The Wild Child

by Mary Jo Putney

  A flicker of blue fabric appeared near the center of the chessboard. Guessing that none of the aging gardeners would wear such a color, he was about to descend the hill when he glimpsed a horse and rider jumping a hedge from the corner of his eye.

  He turned for a closer look, and was startled to see that the leaping horse and rider were topiary, shaped of the same dark green yew as the hedge they were hurdling. In fact, there was a whole life-sized topiary hunt consisting of three riders and a small pack of hounds strung out across the grass as they dashed after a fleet, high-tailed fox.

  Enchanted, he went to examine the nearest yew hound. It seemed to soar over the grass, front and back legs stretched out in a run. He’d never seen anything like it, for usually topiary was confined to geometric shapes like spirals and cubes and pyramids.

  Inside the dense green leaves, he found a wicker form bent to the rough shape of a dog. Refinement was supplied by the careful trimming of the bush that had been trained around the armature. It must have taken years—decades—to achieve such perfection.

  The hound had just been trimmed—clippings lay around it on the grass. He scooped them up and tossed them into a sack, then went in search of Lady Meriel, stopping long enough to collect the trimmings from the green fox.

  The fox was heading straight into the collection of topiary chess pieces that had been “removed” from the game. He supposed it made sense, if one was a topiary fox.

  As he neared the chessboard, he realized how large the pieces were. Even the pawns loomed over his head. The knights were shorter but magnificent, with broad horse heads and a suggestion of hooded eyes. There couldn’t be finer topiary anywhere in Britain.

  Some of the pieces were trimmed as sharply as marble, while others looked rather shaggy. Maintaining the shapes must take an immense amount of effort, especially during the spring growth season.

  He was admiring the crenellated top of a rook when he heard a soft, lyrical sound coming from somewhere nearby. Not birdsong; perhaps it was some kind of musical instrument. One that sounded almost like a human voice.

  Intrigued, he followed the music, moving quietly on the velvety grass. Then he emerged from between two pawns, and stopped dead in his tracks.

  Lady Meriel was singing.

  She stood with her back to him two squares away, trimming the white queen with a pair of clippers. Her slim form was clothed in a blue tunic and skirt much like what she’d worn the day before, but he scarcely noticed. She was singing!

  He thought back and realized that no one had ever said she was mute, just that she didn’t talk, which was not the same thing. Her voice was smooth and light, clearly used regularly, even if only to serenade shrubs. The tune had a wistful minor-key quality that made him think of a harpist he’d heard in Ireland. But she uttered no words, only that haunting ribbon of sound.

  Deciding it was time to announce himself, he stepped forward. “Good morning, Meriel. I’ve come to help.”

  She used her shears to snip off a branchlet with lethal precision but didn’t turn. Nonetheless, she knew he was there. He could tell by the subtle tensing of her shoulders. Less aloof, Roxana left her spot in the queen’s shadow and loped over to get her head scratched before flopping again.

  Meriel had trimmed several of the chess pieces in the area, so he gathered the clippings and bagged them as her song wove around him. Then he turned his attention to her again. He was amused to see that the queen’s head was shaggy because Meriel couldn’t reach high enough to trim it. Here was a way to make himself useful.

  Several tools were piled by the black bishop, so he lifted a pair of long-handled pruning shears and moved to the far side of the white queen from Meriel. By stretching, he was just able to reach the tip and clip off a ragged sprout of box.

  The singing stopped abruptly and Meriel whipped around the shrub, clippers held like a weapon. Her gaze shot to the top of the topiary queen.

  “I’ve done no damage,” he said mildly. “Even a useless gentleman can do this kind of work when the topiary shapes are so well defined.”

  Her gaze flicked over him so quickly that once again she managed to avoid meeting his eyes, but she seemed satisfied. Returning to her side of the shrub, she continued her trimming with sharp snaps of her clippers. No more singing, to his regret.

