young lady who is a member of the ton. Your role caring for your father does remove you from society to a great extent, so this eccentricity is not widely observed, the reason I am sure that your father gives his permission for you to indulge in it, but I—’
‘Pastime? Indulgence?’ Verity demanded. ‘I am engaged in serious scientific discovery, following the latest methods of excavation and meticulously recording the results—’
‘Which, of course, will never be published. But that is beside the point. I have no intention of seeing my sisters burrowing in the dirt for human remains like so many scavengers on a waste heap.’
She discovered that her mouth was open with sheer incredulity and closed it with a snap, took a deep breath—but he was still talking.
‘They have been exposed all their lives to their mother’s wild theories of what is suitable for young ladies and I can only be thankful I have them in my care while I may do something to reverse the damage. I will not have you—’
‘You mean that it was fortunate that your father fell off a roof?’ Will looked outraged and she knew she had gone too far, but it was too late to stop now. ‘I am sure the poor man would be appalled to discover that his daughters are being brought up to have no ideas of their own, to have their natural intelligence stifled.’ She drew a breath, then saw who had appeared at the bottom of the lawn. ‘Oh, look,’ she said, hastily finding a smile. ‘Here come the rest of your brothers and sisters.’
Like a relieving force of cavalry...
‘It is a good thing that you despise matrimony so comprehensively, Miss Wingate, because no gentleman in his right mind would offer for you,’ Will said, low-voiced, although the words stung even so. The colour was high over his cheekbones, his blue eyes dark with anger. She saw him close his eyes for a second, force a smile on to his lips and turn towards the approaching group and only hoped that she had her own expression as well under control. Whatever the arrogant lump of manhood next to her thought, she was not so much of a hoyden as to throw a flowerpot at him, even if that was what her fingers itched to do.
The young people had been dressed up and on their best behaviour for the visitors, but they had become louder and untidier as the visit progressed, only to be removed by governess and tutor before luncheon and returned, braids tightened, necks red from scrubbing, clothes suspiciously neat. Now they came up the lawn at a run, jostled their way up the steps on to the terrace and stood in a row, beaming at her.
‘Miss Wingate, did you know we have got a lake? A really big one, with an island in the middle?’
Verity agreed that, yes, she did know about the lake, although she had never seen it. ‘And an island, too? How lovely.’ She sounded positively inane, she thought, trying not to overcompensate for the anger steaming inside her.
‘And it’s got one of those bumps like the ones Will said you were digging up because they’re full of skulls and treasure,’ Basil said.
‘I’m sure your brother never said they were full of skulls, Lord Basil. I only found one and no treasure.’ Then what he had said hit her. ‘There is a burial mound on the island in the lake? Are you quite certain?’
‘I think so. It is just like the littlest one on the boundary line,’ Basil said, ignoring his elder brother’s ominous throat-clearing. ‘We went and had a look at them in case we could find skulls, too, but Will said we mustn’t dig and there weren’t any bones to be seen on our side anyway. We didn’t know about treasure then.’ The care with which he did not look at his brother had her suspecting some holes would be appearing now, whatever Will said. ‘But the small one is just like the one in the lake.’
‘How do you know about the island?’ their brother demanded.
‘We took the boat out when we found it, of course. Found the boat, I mean,’ Araminta said. ‘Then we saw the island, so of course we had to explore it.’
‘What boat?’
So his voice drops in tone and becomes very much quieter when he is angry with anyone, not just me.
It still made her shiver, even though his attention was now completely on the boy.
‘Er... The one in the boathouse,’ Basil said, scuffling his feet and looking so innocent that he had to be guilty of something. ‘It wasn’t properly shut up, we hardly had to break the lock or anything. And the boat was floating and there wasn’t any water inside it.’
The deep breath that Will took made his nostrils flare in an interesting manner, Verity observed, desperately trying for some mental balance.
It does not matter what he thinks of me. It does not matter what he says to me. I do not care about his opinion. He is just an arrogant male.
It did her self-esteem no good at all to discover that she was feeling decidedly shaky.
‘You broke into the boat shed, you presumed to be able to judge the condition of a boat and you took it out on a lake, the hazards of which you know nothing about?’ Will demanded. ‘Which of your brothers and sisters did you take with you?’
‘All of us. It was a bit of a squeeze, but not much water came in and Benjamin baled it out with his cap.’
‘We can all swim,’ Benjamin piped up. ‘And the cap dried, sort of. And Mr Otterley said the tenant who used to be here went out on the lake a lot.’
‘The head gardener knew you were taking the boat out without permission?’
‘Well, he might have thought you had said we could...’ Araminta said, twirling the ends of her ringlets and gazing vaguely off into the distance.
‘None of us fell in. Much,’ Basil said.
His expression was so earnest that Verity almost smiled, but what he had said earlier could not be ignored. ‘It could be a burial mound, Lord