And of course, if the woman in the library was not somehow related to a peer, baronet, or knight, the entire exercise would have been a waste of time.
Weaver, Lady Catherine . . . Lincolnshire.
Westwood, Hon. Cora . . . Devon.
And then . . .
Then!
White, Hon. Cornelia . . . Nottinghamshire.
The name White was familiar to her. She thought she remembered seeing it on Lady Parkhurst’s guests—but then it was such a common name, she might be imagining it.
“Lady Parkhurst, was there a Mrs. White at the ball last week?”
“Nellie White?” Lady Parkhurst looked up from her cards. “Oh, yes.”
Nellie. Short for Cornelia. She must be the one.
Charlotte tried to rein in her excitement. It might come to nothing, after all.
But all the signs were there. Mrs. Cornelia White had been at Parkhurst Manor. She had the right initial. Did she have dark hair?
“I’m trying to picture her in my mind. Was she the one with the . . .” Charlotte gestured toward her head.
“Dreadful yellow turban?” Lady Parkhurst sighed. “Yes. I have tried to talk the dear thing out of it, but she won’t be moved.”
Drat.
Though Charlotte was encouraged by the indication that the lady preferred bright colors.
“I don’t suppose we could pay her a call,” she said to Delia.
Delia made a face. “Why we would do that?”
“Well . . . we had a brief discussion of books. She mentioned a novel that sounded so interesting, but I’ve forgotten the title. I’d like to ask her.”
“She lives all the way over toward Yorkshire,” Delia said. “Much too far away for a morning call, I’m afraid. Perhaps you could write to her.”
Oh, yes. Charlotte could write to the woman she’d never actually met, inquire after a book that didn’t exist, and ask her to kindly enclose a lock of her hair with the reply. That would be well received.
“No need to write.” Lady Parkhurst turned over a card. “You may ask her at the hunt.”
“The hunt?”
“Father hosts a foxhunt every autumn and invites all the gentlemen from the area,” Delia explained.
“It will take place the morning after next, if the weather clears,” Frances said. “The ladies don’t ride to hounds, of course. We ride up to Robin Hood’s Hill and observe the spectacle.”
Delia shuddered. “The bloody, violent spectacle. I despise hunting.”
“Perhaps you could take your watercolors and paint the countryside,” Charlotte suggested.
“I’ve painted the view from that hill a hundred times, in every light and every season. I’d much rather stay home.”
In any other situation, Charlotte would have gladly stayed home with her. But this could be her only chance to see Mrs. White again.
“What about you, Miss Highwood?” Lady Parkhurst asked. “Will you stay back, too?”
Charlotte gave Delia an apologetic look. “I . . . I think I would like to go. I’ve never seen a hunt before, and I’d love to walk in the footsteps of Robin Hood. Only, I don’t have my own horse.”
“We’ll loan you one,” Frances said. “Do you prefer a gelding, stallion, or mare?”
Oh, dear. Charlotte could count the number of times she’d been horseback riding on one hand. It wasn’t an activity they’d had the money to finance in her youth. Gelding, stallion, mare? She wasn’t even certain she knew the difference.
“Oh,” she said, “whichever horse you think would suit me.”
Frances’s slow, smug smile was rather alarming.
The next morning, Charlotte understood why.
They’d barely set out from the stables when the dappled gray horse beneath her whinnied and danced sideways.
Charlotte tightened her gloved hands on the pommel.
Frances called to her. “Lady isn’t too much for you, I hope?”
“Not at all,” Charlotte called back, trying to sound breezy and confident. “I enjoy a horse with spirit.”
Unfortunately, the particular spirit possessing this mare seemed to be an ill-tempered, malevolent demon fed on soured milk. Charlotte wished she’d thought to bring apples or sugar lumps. Or holy water.
Frances nudged her horse into a canter, and Lady followed suit.
Charlotte felt her teeth rattle and her tailbone bounce. Under her breath, she muttered a curse.
She managed to hang on across several fields and over a narrow bridge. Fortunately, as they neared the prominence, the horses were forced to slow to a walk.
When they reached their picnicking spot atop the hill, Charlotte slid gratefully from the saddle and gave Lady’s neck a loving pat. “Good girl. I’ll save you a sandwich.”
In return, the mare snapped at her, nearly removing two of her fingers.
Perhaps she’d walk home instead.
Charlotte left the sulking mare and turned her attention to the reason she’d come here.
Stealing a close look at Mrs. White and her hair.
“Oh, Nellie,” Lady Parkhurst called. “Would you be a dear and help with arranging the baskets?”
Charlotte watched closely as a lady stepped forward to answer the call.
The good news was, Mrs. White wasn’t wearing a dreadful yellow turban today. However, she was wearing a bonnet. An enormous bonnet that not only covered all of her hair, but shielded most of her face and was secured under her chin with a firmly knotted blue ribbon.
Drat.
In this business of solving mysteries, one encountered the most vexing and mundane obstacles. Thwarted by a bonnet, of all things.
The distant blare of bugles sounded.
“Oh, look! They’re off.”
Charlotte turned to watch, shielding her eyes with her hand.
The hounds appeared first. Scores of them, racing out from the wooded valley in a yapping, churning pack. Then came the men, riding swiftly behind. There were more than a dozen of them, all told—local squires and even some of the more prominent farmers had been invited to join.
She could make a few out even at this distance, however. Sir Vernon’s portly figure and hunter-green coat were distinguishable at the head of the pack.
And then, trailing a polite distance behind his host, came Piers.
He wore a black coat, indistinguishable from those of several other gentlemen, but Charlotte knew him at once. She would have recognized his figure anywhere. He guided his mount over the hedges and stiles with ease. So smooth and powerful, moving as one with his bay gelding.