Hogget had casually suggested that she ask at the chandlery. Laura tried to imagine Perry asking her if she’d undertake such an errand and decided he’d be shocked. But Perry could be rather conventional and Mr Hogget had proved himself to be anything but.
‘How long as she been gone?’ Theo demanded.
Mrs Bishop frowned. ‘It was just after you all went riding off. Before I set the bread to rise, but after Rosie brought in the eggs. Must have been a couple of hours,’ she concluded.
‘Two hours? Good God, anything might have happened to her.’ He turned to find Perry in the kitchen doorway. ‘Did you hear that? Laura’s been gone for at least two hours.’
‘She’s been feeling restless, cooped up,’ Perry said. ‘But even so, two hours… We should go and look for her.’
The back door opened and Laura walked in. ‘Dinner smells wonderful, Mrs Bishop.’ She glanced at the clock on the wall. ‘I hadn’t realised the time, I had better run upstairs. Oh. Perry, Theo, what are you doing in the kitchen? The most peculiar thing – ’
‘We were looking for you,’ Perry began.
Theo lost his temper, suddenly and explosively. ‘Where have you been, you totty-headed female? Are you out of your mind? Anything could have happened to you and we had no idea where you were, who you were with, what the devil you were doing.’ He was aware that he was being unreasonably angry, that he was shouting, that the others were staring at him. Somehow he caught hold of the unravelling ends of his self-control.
‘We were worried about you,’ he added more temperately as Flynn arrived at the run with Jared on his heels.
‘What’s happened?’
‘Lord Northam, who has no right or business to censure my behaviour, has just lost his temper.’ Laura gathered up her skirts and stalked past them. ‘I have had a very interesting afternoon, but if you would prefer to lecture me rather than hear all about it I shall not trouble to tell you. I do hope you had a lovely time in your dirty, smelly, corpse-infested crypt.’
‘Laura – ’
‘I believe it is time to change for dinner.’
‘Well handled,’ Perry remarked as they heard Laura’s door close with a snap.
‘Stubble it,’ Theo said, inelegantly.
‘I rather suspect that Mrs Bishop wishes us to remove ourselves so she can continue with preparations for our evening meal,’ Jared observed. As they took themselves back to the hall he added, ‘And Miss Darke may have forgiven Theo sufficiently to share her news by dinner time. I, for one, intend to bathe, change and contemplate how very lucky I am to have put the horrors of courtship behind me.’
‘What the blazes does he mean by that?’ Theo demanded as Jared vanished up the stairs.
‘Can’t imagine,’ Flynn said, not troubling to hide his grin. ‘I’d best disturb Mrs B again and beg some hot water.’
Theo was still simmering with suppressed emotion by the time the men all gathered in the drawing room at seven. He regretted losing his temper – no gentleman should speak to a lady like that. He knew perfectly well he had no right to dictate Laura’s actions and he ought to apologise on both counts and, of course, he would. But I love her.
And even if I did not, I cannot marry Lady Penelope Haddon now, not without having a very frank conversation with her.
‘Theo? I do not usually have to ask you three times whether you want a glass of Madeira.’ Perry waved the decanter impatiently.
‘What? Yes please. Sorry, I was thinking.’
‘Novel,’ Jared drawled. ‘What about?’
‘What women think about marriage. I mean, they seem to feel they are a failure if they do not marry.’
‘That is certainly the accepted wisdom.’
‘But that’s because if they don’t then they are treated as failures and they have no power or influence.’ Theo realised he had never thought of it like that. He had simply assumed that Lady Penelope would be delighted to be asked and would say yes unless she actively disliked him. ‘Although Guin – ’
‘My wife is intelligent, strong and determined and yet it was not until she was widowed for the second time that she found herself financially able to live her own life. Even now she is still reliant on men to handle her legal and financial affairs. So you do not need to tell me that it is an unequal world, Theo. We all know it, all men do. The only point of argument is whether that is right and just or not. I do not think that it is. I assume that none of us here do.’
‘I had taken it for granted.’ The sun came up in the morning, the tides went in and out, women were subservient to men because they were weaker and had feebler intellects. But most of the women he knew were at least as intelligent as most of the men and some considerably more so, and without benefit of a decent education, at that. And as for being weaker, he had seen Guin fight off a murderer and women gave birth, a process he was profoundly grateful never to have witnessed.
‘If you are having a revelation about the rights of women, Theo, I do wish you’d manage not to look like a stunned cod while you’re about it,’ Jared said. ‘I hear Miss Darke approaching. I am sure she can give you chapter and verse on the feelings of her sex on the subject.’
‘No. Later.’ Theo got to his feet as Laura came in. ‘Laura, I apologise for losing my temper, for the expressions that I used and the assumptions that lay behind them. I was worried about you, but that is an explanation, not an excuse.’ He braced himself for a cutting retort.