by Amanda Scott
Tom’s eyes had narrowed, and he moved forward now to kneel beside her, reaching out to take the little girl gently by the shoulders and turn her to face him. “Why do you want Papa, Sara Ann? Why him, especially?” When she did not reply, he went on in the same tone, “It is Freddy, is it not?”
Silence. The little girl was not even breathing.
“I thought so,” Tom said. “What nonsense did he tell you?”
Felicia stared at him. “I ought to have thought of Freddy.”
Tom nodded. “He likes to discover how people will react to what he tells them. What did he say, love?”
It took them a good while, but at last they found out.
“Robbers and murderers hiding in the house,” Tom repeated in disgust. “What a thing to tell her! And making her think it was all because Papa wasn’t here to protect her. By heaven, Aunt Felicia, only give me leave, and I’ll make him sorry. In fact, I mean to go and drag the little scoundrel out of bed right now.”
“No, Tom,” she said hastily. “I am too tired to deal properly with him now. Let him sleep, and I will speak to him in the morning. He must be made to understand that this will not do. Sara Ann,” she added firmly, “London is filled with watchmen who watch out for murderers and robbers, so they cannot get into our house. Also, the doors are locked and we have our own servants to look after us. I have sent Mary to bed, which I see now was a mistake, but tomorrow she can set up a truckle bed here in your room, and tonight Tom may stay with you. Will that do?”
The child agreed with little persuading, and Felicia, having shown Tom where to find quilts to put down for himself, went wearily to her own bedchamber, assured her tirewoman that she still intended to be up at the crack of dawn, and fell into bed.
She could not sleep. Her thoughts were in turmoil, and while they began with her brother and his wife, and her own unspoken indignation that they had so easily shipped their children off to veritable strangers to raise, it was not long before she found herself thinking about Crawley and the resentment she had felt when she realized he had been cultivating her acquaintance for the good it might do him in his pursuit of her sister. Some people simply did not consider other people’s feelings. Jack and Nancy had not, and certainly Crawley had not. Nor had Freddy.
She forced her thoughts to what she would say to the boy in the morning. She would have to speak sternly to him, for he deserved a good scolding, but somehow, she kept imagining herself scolding not a boy but someone taller, dark rather than fair, with powerful shoulders and muscles in his thighs that showed distinctly beneath his well-cut knitted breeches, someone who had the most delightful smile and practically perfect teeth.
Turning over, she muttered imprecations to herself and forced her thoughts back to Freddy, but so unsuccessful was the exercise that, though she slept very little, by morning she still had not the least notion of what she was going to say to him.
Maintaining her customary calm facade before her maidservant was not difficult, for Felicia had had years of experience, but the clatter of curtain rings against the rod, followed by glaring sunlight spilling into the room, nearly caused her to speak sharply when the woman asked what she would wear.
“The russet with the brown ribbons will do, and I shall twist my hair into a knot.” She looked at the little clock on the mantelpiece. “Nearly half past. Is Miss Theo up yet?”
“Yes, miss. Her maid went and shook her awake nigh onto half an hour ago, knowing how long it would take to stir her out. She’s already had her chocolate and her toast, so she’ll do. I let you sleep a bit longer, because I knew you ain’t one to dawdle over yours. There it be, on the table yonder.”
“Thank you,” Felicia said, scrambling into the dress that was being held out for her and turning to let the woman do up the fastenings. “I should like you to waken Master Freddy, if you please, and tell him to come here. I can do my own hair.”
“Lawks, miss, that limb o’ Satan’s been up this hour and more. Out into the garden to play with that pesky mongrel what’s taken up residence in the areaway, and like as not around to the mews to pester the stable boy. He’s a lad as likes the horses near as much as you do yourself.”
“Oh, dear. I must speak to him, and I have little time before Sir Richard arrives. Go and ask Mrs. Heath if everything is ready in the northeast parlor for Miss Theo’s sitting.”
“Yes, miss. I’ll see to that, right enough.”
