A Gentleman’s Game by Theresa Romain

the exception of present company and my sister Hannah. And he was never the sort to send long, newsy letters home.”
    “Could anything be stored in the attics here?” She might almost be pushing too hard. But she trusted the son not to tell the father, Your secretary was acting odd earlier. What sort of information could she need from 1805 ?
    Nathaniel paced back to the table, then pulled the stopper from the brandy decanter. “I doubt it. There’s nothing in the attics that Sir William might need again. He was reluctant even to have attic space constructed. He doesn’t like the idea of a part of the house he cannot reach.” He held the crystal stopper to his nose and breathed deeply, shutting his eyes.
    “Half an inch, no more,” Rosalind murmured.
    “No more,” he echoed, replacing the stopper. “If it helps, 1805 is the year he was granted his baronetcy. Though it’s not the exciting sort that came with new lands and estates and tenants. It’s merely a title.”
    Merely , he said, as though a hereditary title were of little importance. “How did he gain it? Some sort of military service?”
    He nodded. “Horses. Supplying cavalry horses for the Light Dragoons. He used his connections across Wales and Scotland and Ireland to find horses that were sturdy and healthy and quick.”
    Wales . Rosalind’s thoughts went fuzzy all of a sudden. When she jolted back to the present, Nathaniel was still explaining, “—worth quite a bit to know one’s horses were going to travel calmly across the Channel and recover their land legs quickly. Sir William—not that he was quite Sir William yet—traveled with many of them. Then he went to Spain.”
    “Spain.” Rosalind blinked.
    “You are surprised?”
    “No, no. Only curious. For me, Spain is a place in books, not a place I might ever go.” Surely it was a place with days and nights like any other. But in her imagination, it was drenched in sun, a sun so warm and lasting that one need never light a lamp or drop it or go up in flame.
    “Why was your father in Spain?” she wondered. “He cannot have been a soldier himself.”
    “Lord, I don’t know. He was always traveling somewhere or other, even before our mother died. He was in Cádiz for months, blockaded when sea battles were going on. That’s where he contracted the palsy that paralyzed his legs, but I don’t know much else about it.” His hand strayed to the decanter again, fingers trailing down its crystalline side. “It wasn’t the best year for this family. I was a scruffy, resentful youth, left behind with a tutor I never obeyed and no parents.”
    “And your brother and sisters?”
    “And them. But somehow we never had much to say to one another. Not then.”
    Another possible path to the information blocked. She sat back in her chair, brows knit tight with strain. “How can I get what I need?”
    He looked over his shoulder at her, his expression all roguery. “Well, Rosalind Agate, that depends on what you need.”
    Her lips parted, but no ready retort fell from them. Though he doubtless meant the statement lightly, it was much more than that to Rosalind.
    What did one need? Food, drink, shelter, safety. She had the first three; she wanted the latter.
    No, she wanted more than that. She wanted the right to beam back when a man like Nathaniel Chandler grinned at her. To take his compliments, to allow something deeper than flippant flirtation.
    To allow herself a touch of excitement at traveling to Epsom, a road that would lead her through London and might permit a visit to her family.
    And for now, she wanted him to keep smiling at her, just like that, and for the smile to stay as he learned more of her. To stay and never to fall, until the expression became as familiar to her as the shape of her own scars.
    But she couldn’t admit that to him. She could hardly bear to admit it to herself.
    “I need to carry out my work,” she replied at last. “That is all.”
    Nathaniel picked up a