by Nina Clare
Lord Marbury wrenched the gate open. He would get his own horse and find that irresponsible cousin of his and demand to know why that unruly beast was still flying about his lands. But the rhythmic sound of hooves made him draw back; Neville was returning. But, no – Neville was not returning. Only the horse was trotting down the bridlepath, carrying an empty saddle.
‘The earl’s been thrown,’ said the young woman in alarm. ‘We must find him, and catch that horse.’
Lord Marbury was even more alarmed, but the young woman had shot out before him. ‘Stay away from that horse, miss!’ he shouted, but she took no notice. She marched straight at the creature, which began cavorting about in the lane, rearing up and whinnying like a trumpeter, as though putting on a performance.
‘Enough of that,’ called the girl, standing with hands on hips, glaring at the great horse. ‘Calm down, this instant. Your tantrums don’t impress me.’
To Lord Marbury’s amazement the horse did calm down, and cease its gavotting. It gave one last snort of protest, then stood meekly, letting the girl take hold of its bridle. She lowered her voice to a murmur, and it snorted softly back at her.
A dishevelled figure came lurching along the lane. Lord Marbury almost forgot his duplicitous identity and half called out Neville’s name before he caught himself.
‘Thank goodness you’re in one piece!’ he cried, rushing out to assist his staggering cousin. ‘Is anything broken?’
‘Just my pride,’ laughed Neville, his face streaked with mud and grazes. ‘Think I lost a few buttons,’ he added, looking down at his riding coat.
‘Why, you blazing idiot!’ Anger replaced Lord Marbury’s concern. ‘You could have landed head first in a ditch! You could have trampled someone down! Why is that beast still here?’
But Neville was not listening. He was staring at the young woman stroking his horse’s muzzle as though it were some tame little pony. The afternoon sun had slipped down low enough to cast the light directly behind her; her headscarf had slipped back and her hair was lit up in a halo of red-gold.
‘It’s an angel,’ breathed Neville, his eyes aglow in his mud-spattered face.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Lord Marbury, but he could not take his eyes off her either. Her chiding of the horse had turned to a tender conversation, and her expression was soft, her profile illuminated by the golden light upon her.
‘She looks like a Diana,’ said Lord Marbury.
‘I’m in love,’ sighed Neville.
So am I, thought Lord Marbury with a sinking feeling.
11
‘Where have you been?’ Agnes demanded. Celia stamped the mud from her clogs at the kitchen back door. ‘Robin ran on about black horses and rocks and a thrown man and all manner of nonsense. I can’t get nothing sensible out of him when he’s excited.’
‘I was settling a runaway horse in at the stables at Highmott,’ said Celia. ‘That’s all.’
‘What’s this about a thrown man?’
‘The earl was thrown from his horse.’
There was a little scream from the doorway and Lavinia stood looking horrified. ‘Thrown?’ she cried.
‘He’s fine,’ said Celia. ‘Any stew left, Agnes? I am famished.’
‘So you finally met him?’ said Agnes, moving to the range to ladle up a bowl. ‘About time.’
‘I suppose so,’ said Celia, unwinding the rags from her palms and plunging her sore hands and dirty fingers into a ewer of washing water.
‘What did you say?’ said Lavinia, coming into the kitchen. ‘You did not tell him you were family, did you?’
‘And what is she if she isn’t family?’ demanded Agnes, brandishing her ladle in Lavinia’s direction.
‘I did not mean that she was not,’ said Lavinia, stepping back. ‘I only meant that Mama told me I was not to mention Celia until I had secured the earl.’ She made an apologetic shrug.
Agnes resumed stirring the stew, but muttered something that Celia suspected was very rude.
‘It was not a formal introduction,’ said Celia, drying her hands and taking a seat at the kitchen table. ‘He does not even know my name. Probably thinks I’m a hired hand.’ She thought of the earl with his muddy, grazed face and his buttonless coat and crumpled hat and smiled wryly to herself. Lavinia was worried that Celia would disgrace the family by her shabby appearance, but the great earl himself had looked no smarter than a farmhand after his tumble.
‘You should put him straight,’ said Agnes stirring the stew fiercely. ‘Hired hand, indeed.’