Hurrying with her hair, Felicia drank a few sips of her chocolate and went downstairs. On the gallery landing, she paused, noting that the door into her father’s bookroom, opposite the drawing room, stood ajar. It was not like the servants to forget to close it, since that was the sort of thing guaranteed to send Lord Adlam into one of his rare fits of temper, and it was too early for his lordship to have left his bedchamber.
She saw at a glance that Peters was at his post in the front hall and knew that no one had arrived yet. A noise from the bookroom decided her, and she stepped quickly across the landing to the open door.
Freddy stood near the huge cherrywood desk with his back to her. His head was bent, and she could not see his hands, but his attention was clearly focused upon whatever he held in them.
Felicia stepped into the room. “I want to talk to you, young man, about—” She bit off her words when he turned. He held a pistol in his hand, and for one terrifying moment, the weapon was pointed directly at her.
“Hello, Aunt Felicia,” he said cheerfully. “I found this in Grandpapa’s desk drawer. Why does he keep it there, do you think? My papa keeps all his guns locked in a gun case.”
Distracted by noises of arrival from the hall, but fighting both to concentrate and to keep her voice from betraying her terror, Felicia said, “Then you know you are not to touch a gentleman’s pistol, Freddy. Turn away from me, if you please, and put it down on Grandpapa’s desk at once.”
He eyed her speculatively. “I just wanted to see if it was loaded. Do you think it is?”
His casual attitude was more frightening than if he had been defiant. Felicia swallowed carefully. “Do as I tell you, Freddy. Guns are very dangerous.”
“Are they?” He turned the weapon over in his hands, and for another dreadful instant she saw the opening in the barrel. Then, with a mischievous smile, he said, “I’ll just see if it’s loaded, shall I? I can aim it out the window if it makes you nervous. And then, if it is loaded, it will do no harm.”
To her amazement, he simply turned away from her and began to walk toward one of the tall windows overlooking the garden.
In a few quick steps and without so much as a thought for her own danger, she reached forward to grab his shoulder with one hand, and snatched the pistol away from him with the other.
“Be careful,” he cried. “It’s—”
The gunshot echoed through the house, and Felicia stared down at the pistol she held. A puff of smoke floated near the barrel opening, and at her feet a charred round hole appeared in the carpet. She looked at Freddy and said in a harsh voice she did not recognize as her own, “Go to your bedchamber at once. I dare not trust myself to say the things I wish to say right now, but do not dare to put so much as one toe outside your room until I have given you leave to do so. Do you understand me, Freddy?”
“Yes, Aunt Felicia.” His face was white with shock, and he turned away with none of the bravado he had shown earlier.
Still fighting to keep from shrieking at him in a voice that would have done Sara Ann proud, Felicia could not even look at him, and turned away just as the library door crashed back on its hinges. The next thing she knew, she was caught from behind in a viselike embrace, and the pistol was wrenched from her hand. In the next instant she was jerked around to find herself face-to-face with a furious Crawley.
“Just what the devil do you think you are about?” he demanded. “Nothing can be so dreadful that it warrants taking your own life. Nothing! Do you hear me?” He shook her. “Answer me! What were you thinking? Are you injured?”<
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Since the words made no sense to her, she had a sudden feeling that she was losing her mind before the sight of Freddy, standing wide-eyed just beyond his lordship, steadied her. The boy stood to one side of the doorway where he must have been passed unseen when Crawley burst into the room.
“Unhand me, my lord,” Felicia said quietly. “I am not injured, nor did I intend to fire the pistol.”
“Nonsense,” he snapped. “You cannot expect me to believe such a faradiddle. I know you have been contemplating putting a period to your existence—”
“A period to what?”
“You know perfectly well what I said.”
