The Heiress of Epsom by Hedley J Huntt

Author:Hedley J Huntt [Huntt, Hedley J]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: romance, regency, victorian, Historical
Publisher: Hedley J Huntt
Published: 2019-11-14T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 18

LORD ZACHARY THOUGHT GOLF WAS the most boring sport ever, and he questioned why anyone would play it at all. But he warned Jack sternly not to report this dislike of his for the gentleman’s game in public.

They were seated in the living room. Actually, Lord Zachary was seated, Jack was slouching, half his body was off the chair. His eyes half-closed were staring at his father under heavy lids. He had been drinking wine. The bottle lay on the floor like an object on time travel; an incongruous and foreign blue bottle on the burgundy coloured carpet.

“So strange of you to say that, Father.”

“What are you talking about, Jack?”

“I thought money was always the motivation?”

Lord Zachary crushed his pack of Sheffields. It was empty having smoked the last one the night before after dinner.

“You miss the point of doing business, Jack. Money is only the end of the motivation, not the motivation itself.”

Jack Catoghan yawned.

“Tell me what you think of a golf course on the estate?”

“Oh my God!” rang Laura’s voice.

The men turned to look at her. She was fully dressed for outdoors in a blue bodice and a black petticoat. Her hair was weaved intricately in cornrows on her head; it gave her an earthy look. She was even prettier that way.

“A golf course!? Are you surely going to do that?”

Lord Zachary said he was considering the possibility. “But I don’t play the game. You Laura experiment with everything; certainly you played it before, didn’t you?”

Jack smiled at his father’s joke. Laura pretended to take offence. “I will not be caught dead with a club,” she said. Then she added, “Although I would like to try it sometime; if there is a course on the estate that is.”

Lord Zachary fell into deep thought.

“Rupert,” he said.

◊

The ladies filed into a carriage. The day was thirsty with happiness. It was cloudless, sunny and warm. Laura Catoghan said it was a good day for a dip in some river if there was one in the county respectable enough for Ladies. Since there wasn’t any, perhaps it was an opportunity to meet her friends at the Kilbournes’ poolside.

Oliver was a quarter of his way over to Exeter having left earlier that morning. Laura soon lapsed into silence when Caroline’s maid had shown some reluctance to come along.

“Bloody hell as if she has a choice,” she complained.

Lady Heather looked on confused. “What is all that about, Caroline?”

“Its nothing, Mother.”

Vivian sat opposite the ladies as the carriage moved off into the cobblestone streets.

Laura said, “It is Patrick, I know.”

She stared coolly at Vivian. Lady Heather looked from one girl to the other, still at a loss as to what was being talked about. Lady Heather though a woman who ruled her house and mostly her maids with an iron hand, a lot still went on under her nose without her knowing of it.

Laura pouted her lips, “Well, those two fancy each other, Mother. Vivian and Patrick, that is.”

“Now how did that happen?” asked Lady Heather.

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