‘I do not care who he thinks I am,’ said Celia, tearing off a hunk of bread from the loaf before her. ‘He is nothing to me. If he had been attentive to his aunt while she was alive I might think better of him. But to turn up after she’s gone, riding roughshod over anyone in his path, living like a lord of the manor when he has done nothing to earn it…’ She took a bite of bread, and didn’t finish her sentence.
‘He lives like a lord of the manor because he is the lord of the manor,’ said Lavinia. ‘How silly you are sometimes, Celia. And you should be more civil about him. Why, you might be somewhat connected to him one day. He might be a step brother-in-law, or something. But you are quite sure he was not hurt?’
‘No, but he deserves to be, if he insists on galloping about on a horse he cannot control.’
‘How can you say such things,’ said Lavinia. ‘He does not deserve anything bad to happen to him. And he is a very good rider, I have seen him riding by. He rides divinely. I never saw a man look so well in a riding coat.’
Celia did not trouble herself to answer; the stew was ready, and hours of rock clearing and clod breaking had given her an appetite. If only the bowl wasn’t so small – she could eat four of them!
‘Hurry up with your dinner,’ Lavinia said in parting. ‘We must work on my costume. There are only eight days until the ball!’
‘Morning, my lord,’ said Morris as the curtains were swished aside. ‘Is my lord riding out this morning?’
Marbury could tell by his valet’s frosty voice that he was still in disgrace for ruining a new shirt and scuffing the knees on his buckskin breeches.
When he had changed for dinner last night, Morris had held up the breeches, examining the earth stains on the knees. ‘One would think, my lord, you had been on your knees in the dirt,’ he had said with an appalled expression. And when he saw the dirt under his master’s carefully manicured nails he’d gasped. Dirty nails bordered on the unforgivable.
Marbury sat up and broke open the seal on the envelope marked Monday 17th December.
‘I will be riding out,’ he informed Morris. ‘I have a visit to the village charity school to make, so nothing too formal.’
Morris only nodded; his lips still pursed in disapproval.
‘I promise to keep my hands out of any mud today,’ Lord Marbury said, by way of contrition, trying to make a joke of it.
‘I will lay out thick leather breeches and gloves, sir,’ was the tart reply.
Neville sulked all the way to the village. Lord Marbury had forbidden him to ride the Beast.
‘I don’t know what madness seized you,’ he scolded Neville. ‘To bring that creature back.’
‘He gave me a look,’ said Neville moodily.
‘Who? The ostler?’
‘No, the horse. He gave me a look when we got to the inn. He went all doe-eyed on me, nuzzling and puffing at me. He didn’t want me to leave him. So… I bought him.’
‘And you call me a romantic fool.’
‘We’ve got a bond,’ argued Neville. ‘You wait and see. Once I get him trained up, he’ll be an absolute dream to ride. You have to admit he’s a magnificent creature.’
‘If he is so magnificent, why did he throw you?’
‘He’s just high spirited. Has an odd sense of humour. He’ll settle in.’
‘Well, I’m not letting you take him anywhere near a school full of children.’
‘He likes children,’ said
Neville sulkily. ‘Likes women too. He adored that heavenly red-haired creature. You saw how he was.’
Lord Marbury did not reply; he was suddenly seeing all over again the image of the great, black horse and the beautiful maiden with hair like a setting sun holding the bridle. An overhanging branch knocked his hat off, jolting him out of his reverie and making him shout out as he watched his hat roll dangerously close to the village pond. Neville’s infectious laughter rang out, he was never one to sulk for long.
The schoolmaster and his schoolmistress wife were delighted to show the new earl around the charity school. The twelve students of varied ages bowed and curtsied to him, each reciting a poem or proverb or a series of historical facts; one little girl of about eight or nine sang a little song made up of garbled words, which the beaming schoolmistress claimed was Italian.
Neville, in the guise of Lord Marbury, regaled the students with stories of his schoolboy days, and had to be interrupted by Lord Marbury when the stories grew a tad outrageous. He didn’t want the little girls shocked and the boys to gain new ideas of how to outwit their masters and classmates.
‘It is such a blessing to have an attentive patron,’ the headmaster’s wife said, pressing tea on them while the children took their lunch break outside. ‘Lady Marbury was sadly indisposed in her lifetime, but to have a young and active patron will be wonderful. Dear Miss Asher comes every week to teach the youngest children their letters, she is so very kind, and the children love her dearly, but no one else helps us, and most of our students are from families too poor to pay us any fee.’
