Finally, they reached the edge of the blanket of drying hay. From here the grass grew an emerald, deep green dotted with Queen Anne’s lace. A willow grew at the very edge, its trunk bent sideways in such a way that it threw deep shadows on the grass.
Lady Clarice immediately ordered the footmen to place out the blankets and the nuncheon baskets under the willow. “I shall have to rest,” she announced. “In fact, this may be as much of the ruins as I am able to see, given the tenuous nature of my strength. I am simply not used to walking about in the extreme heat. I can have no doubt that the Scots are different from English ladies in this; I am quite certain that you all will be able to tramp about the field to your heart’s content. After all, there are so many more fields in Scotland, are there not?”
“I believe that England has the larger population of farmers,” the Earl of Mayne observed, filling the rather chilly silence that followed Lady Clarice’s announcement.
“Ah, but you are no farmer!” she cried gaily. “Lord Mayne, I insist, I positively insist that you stay with me while the others plod about the fields to their hearts’ content.”
Mayne had just taken Tess’s arm, and he let it go with a very flattering show of reluctance.
“What a shame,” Miss Pythian-Adams said sympathetically to her future mother-in-law. “But you must, of course, rest.” And before Tess quite knew what had happened, Miss Pythian-Adams had grabbed Tess’s arm and was dragging her off toward the ruins like a fish on an angler’s line.
The rest of the party began straggling after them, but since Miss Pythian-Adams sped through the grass at top speed, she and Tess soon found themselves in the middle of a series of irregular little walls and sunken chambers. Miss Pythian-Adams peered at the tumbling stone walls with appreciative noises. She even took out a small sketchbook from her reticule and noted down something or other. Tess stared into the sky instead. Two starlings were circling through the sunlight, weaving and dancing—
“They’re mating,” Miss Pythian-Adams said, following her gaze.
Tess blinked. Of course, she knew what mating meant, but—
“I do apologize if that disconcerted you,” Miss Pythian-Adams says, “but I thought as you were from Scotland, I shouldn’t have to obfuscate. I greatly prefer clarity in conversation to social niceties.”
“No, indeed,” Tess said weakly. There was something in Miss Pythian-Adams’s direct gaze that made it clear that she quite liked the idea of being shocking. The starlings wheeled their way off across the pasture, looking half-drunk with the pleasure of flying. Or something.
The heart of the ruins appeared to be nothing more than a few sunken places and what looked like an ancient set of stone steps leading down a little hill. Miss Pythian-Adams’s eyes shone with enthusiasm as they clambered over bits of collapsed walls.
Finally, they stumbled on a little pit, all lined with mossy green and rather pretty-looking, to Tess’s mind. She and Annabel would have loved to play house there when they were younger.
“An intact chamber,” Miss Pythian-Adams gasped, staring down into the little room.
“Could it be a dining room?” Tess said, rather hoping that Miss Pythian-Adams hadn’t noticed the fact that Imogen had claimed Maitland’s arm in order to clamber over the walls surrounding the ruin.
“I think it is more likely to be a bath,” Miss Pythian-Adams replied, beginning to climb down a little rockslide in one corner of the chamber.
“Oh, please,” Tess said, “must we?”
But it seemed that they must, so Tess followed her down the bit of tumbled rock. Miss Pythian-Adams’s beautiful pale blue gloves were quite dingy from holding on to rocks; Tess’s black ones were holding up admirably.
“Yes, it is a bath!” Miss Pythian-Adams said triumphantly, a moment later. “You do know that the Romans piped hot water into their baths, don’t you? That must be an aqueduct, to the side.”
“Aqueduct?” Tess repeated.
“From Latin, aquaeductus,” Miss Pythian-Adams said. “Meaning a conduit through which the Romans brought water. A pipe, to us.”
“Where did the water come from?” Tess asked, walking over the flagstones that lined the bottom of the chamber to peer into the little hole.
“They heated the pipes in the kitchens, I believe.”
“How odd it is to be standing in someone’s bathroom,” Tess said, looking up. The walls of the chamber were only some five or six feet high, and yet all that could be seen was a patch of deep blue sky, and a few great chestnut leaves drifting down, sailing over the ruins and swooping down into the bathroom. They looked a bit like starlings, mating leaves, one could call them.
“It would be far odder if the Romans were still here,” Miss Pythian-Adams said. “After all, given its size, it may well have been a steam room. They used to sit about naked and enjoy each other’s company.”
Tess looked over at her companion. Miss Pythian-Adams was wearing five or six layers of clothing, including a bonnet to keep the slightest bit of sun from her face, gloves, kid boots…She was the picture of a proper English lady, and yet here she was, talking of mating sparrows and naked Romans.
“Are all English ladies like you?” Tess asked.
“Have I shocked you? I do apologize.”
“Not at all,” Tess said. She felt like sighing. Lord Maitland’s betrothed was so very appealing, with her copper-colored curls and intense curiosity. Poor Imogen.
“So is your sister quite desperately in love with Lord Maitland?” Miss Pythian-Adams said, out of the blue.
“I beg your pardon?” Tess was so shocked that she positively gaped at her companion.
“I was merely wondering if Miss Imogen is quite desperately in love with Draven,” she repeated.
“That is most improbable,” Tess said, with as much dignity as she could gather.
“I am in agreement,” Miss Pythian-Adams said, nodding. “And yet it would be premature to judge merely from the nature of Draven’s character that no one could ever fall in love with him. They do say that there is someone for everyone.”
Tess’s mouth fell open once more, and she shut it quickly.
“Haven’t you heard the same, Miss Essex?”
“I agree that one cannot disregard the possibility,” Tess said cautiously. It was shocking to discover that she would quite like Miss Pythian-Adams in normal circumstances although naturally she couldn’t do so.
Miss Pythian-Adams glanced up at the oiled blue sky, then walked closer to Tess. “If you will forgive my inquisitiveness, would it be overly optimistic on my part to nurture the hope that your sister might relieve me of my future spouse?”
Tess bit her lip. “Am I to suppose that you…”
“I would find it a consummation devoutly to be wished,” Miss Pythian-Adams said briskly. “Hamlet, Act Four.”
“Oh dear,” Tess said.
Up close, Miss Pythian-Adams was even more beautiful than Tess had thought. But her eyes were verging on desperate. “You see, Miss Essex, I have done my best to repel my fiancé. I have learned reams of Shakespeare by heart and recited it to Lord Maitland ad infinitum: I insisted that he listen to me recite the whole of Shakespeare’s Henry VIII—”