  Since the day was warm and his coat made it hard to raise his arms over his head, he stripped off the garment and tossed it aside before resuming work. He took great pains with the top of the queen, sure there would be hell to pay with Lady Meriel if he damaged such an important piece.

  He was so intent on doing the job right that he almost stumbled over Meriel as he worked his way around the shrub. Off balance with the effort of not stepping on her bare feet, he lurched and instinctively caught her elbow to steady himself. Everything seemed to stop—his movements, hers, the lazy breeze.

  Everything but his heart, which suddenly accelerated.

  He looked down at the crown of her head, where flaxen hair pulled back into the heavy braid that fell past her waist. She stood frozen, her gaze on his throat, but he could see a pulse beat in her jaw. A delicate film of perspiration sheened her pearly complexion.

  Lord, she was small, her head barely reaching his chin. Yet not fragile, despite her slight build. There was wiry strength in the arm under his hand, and tension in her slim, elegant frame. What would he see if she raised those demurely downcast eyes—alarm, or anger?

  “You’re not used to being touched, are you?” He made himself release her arm. “Yet marriage involves touching of the most intimate kind. I wonder how you would react to that. With revulsion? Endurance? Or possibly pleasure?”

  He expected her to draw away, perhaps even flee. Instead, she raised her left hand and touched his bare throat. His muscles spasmed under his skin in reaction to the light, almost caressing stroke of her fingers. He felt the faint roughness of calluses on her fingertips, heard their delicate rasp against his whiskers. Her intent exploration sent chills through him as she skimmed his throat and jaw, traced the outline of his ear.

  At least, by God, she was aware of him.

  “You have a voice, Meriel,” he said softly. “Can’t you use it to say yes or no? To speak my name?”

  Abruptly she whirled away and stalked across the board to another chess piece, this time the black bishop. Definitely a stalk, not a walk.

  He supposed that was her way of saying no.

  Her hands shook so much that she cut too deeply, marring the smooth surface of the dark bishop. His fault! In two short days, he had gone from being a creature with no more importance than a sparrow to being fully alive, as real as Kamal. Even the ladies lacked his vividness and texture.

  She made herself pause, slow her breathing, before she resumed clipping the bishop. Renbourne would go soon, for he was too much of the world to linger in so quiet a place. But until then, he would disturb her peace, for he was impossible to ignore.

  At least he was capable of trimming a shrub without damaging it. She glanced across the board. His arms were lifted above his head to shape the top of the pale queen. The white shirt drew taut across his wide shoulders. Their breadth narrowed down sharply to his waist and hips, forming a triangle that pleased the eye. She gazed at him, enjoying his movements, until he finished and started to turn toward her.

  Hastily she bent her head to the bishop again. There was no reason for her face to heat at the knowledge that she found pleasure in watching him. Every day she observed the bees and badgers, birds and butterflies, and the other creatures of Warfield. All life was lovely in its own way. He was simply one more beautiful beast, no different or more important than the others.

  She told herself that…but she could not believe it.

  Chapter 6

  So far the voyage had been blessed with fine weather. Kyle was grateful for that, because Constancia was too frail to endure the bucking and twisting of stormy seas. This morning was calm, with just enough wind to fill the sails and drive t
hem smoothly southward toward Spain.

  He’d brought her outside to the private rear deck, where they could gaze at the following gulls. She reclined on a chaise, eyes closed but a faint smile on her face. Her skin was tanning from the sun, creating an illusion of health. The rich warm tones of her complexion had always been part of her allure.

  “The light is different here,” she murmured. “In England it is cool and blue. Here it is warmer. Full of reds and yellows.”

  She was right, he realized. Strange. He’d always yearned to travel, yet he was oblivious to the sights of this trip. All his concentration was on her.

  In the same lazy tone, she said, “The girl in Shropshire who is to be your wife. What is she like?”

  He’d scarcely thought of Warfield, and what was happening there. He tried to remember his impressions of Lady Meriel. “Small. Colorless.” His mouth twisted without humor. “And very, very rich.”

  Constancia’s eyes opened. “It sounds as if you do not like her.”