Lord Marbury thought of the red-haired young woman teaching the young hulk his letters the previous day and smiled, his attention drifting pleasantly away until he was roused by an elbow in his arm.
‘Mrs Dilly asked you a question,’ Neville prompted.
‘Sorry, Mrs Dilly,’ said Lord Marbury, blinking away his daydream.
‘I was enquiring, Mr Neville, if you were staying for Christmas at Highmott?’
‘I have that pleasure, Mrs Dilly,’ said Lord Marbury.
‘How jolly you will all be! For I hear the famous Christmas Eve ball is to be revived this year, is it true, my lord?’ Mrs Dilly turned back her attention to Neville.
‘It is true, Mrs Dilly.’
‘And might I ask, my lord,’ Mrs Dilly looked embarrassed and lowered her voice, ‘if you would sponsor the children’s Christmas dinner this year? Usually Lady Marbury was so generous as to send a goose.’
‘Goose? Yes, indeed. I should be pleased to send a goose.’
‘Thank you, my lord!’ Mrs Dilly beamed and refilled their teacups. ‘The children will be delighted. For many of them it is the only time they enjoy a hot roast dinner.’
‘Is it?’ said Lord Marbury. ‘I am sorry to hear that.’
‘Cottager children,’ said Mrs Dilly. ‘Dreadfully poor.’
‘Why are they so poor?’ Lord Marbury asked. ‘Are the parents unable to earn a wage?’
‘They do their best. But it is not easy to find steady work locally. And they are too poor to own a mount to travel into town for work. But Mr Dilly does his best to educate the boys. If they can read and write and behave like little gentlemen, they stand a better chance of finding an apprenticeship, and commanding steady work and decent pay. And all my girls leave here as excellent seamstresses. A girl can always earn a little money if she can sew a neat seam.’
The gentlemen smiled politely and sipped their tea.
‘Oh, it is such a pleasure to have you among us, Lord Marbury. How the village needs you. You must stay for the afternoon lesson, Miss Asher will be along to help, she always comes on a Monday after luncheon.’
‘Ah, my apologies, Mrs Dilly, but we have pressing business this afternoon,’ said Lord Marbury, reaching for his hat and crop in his haste to be gone before Miss Asher appeared. Then he recalled that he was not Lord Marbury. ‘That is, my lord, I believe I am right in saying that you have pressing business this afternoon?’
‘Quite right, Neville, my good fellow, we must be away.’ Neville stood and took up his own hat and crop.
Mrs Dilly was taken aback by so abrupt a termination of the tea, but the promise of a plum pudding as well as a Christmas goose restored the cheery smile to her face as she and Mr Dilly and the children waved them off.
Celia stood surveying the little patch of cleared ground with a lurch between satisfaction and despair. She was glad she had got the cabbage charm in the ground before the heavy frosts came, but depressed at the dismally small area she and Robin had cleared. But it could not be helped. They had done the best they could without help in the form of field hands or horse and plough. She would enlarge the area in the spring when the ground grew softer and warmer again.
She peered up at the sky, discerning that the sun was nearly overhead. She always visited the charity school in the village on Monday afternoons. She would have a bite to eat and clean herself up before she went.
The kitchen smelled pleasantly of apples and something else. Celia stood sniffing the air. ‘Is that—?’
‘Gingerbread!’ crowed Robin, pointing at a steaming rack of freshly baked biscuits. ‘An’ baked apples!’ he gloated. ‘An’ look!’ Robin pointed at a great joint of ham.
Celia looked in amazement at the meat and the gingerbread and the baked apples. ‘Where did this come from?’
‘A pair of footmen from Highmott brought it,’ said Agnes, her cheeks red as apples from her baking.
‘But…why?’ said Celia. ‘Why did he send all this?’
Agnes shrugged. ‘I don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. The earl really must be sweet on Miss Lavinia. I thought you’d like to take some apples and biscuits for the school. I’ve hid some, so the mistress don’t complain.’
‘Gran saved me one,’ said Robin, his broad face grinning with the pleasure of a baked apple. ‘And one for you!’
