“He refuses to ask,” she snapped. “He thinks of himself as less of a man, now that he’s lost his arm. He cannot ride to the hunt, and swears that was all that commended himself to me in the first place, the gudgeon, since he has neither title nor money. As if I didn’t have enough money for both of us, or cared only about foolish titles. He says he is not good enough for me.”
“When we both know he’s one of the finest, bravest men anywhere.”
“He will not listen.” She dabbed her eyes with a scrap of lace.
Kerry patted her hand. “It’s hard for a man to swallow his pride. We seem to have such a surfeit of it.”
“Well, it is hard for a female to wait, dwindling into an old maid, seeing all your friends marry and start their nurseries, listening to your parents despair.”
“It would be worse to marry without affection, to live your whole life without love. And you cannot have thought of your pain living so close to him. He’ll eventually marry, have children of his own. You’d see him at church, at parties, and you’d always wonder what might have been.”
She was biting her lip to keep from crying. Kerry handed her his own handkerchief, more practicable for such a damp day. “I’d hate like hell having my wife wishing I were another man.”
“I wouldn’t—”
“If you loved him, you couldn’t help yourself.”
The earl got up and poured a glass of wine for Felicia and another for himself.
She started: “But my father…”
“I’ll say we decided we wouldn’t suit.”
“No, he’ll never allow that. If you ask, I have to accept.”
“I haven’t asked, have I? What could be easier? I’ll tell him I changed my mind, that I decided I really don’t wish for leg shackles at this time. So wearying in the country, don’t you know,” he drawled in a dandy’s affected tones, “away from the tables and the ladies.”
Felicia encouraged him with a watery smile, so he went on: “Why, when I’m finished, he’ll be thrilled to welcome a steady character like our Johnny. No reckless past, no unsavory habits, no worries of him gambling away your inheritance. I’ll even throw in a hint or two about Uncle Nigel returning to live with me.”
“And all those children?”
“Marvelous, ain’t it, what a little scandal can do? Your father will be relieved to see a real hero ride up to your door. Besides, he’s no fool. Getting such a dab hand as steward for free is no mean feat.”
“But will he get him? I mean, this is all very pleasant speculation, but what happens when Johnny does not propose?”
“Oh, he will. First I’ll dismiss him. That should send him either here or back to the gin bottle. If he thinks to head for the decanter, I’ll tell him you are pining away for him, in a veritable decline. If he still doesn’t make the push, I’ll break his arm.”
“My lord! He has only one arm!”
“So it will be an easier task than I thought. I’ll guarantee he shows his handsome phiz at your door, and leave the rest to you. A slightly compromising situation…?” At her gasp he said, “No, I didn’t think so. No matter, those tear-filled blue eyes ought to wring his heart, and that trembling lip you showed me a moment ago. And if you’ll just swear you won’t accept anybody else, but will wither away like the last leaf of autumn, he’ll come ’round.” He smiled at her, teasing, but then grew serious again. “Uh, there isn’t another nobleman waiting in the wings somewhere by any chance, trading taxidermy tips with the marquis or anything? Viscount? Baron? Lowly baronet?”
“No, you were Papa’s last hope for a title, my lord.”
“Thank goodness, or I’d have to break their arms, too.”
Felicia’s lips twitched, her polite mask restored. “But what about you, my lord? You are showing gallant selflessness, but you did ask Papa for permission to pay your addresses. Shall you be very disappointed?”
“Shall I mind being the spurned lover?” Kerry brushed a speck of lint off his sleeve. “Shall I drown my sorrows in the fleshpots of London, preying on your conscience? I understand that half the gentlemen in town have thrown themselves at your feet, so naturally you might worry about my wounded sensibilities. Do not, for I have none. I beg your pardon for being blunt, ma’am, but my heart was not involved, no more than yours. And do not attribute any great nobility to me, my dear, for the sacrifice, though great in light of your abundant charms, is mostly mercenary. That, I am assured you will agree, is an unworthy sentiment.”