  “I scarcely know her. People like me are not supposed to have strong feelings about whom we marry. My life belongs to Wrexham.” He tried to keep the bitterness from his voice, with little success.

  “Nonsense. No one can make you wed against your will. Surely you should have at least some fondness for the girl who will be your wife.” Constancia frowned. “Though I cannot imagine she will not notice when her current suitor becomes someone else at your next meeting. No twins are so identical that a future bride will not see the difference. Are you hoping she will become so angry she will refuse the marriage?”

  “She won’t notice.” He looked away from Constancia, knowing he shouldn’t say more. But the habit of honesty was impossible to break. “The girl isn’t right in the head.”

  Constancia caught her breath, shocked. “Kyle, you are going to marry a fool or a madwoman? Surely you will do nothing so absurd!”

  “Lady Meriel is neither. Merely…lost in her own world. Her uncle hopes that marriage may bring her more into normal life.”

  Constancia made an indescribable Spanish sound of disgust. “Perhaps you are the one who is mad, querido. To send the brother you despise to court a bride who is weak in the head! Madre de Dios, have you no concern for the rest of your life?”

  He stalked to the railing, bracing himself on the polished wood as he stared at the shifting seas. When his father had first broached the subject of Lady Meriel, marriage had seemed endurable because he would always have Constancia. Then her illness had struck, and nothing else mattered.

  Her voice gentling, Constancia asked, “Tell me of your brother, querido. You say he is irresponsible, and you never speak of him. Yet he is blood of your blood, flesh of your flesh. You shared the same womb. Surely he must be important to you.”

  “We probably had our first fight in our mother’s womb,” he said dryly. “The first, but certainly not the last.”

  “You have always been enemies?”

  He watched a gull plunge straight into the sea in pursuit of prey. After a long silence, he said, “No. Sometimes we were friends. Good friends.” He thought of nights curled up in the same bed, sharing stories and laughter. Dominic always knew how to laugh…. His gut twisted at the memories.

  “What went wrong?” Her question was gentle as the sea breeze.

  It was no accident that he’d never mentioned Dominic to Constancia. Even with her, the topic of his brother had been too painful to discuss. But the time for secrets was past. “As children we were always together, running wild at Dornleigh, studying with the same tutor. Sometimes we skirmished, but it was never important. The trouble started when we were sent to two different schools.”

  “That must have been difficult.”

  His hands tightened on the railing. He’d cried his first nights at Eton, until an older boy found out and taunted him in front of his classmates. Dominic had suffered no such problems at Rugby. He came home for the holidays bubbling with stories about his new life. Hurt that he no longer seemed important to his brother, Kyle withdrew into aloof silence, and their closeness suffered the first, fatal crack. “As the years passed, we had less and less in common. He had different friends, different interests.”

  “Was your brother jealous because you were the heir?”

  “That was part of it.” But resentment was too simple an explanation. Their father’s steward had taught both boys what a gentleman needed to know about running an estate. Kyle had endured those lessons because he must. Dominic, damn him, had enjoyed them. He’d pelted the steward and bailiff with questions, learned everything he could about crop rotations and stock breeding. And he had seethed because Dornleigh would go to Kyle, who had no great affinity for the land. “I’ve sometimes thought that we were born to the wrong stations. He should have been the heir, not me. I would have enjoyed the freedom of being a younger son.” He’d never admitted that to anyone.

  “I see.”

  Knowing Constancia, she did see, perhaps more than Kyle did himself. There had been other problems between him and his brother. The tension had increased inexorably until the final rupture, shortly before they turned eighteen. After that, they seldom saw each other, and never again spoke intimately.

  Their estrangement had taken place just before he met Constancia. Strange, how he’d never realized the significance of that. Dominic had left an aching hole in Kyle’s life. What would have become of him if Constancia had not been there to fill the emptiness?

  The sea was a strange place, he decided. It caused odd ideas to blow through a man’s brain.

