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Updated: October 27, 2025
"Ask on, good Master Cuthbert," was the ready reply; "I will answer to the best of my humble ability." "I have heard of this Lord Culverhouse from many beneath this roof since I have been here. I would fain know who he is." "That is easy told. He is the eldest son of mine uncle, my mother's brother, the fourth Earl of Andover.
The last of the scattered hamlets had been passed. The sun glowed red before them in an angry, lowering sky. Sir Richard and his son and Lord Culverhouse paused on the brow of the ridge to look both before and behind. They had in their impatience outridden their servants, who, less well mounted, found some difficulty in spurring along the deep mire of the ill-made roads.
She felt certain, since all was known, that Culverhouse would come forward and stand boldly beside her and lay claim to her hand before the world as he had talked of doing when he had led her to the troth plight on that May Day that seemed so long ago now. Even the thought of the journey and the visit to her father's great aunts was not altogether distasteful.
Culverhouse laughed and shrugged his shoulders. "I say not that, for they tell us it will be many years ere we can hope to be wed again in due form; and waiting is weary work." "And why should you wait?" Culverhouse laughed again. "That is soon answered. My father has always told me that I must wed a lady of wealth if I am to wed young. Our estates are encumbered.
Culverhouse and Philip both saw the soundness and reasonableness of this counsel, and knew that their respective fathers would both concur in this opinion, though their own impatience chafed at the delay. "And thou what wilt thou do thyself, Cuthbert?" asked Philip; "come with us to Cross Way House?" Cuthbert hesitated a few moments, debating within himself what were best.
It had been with equal satisfaction that he had married his eldest daughter Cecilia to Sir Robert Fortescue, and had allowed Lord Culverhouse openly to proclaim his betrothal with Kate. For strange things had been happening in the world of London since the discovery of that abortive Gunpowder Treason; and, in the first panic, the name of Trevlyn had freely been whispered abroad.
"If only I could be sure it was not wrong!" she faltered. "Wrong to plight thy hand, when thy heart is long since given?" he asked, with tender playfulness. "Where can the wrong be there?" "I know not. I would fain be altogether thine. But what would my father and mother say?" It was plain already that she was yielding. Culverhouse drew her tenderly towards him.
He was certain that no whisper of the plot had reached their ears. "Ay, do so, and come and tell us all," said Culverhouse gaily. "I had thought to be there myself, but I must to my Kate's side. "Philip, thy father will be something loath to leave London ere that day. Thinkest thou that thou canst persuade him?"
I travel alone and on foot, and for the nonce am no more Lord Culverhouse, but only Rupert de Grey thy trusty comrade Rupert and a would-be follower of bold Robin Hood, did he but hold his court with his merry, merry men in the free forest now. See, I wear his livery. I feel as free as air. I marvel I never thought of such a masquerade before.
The doors were then thrown open; lights streamed forth into the darkness. Sir Richard Trevlyn rose to his feet, passing his hand across his brow, to find his son passionately embracing the dark-eyed Petronella, who clung to him, fairly sobbing in her excitement and wonder; whilst Kate knelt beside the prostrate figure of Culverhouse, who lay with closed eyes almost like one dead.
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