“I don’t care what you say, Lord Stanford, I think you have been wondrously noble, a true friend to Johnny and myself. And you must have tender sensibilities whether you admit them or not, else you’d never understand our plight. You’d never place our happiness over your material considerations. Few men would. I think your heart is involved, just elsewhere.”
The earl’s silent study of the tassel on his Hessian boot was confirmation enough.
“You must love her very much.”
“Yes, I’m afraid I do.”
“But you do not offer for her?”
Kerry just shook his head.
“Then I hope everything comes right for you and your lady whatever the impediments, the way you have made things possible for Johnny and me.”
“No, it can never be made right. She is…You might say she is from a different world.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Kerry and the stallion slogged back home through the continuing downpour. Instead of heading straight for the stables and a hot bath, the earl directed Hellraker toward the south edge of the property, where Johnny and the men were working on the drainage ditch despite the rain.
“Pack it in,” Kerry yelled over the raging storm. “The men are all soaked through, and none of you will be any good to me if you all come down with inflammation of the lungs. Besides, this land has been flooded since Englishmen were painting themselves blue. One more storm won’t make a ha’penny’s difference.”
The workers cheered considerably when he told them to go on home, change into dry clothes, and have an afternoon holiday at his expense. He poured a handful of coins into work-roughened hands. “Go warm yourself with Ned’s mulled ale at the pub if you wish. Just be ready to work even harder tomorrow.”
Johnny took a little more convincing to aim in the right direction.
“Don’t let your foolish pride stand in the way, man,” Kerry shouted to be heard. “Pride won’t keep you warm at nights, or sit by your fireside, or give you children.”
“But you want her!” Johnny protested.
“No, I only wanted a rich, well-bred, well-behaved, and beautiful bride. Felicia happened to fill the bill. That doesn’t mean I want her, or need her. Not like you, who need her to be your other half. And she needs you, too. She loves you, man!”
Johnny kept arguing about misalliances and unequal matches until Kerry almost did plant him a facer. “It’s pouring rain, damn you, and I swear mildew is forming inside my boots! Will you listen to yourself going on how you love her too much to ruin her life? Would you be happy with another woman?”
“No, of course not,” Johnny swore, hunched over in his oilskin.
“Then why the hell do you think any less of her love? Would you consign her to a life with a man she hardly knows, bearing his children, barely tolerating his touch? If you love her so much, why don’t you want her happiness above all?”
“She won’t be happy without a title.”
“Gammon, that’s Lady Westcott speaking, not Felicia.” He tried to snap his fingers, but they were too wet to make a sound. “That,” he said anyway, “for Lady Westcott’s ambitions. Her daughter’s wishes should come first. Besides, titles are not as thick on the ground here in the country, and Lady Westcott says she wants Felicia nearby. Dash it, all they have to do is speak to Goldy Flint on your behalf. He’s getting Prinny to hand out knighthoods as if they were ices from Gunther’s.”
“What about the marquis, then?”
“Westcott’
s desperate for a trustworthy estate manager, someone he can leave in charge while he rids the countryside of anything that walks, runs, flies, or crawls. He was relieved, I swear to you, to see the back of me. Felicia is a fine girl, much too good for a ne’er-do-well like me, and he knew it. I’d have made her life a misery, Johnny, without even trying. You’ll try every minute of your life to see to her care and comfort. That’s the way it should be.”
Johnny finally rode off, grinning like a May Day fool instead of a sodden ex-soldier. “Kiss the bride for me,” Kerry shouted after him. “And stay the night if they’ll put you up. The roads were already getting treacherous when I came through.”
* * *
The dowager had left a message with Cobb. She was going into Farley with Goldy to see the printer about wedding invitations. If she was not back that evening, he was not to worry, as Sir Goldy forecast the storm continuing. They might be forced to stay overnight at the inn there.
How nonsensical for them to set out under such conditions, Kerry thought, and how marvelously wicked. He raised his glass of hot spiced wine in salute. “Good for them!”