“But how could you—”
“How could I know? I saw the note you wrote, of course. Do you not recall that you left me alone yesterday while you spoke to your sister? I chanced to see it then. I know I ought not—”
“I wrote no note,” she said, her voice steadier now, though she was no less bewildered. “You are talking nonsense, my lord. I had begun to ask how you could possibly think such a thing of me. I took that pistol from Freddy because he was going to fire it out the window, and it went off in my hand. I daresay it must have one of those hair triggers that men seem to think so desirable, though not, I believe in one’s ordinary pistols, only in duelling pieces. Or have I got that bit backward? I do not know much about guns.”
Freddy said diffidently, “P’raps I ought to have told you right off that it was loaded, Aunt Felicia.”
Crawley had been staring doubtfully at Felicia, but at the sound of Freddy’s voice he whipped around, looked balefully at him, and said in a voice fierce enough to send shivers up Felicia’s spine and make the boy take two steps backward, “Did I hear you admit that you knew that pistol was loaded?”
Freddy nodded.
“Come here.”
Freddy hesitated. Other members of the household had reached the doorway, but Peters responded at once to Felicia’s signal to shut the door, and after the snap of the latch, there was not another sound to be heard.
“Now,” Crawley said.
Reluctantly, Freddy moved toward him. Felicia watched, feeling paralyzed, as if she were not part of the scene but was watching it from a distance. Crawley did not stir, but he seemed to her to grow larger as the boy moved nearer. Not until Freddy stood directly before him did he say in that same awful tone, “Has your father not told you never to play with guns?”
Looking at his feet, Freddy nodded. Another silence fell until he looked up, saw that Crawley was still waiting, and muttered, “Yes, sir.”
“Do you know why you are not to play with them?”
Another nod, followed a moment later by another mutter.
Crawley glanced over his shoulder at Felicia. “Is your father at home, Miss Adlam?”
“He does not come down from his rooms until after noon.”
“Then I’ll save him some trouble,” Crawley said. Going down on one knee, he put Freddy over the other and gave him several smacks hard enough to make him yell. Then, standing him on his feet again, he said grimly, “Don’t let me hear that you have touched another pistol until you have been taught to use one properly, and don’t let me see you again today if you don’t want a second dose of the same excellent medicine I just gave you.”
The boy fled, leaving the door open behind him, and Felicia, having come to her senses, said, “Lord Crawley, I must protest. You were too harsh. That poor child has been wrenched from his family and does not yet know all that is expected of him here.”
“Nonsense, I doubt I was harsh enough. Wrenched or not, that lad knew he had done wrong and deserved every lick. Good God, don’t you realize you might have been killed? It would have saved you the trouble of attending to the matter yourself, which is certainly what I believed to have been your intent. Yesterday I convinced myself that I was imagining things, but then, this morning, to be greeted by a pistol shot as I entered the house—”
“Yes, I can see that that must have distressed you, sir. What I cannot understand is how on earth you came to believe that I ever had any such sinful thought in my head.”
“I read your letter,” he said simply.
“You mentioned a note, but truly, sir, I cannot recall writing any such thing.”
“There was certainly a note,” he said. “I saw it myself. You had written that you could not go on.”
“Very melodramatic, but I assure you I never wrote—” She broke off as a sudden memory refuted what she had been about to say to him, and a gurgle of laughter escaped her lips.
Crawley frowned. “You find humor in such a situation? I’d advise you to have a care, Miss Adlam.”
“You are generous with your advice, sir, but I am persuaded that you, too, will be amused when I tell you. Yesterday when you arrived, I was writing to tell a friend that I could not go on Tuesday to pay calls with her.”
“Not go on ...” He stared at her in disbelief for a long moment, and then his eyes began to twinkle. He chuckled, low in his throat at first, then louder, until he was holding his sides and gasping with laughter.
6
CRAWLEY STOPPED LAUGHING AT last, aware of a deep sense of relief and a lightheadedness that he had not felt in a long time. He saw that Felicia was regarding him in much that same way that she might have looked at someone she suspected had taken leave of his senses, and for the second time he noticed the way the sun glinted on her soft brown hair. He noticed as well that she had a nice, very womanly shape.