  Chapter 7

  Dominic and Meriel worked peacefully among the chess pieces until the sun was high in the sky. Then she gathered up her gardening tools in a handled canvas carrier and left without a glance in his direction, Roxana at her heels.

  Abandoning his sacks of clippings to be collected by an undergardener, he grabbed his discarded coat and went in pursuit. As he fell into step beside her, he guessed that she was very aware of his presence, even though her gaze remained resolutely ahead. She had a lovely, delicate profile. In repose, her face looked pensive. A little remote, but not at all mad.

  He took the tool carrier from her hand. She let him have it after an instant of resistance. Clearly she neither expected nor desired help. He said conversationally, “If you sing again, I’ll whistle along with you. I’m quite a good whistler.”

  No response. He began to whistle anyhow, choosing the old ballad “Barbara Allen” because the minor-key tune reminded him of Meriel’s singing. She darted a swift glance at him, turning away before he could catch her gaze. Still, it was a response. Congreve was right—music had charms to soothe a savage breast. Not that Meriel was exactly savage—but neither was she civilized.

  She chose a route he hadn’t seen before, following a narrow gorge with a brook at the bottom. Shaded by tall trees, the path ran along the stream bank between drifts of late spring flowers. He stopped whistling to listen to the sounds of water trickling over stones and into pools. On a hot day, this little glen would be a perfect retreat.

  “A lovely place,” he remarked. “Too perfect to be quite natural. The original gorge was carefully improved, I presume? You are mistress of the most remarkable gardens I’ve ever seen, Lady Meriel. This estate should have been called the Elysian Fields. That’s the abode of the blessed dead in Greek mythology. Did anyone ever read Greek myths to you when you were a child? The Greeks were a quarrelsome lot, but they left us wonderful stories.”

  He had a brief flash of memory: he and Kyle acting out the Trojan War, when they were seven or eight. His brother was noble Ajax, while Dominic chose to be wily Odysseus. They’d been too young to recognize how characteristic their choices were.

  Shaking off the image, he continued, “Shall I read to you in the evening, Meriel? I would enjoy that.” He liked the idea of bathing her in the great tales of classical literature. Perhaps such a flow of words would make a connection in her mind that would help bring her back to t
he world.

  He glanced again at that impassive, perfectly carved profile. Perhaps not; maybe the damage done to her as a child could never be repaired. It was so damned unfair.

  No longer in the mood for a one-sided conversation, he fell silent until they reached the garden sheds. She went straight for the glass house. Inside, Kamal was tending to the pineapple plants. All the best houses grew pineapples to impress guests; Dornleigh had devoted half a glass house to their cultivation.

  Kamal glanced up casually at their entrance, his brows rising a little at the sight of Dominic. He had probably assumed that a pampered aristocrat wouldn’t last long trimming shrubs. Inclining his head respectfully, he said to Meriel, “You should eat something before going off again, milady.”

  As Meriel gazed at him expectantly, the Indian moved down the aisle until he found a pineapple that pleased him. Then he pulled a glittering dagger from a sheath mostly concealed by the sash at his waist and harvested the pineapple from its spiky growth. After trimming off the bristly brown skin, he laid the fruit on a clean cutting board. A dozen wicked slashes of the dagger sliced the pineapple from its tough core into eating wedges. As he watched the expert knife work, Dominic made a mental note never to provoke Kamal’s temper.

  With a courtly bow, the Indian offered the board of sliced fruit, juice oozing over the edges. “My lady. My lord.”

  Meriel took a wedge and bit neatly into the golden flesh with small white teeth. Dominic took a piece also, but paused before eating. “Will you join us, Kamal?” When the Indian hesitated, Dominic added, “Our Bible says that the oxen who tread out the grain should not be prevented from tasting the products of their labor. Surely that is even more true for a master gardener who grows such beautiful fruit.”

  “You are gracious, my lord.” Kamal set the board on the adjacent workbench and took a slice of pineapple. Though his words were flawlessly polite, there might have been an edge of irony in his tone. The Indian didn’t seem like a man whose thoughts would ever be simple ones.