“Yes, I think it will be,” Lucy agreed. “And I believe Felicia and Johnny will be very well pleased with each other.”
“So that just leaves me and my mountain of mortgages. Any other heiresses I should cultivate? Other than the Prudlow girls, by George. I am not desperate enough for that.”
“Perhaps now is a good time to speak about the second earl?”
“Is it a sad story?”
“Of course it is. How do you think he came to be a ghost otherwise?”
Kerry sipped from his glass. “Then I don’t want to hear it. Not tonight. Tonight is for celebrating.”
Lucinda was as relieved as the earl at his narrow escape from marriage to Felicia, so she did not press the topic. Not tonight.
Tonight, with the sound of the rain against the windows and the fire burning brightly, Lord Stanford taught Lucy how to play chess. He laughed uproariously at her efforts to move the pieces, before shifting the ivory men according to her instructions. Then she bested him at Concentration, for he couldn’t concentrate on matching pairs at all, not when he was studying her instead of the cards.
Lucy was in near white tonight, with just a tinge of blush. Her gown seemed to be made of layer upon layer of some gossamer stuff that shimmered as she moved, showing baby roses strewn here and there. Another rosebud nestled in spun-gold curls clustered around her face, which was thinner now, more finely drawn. And her eyes that were once a siren’s mermaid-green were now spring-soft and gold-flecked, with the innocence of a fawn. She was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen, more beautiful even than the Lucy who’d first appeared to him like a figment of his richest, most sensual imagination. He stared and stared, trying to absorb every facet of her incredible loveliness.
He never knew that, later, Lucy watched him sleep, memorizing him in turn.
* * *
A huge crash woke the earl. That and his.bed shaking beneath him. The roof of the east wing had finally collapsed under the pressure of the incessant wall of water beating down on it. Kerry and Cobb took lanterns, but the passageways were too dangerous to investigate. Who knew when walls might cave in on them or floors give out? There was nothing to be done about it now, at any rate, and they could just as easily assess the damage in the morning, when the rain must eventually stop.
Unable to get back to sleep and already damp from his excursion to the disaster area, Kerry decided to check on the stable. With the head groom half deaf and the old coach driver half dead and the young grooms likely in the village with the workmen, there was no one left to calm the horses made nervous by the crash. The carriage horses were fast asleep, and the pony and mare were placidly chewing their hay, but Hellraker was kicking his stall’s door and pounding against the side walls. The stallion’s upset was not helped by the imbecilic pup’s frenzied barking.
Those two were never going to settle, Kerry decided, so he may as well go check the pigs. He had no idea what he could do if the sows were agitated over the storm, but he saddled Hellraker, donned an oilskin coat, and took up a lantern.
The trails and paths were much worse, if they were passable at all. It was as if every brook and stream in all of Wiltshire were overflowing its banks, right onto the earl’s land. The winter crop was a foot underwater, washed away. The major road was a quagmire, unsafe for man or beast, where it wasn’t swept away altogether or blocked with fallen tree limbs. No one would be coming back from the village this night.
Hellraker cleared every obstacle, of course, and leapt muddy rivers as if they were puddles. But the dog got left behind, barking. “Go on home,” Kerry shouted. “I’m not fishing you out of any more watery graves.” But the dog kept barking and Hellraker balked at the next downed tree, almost sending Kerry flying over his head. “Hell and damnation!” he swore, but went back for the mongrel. He tucked Lucky under the oilskin coat and tightened the belt around him, because he had no free hand, what with the reins and the lantern. “Hang on!” he ordered, and sent the horse forward again.
He could hear the hogs long before he could see them, squealing like banshees even over the storm’s din. Nervous, hell, the sows were frightened out of their wits, and rightfully so. Half their enclosures were underwater, and what dry ground was left was shrinking fast.
The earl was too stunned to curse. His collateral, his future, was about to float away. He didn’t even know if pigs could swim, but he knew this wasn’t the time to find out, not in a raging cyclone of a storm. The water had to be rechanneled away, back to the drainage ditch which, devil take it, was not complete. Or the pigs had to be gotten to higher ground. There was the barn where the fodder was kept, but it was a long, muddy field away. In the dark.