Her breasts were still rising and falling rapidly in reaction to what had taken place in the last few minutes. At least he assumed it was reaction to the combination of Freddy’s mischief, being grabbed by himself, and her indignation toward his treatment of the boy afterward. She probably thought him a monster, but he would be damned before he would apologize for smacking the brat. She had nice breasts. He hadn’t really noticed them before, either.
“Lord Crawley.”
Startled, he shifted his gaze back to her face and saw that though her eyes were still twinkling, she looked perplexed. Collecting himself rapidly, he said, “Sorry, my thoughts were diverted. You ought to wear blue, Miss Adlam. The color would suit you much better than that russet does. And you should effect a softer style with your hair. That severe style makes you look a bit governessy, if you don’t mind my saying so.”
The twinkle faded, but she said calmly, “Not at all, sir. It would be the height of bad manners for me to criticize you on your choice of observations, would it not? Particularly since we do not know each other very well.”
Feeling much as he had been accustomed to feel when he had displeased his nurse, nearly a quarter of a century before, he sternly repressed the feeling, summoned up his most charming smile, and said, “Perhaps you ought to sit down. The past few minutes have been a great shock to your sensibilities.”
“Meaning that I would be more amenable to criticism had I not been shocked, I suppose,” she said. “Well, perhaps you are right. I daresay I am a trifle undone by Freddy’s behavior, and yours too, for that matter. I cannot believe that you assumed I would do away with myself only because you misunderstood an unfinished sentence in a note to my aunt. Either you have an extremely overactive imagination or—” She broke off, then said, “Well, that must be it, for I can think of no other reason for leaping to such an excessive conclusion.”
Feeling a strong need to justify himself and an even stronger sense of being drawn to justice, he said reluctantly, “There was a bit more to it than that. I had not meant to tell you this, for it does not redound to my credit, but I find it is worse to allow you to believe me a complete fool. The fact is that I read your letter to your aunt.”
“Yes, we have already established that fact,” she said patiently. “Look here, sir, this conversation is pointless. Indeed, it is well past time that we should be going downstairs.”
“Vyne is setting up his things, and your butler told us that Miss Theo has not yet come down from her bedchamber. Vyne
sent a message up, telling her to make haste, but you will know better than I do how much good that will accomplish.”
“Not much, I’m afraid.”
“Then we have time to talk, and I would like to clear up this misunderstanding, though clarity will do little, I fear, to redeem me in your eyes. Do sit down, please.”
“Very well,” she said, suiting action to words and gesturing to him to do likewise, “but you must be plain, sir.”
He remained standing. “Do you mind if I shut the door? This is not a tale I’d like to hear repeated in the clubs, and all it would take is one servant overhearing me. If you fear for your reputation, of course, I will leave it open.”
She smiled. “You need not concern yourself with my reputation, sir. My servants will not think ill of me for taking ten minutes alone with you in my father’s library. Nor will they talk out of turn, for that matter.”
“Nonsense. You are naive beyond reason if you think any servant worthy of such trust, ma’am.”
“Perhaps you are right,” she admitted, surprising him, for he had begun to think she delighted in contradicting him. “In point of fact, I was thinking as I would about our servants at Bradstoke, but of course, several who serve us here are new, and I know little about them. But do shut the door if you like, and then sit down and explain yourself. I am convinced that although Theo might keep Sir Richard waiting a short time, she will not keep him waiting long. She is no fool, and it has been made clear to us both that he is perfectly capable of going upstairs to fetch her if she tries to play tricks with him.”
He agreed, but he did not want to talk about Vyne or Theo. When he had taken his seat, he said abruptly, “It was not yesterday’s letter to which I referred, but one you wrote sometime ago, advising your aunt of your intent to come to Town.”
Instead of the shock he expected to see, her face registered relief. “That letter! But Aunt never received it. How—”
“The mail coach carrying it was attacked by robbers.”