‘Cinnamon apple.’ Celia sighed with pleasure. ‘I have dreams about your cinnamon apples, Agnes.’
Celia’s apple was only just eaten when a rap at the front door echoed down the hall. Agnes, who could only walk slowly with her rheumatic hip ambled down the hall to open it. ‘I expect it’s the earl come to call,’ said Celia to Robin. ‘What an attentive neighbour he’s turning out to be.’ She pulled a face. But it was not the earl’s voice she heard at the door. She ran lightly to the doorway to listen. ‘Oh, no,’ she muttered, darting back to the kitchen table to snatch up the basket of baked apples and biscuits in one hand, and clap her bonnet on her head with the other.
‘Is it the black horse man?’ asked Robin.
‘No, it’s one of those lawyer fellows from town. No doubt come with another pressing offer from Mr Dankhurst. Well, I am not hanging around to hear what he has got to say. I’ve never met a lawyer yet in this house that had something good to say. Tell Agnes I have gone to the school.’ And she ran out the back door, cursing her ill-fitting clogs that hampered a speedy escape.
Lady Asher ushered the wiry man with his tawny waxed whiskers and lawyer’s periwig into the drawing room. ‘Please state your business, Mr Foxley.’
‘I have an object entrusted to the offices of Foxley, Finch and Fotheringhay to deliver to Miss Asher, ma’am,’ said the lawyer with a bow.
‘An object?’ Lady Asher eyed Mr Foxley’s bag with curiosity.
‘What is it?’ said Lavinia, from the couch where she had been pretending to embroider a dainty handkerchief, in the mistaken belief that it was the earl who was calling. She tossed the embroidery hoop aside.
Mr Foxley rested his bag on a side table and pulled out a good sized package, carefully tied up with narrow ribbon.
‘I have the express direction of delivering it on this day to one Miss Asher of Roseleat.’
‘I am Miss Asher,’ said Lavinia, coming to stand by her mother and looking curiously at the parcel.
Mr Foxley checked his directions on his missive. ‘The elder Miss Asher?’ he queried.
Lavinia hesitated.
‘The elder Miss Asher,’ said Lady Asher firmly.
Mr Foxley bowed, laid the package ceremoniously on the side table and departed.
‘Oh, Mama! What do you think it is? Who do you think it is from?’
Lady Asher put her head round the door to check that neither Agnes nor Celia had overheard anything. Then she shut the door and hurried back to her daughter. ‘Open it, Lavinia.’
‘Oh! Oh!’ cried Lavinia, untying the package to reveal a carefully folded gown. ‘Oh! Oh!’ she gasped, taking up the gown and letting it unfold to the floor. ‘Oh! Such a beautiful gown! But what a strange style! And why has it been sent to me?’
Lady Asher picked up an envelope enclosed with the gown, broke the seal and read silently.
My dear Celia, I thought you might like to go as Princess Flora of the North. Enjoy yourself. Fondest wishes, Lady M.
‘Oh, there are shoes!’ cried Lavinia, pouncing on a pair of dancing slippers.
‘It is the costume of Princess Flora,’ said her mother.
‘But who is Princess Flora?’
‘I think she is some fictitious character,’ said Lady Asher. ‘Some Celtic princess if I recall.’ She touched the soft mossy green velvet, considering that such a shade would look exquisite on Celia, drawing out the green of her eyes. The old countess had chosen well.
‘What a pity it is green,’ said Lavinia. ‘Of all colours, green is the one that suits me the least. But who is it from? What does the note say?’
‘It is not signed,’ lied Lady Asher. ‘But who would send you a costume for a masque ball if not Lord Marbury?’
‘Do you think so? Oh, Mama, how generous he is! If only he had chosen another colour, but I am of a mind to forgive him anything!’
12
Lord Marbury reached for the daily envelope. He hoped it did not include escorting Miss Asher anywhere, and was relieved to find that the day’s directions were merely to travel into the local town to a certain tailor’s shop. He suspected it was something to do with the masque ball next week. He hoped his eccentric aunt hadn’t arranged for some ridiculous outfit for him. There was nothing in the lawyer’s contract that said he had to look like an idiot while proposing marriage. He had enough trouble keeping Morris in check with regards to overdressing.