The earl wasn’t a praying man. He didn’t approve of those folks who petitioned the Almighty for help when it served their purposes, and ignored Him otherwise. So “Lucy!” he cried. “Where are you? I need a miracle!”
Miracles were about as common as hen’s teeth that night. Lucy didn’t come, and the situation was not improving for the earl’s sitting there looking at it. He believed, in fact, that the water had visibly risen in the brief time since his arrival. Surely the pigs’ caterwauling was louder as their feet got wetter.
Think, Kerry, think, he told himself. Then he told himself not to waste time on fruitless ventures, just do something. Anything. So he rode for the old barn until even Hellraker had trouble lifting his mighty hooves out of the swamp that used to be a productive field. Kerry got down and walked, pulling the horse along after him. Two lanterns hung by the barn’s sagging door, so he lit both and surveyed his resources after releasing Lucky and tying Hellraker to the crossbeams. Windfall apples, a corn crib, shovels, bales of hay and straw. Everything he needed to keep his investment warm and fed could he but get the wretched beasts there. Then he noticed the unused lumber piled near the far wall.
He didn’t have time to build a raft, by Jupiter, so he’d better build a bridge. Struggling with planks taller than himself, boards that took two men to maneuver, Kerry proceeded to lay them end to end through the field. They sank nicely into the mud, making a wet but firm surface, except they were not going far enough fast enough. Working frantically, the earl lashed some of the boards together and hitched the line to Hellraker’s saddle, calling in his chits.
“You owe me,” he yelled at the affronted stallion, “for all the clothes you ruined.” At the next trip: “And this is for my broken nose.” The black snorted as he slowly picked his way along the laid planks, dragging yet another load behind him, his eyes rolling and ears well back. “And for making me a laughingstock in front of the neighbors,” urged the earl.
The last plank was in place, but nowhere near the pigs. Kerry raced back to the barn and grabbed the door off its hinges. In a fury to match the storm’s, he used a shovel to pry apart the door’s boards, then ran with them back to his makeshift catwalk. P
igwalk.
Almost there. The rear door, a loose-box partition, finally a scattered bale of straw with his oilskin coat thrown on top, and his pigs could hie their little trotters across the mud into the safe and dry barn. He stood gasping for breath, waiting for them to arrive. And waited some more. “Apples,” he called. “I’ve got nice apples for you.” Then he cursed. “What, you bastards want stuffed grapes? Or maybe a formal invitation?”
Yelling didn’t work, coaxing had no effect whatsoever, and pushing simply succeeded in getting his face flicked with the least appetizing aspect of a hog. Picking up a piglet under each arm and running like a veritable Noah would take Noah’s forty days and forty nights, if Kerry could catch the wet, frantic little shoats. And the sows just grunted unhappily. Visions of Tige Welford’s trampled body raced through the earl’s mind. What an ignominious ending for a peer of the realm, getting ground into the mud by a rasher of ham.
That was when Kerry made an important discovery. Not that the lack of knowledge had bothered him any, but he finally realized what the mongrel hound’s other half must have been. One of the mutt’s ancestors had to have been the finest sheepdog in all of Britain. If not sheep, then cows or even geese. Kerry didn’t care, Lucky could herd pigs!
If every dog had its day, this was Lucky’s night. The little dog was running behind the nearest sow, barking and snapping at her heels, getting her moving, keeping her on the wooden pathway. Her babies followed after. Soon there was a line of pigs from the pens to the barn marching single file to the orders of one small yipping cur. Kerry’s contribution was in picking up the piglets that slipped off the track into the mire and setting them back on the planks. Between times he ran to the barn to spread more straw, hay, and apples, and settle disputes over which family group claimed which stall or corner of the barn. He was bitten, scratched, and stepped on before Lucky chased the last sow and her brood across the threshold. If there were any stragglers, Kerry could not see them in the darkness, but he’d saved his bacon! He could go home.
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