Instinct warned him to run. Now, more than ever, he could not. The key to whatever misdeeds had been going on in the county, regarding prisoners at Dartmoor, centered on Bainbridge, Miss Honore Bainbridge’s home.
15
The inner warmth of peace—he would even go so far as to say the first happiness he had felt since leaving America and his family—began to dissipate as soon as he bade Miss Bainbridge goodbye and started for home with Philo. Now that he was away from her charming determination and forthright manner, not to mention her fair face and form, thoughts of treachery—thoughts treacherous all in themselves—stole into his mind and overwhelmed his spirit.
“That they’d use Bainbridge makes a great deal of sense,” he told Philo. “The family has been away from the house for over a year.”
Philo propped his feet on the opposite seat of the carriage and leaned into a corner. “The steward has been there.”
“He lives in a house outside the walls and rarely goes to the house.”
“How would you know a thing like that?” Philo yawned. “Not that it matters.”
“Chilcott told me. I think it was to show his superiority to Tuckfield, since he lives in the house and dines with the family.”
Philo laughed. “Those two growling and snapping over Miss Morrow. She’s pretty enough, but must be even older than you are.”
“And they are older than that. She is a pretty and kind lady. And her birth is impeccable, you know.”
The brothers laughed at Meric’s imitation of Chilcott’s prim pronouncement regarding people’s family connections.
“Ours aren’t.” Philo rubbed his eyes. “You were born aboard a derelict merchantman, and I was born in a log cabin in the woods. Hardly noble birthplaces.”
“It’s what’s in the blood that matters here.” Meric scowled at the passing scenery beyond the window. The cliff ran close to the road there, and a vista of sea and sky opened like the vast plains of grass beyond the great Mississippi River that Meric had read about and sometimes thought might be worth seeing. “And ours may be tainted from Father’s.”
Since Philo seemed to doze in his corner, neither of them spoke until they slowed to enter the mews where the carriage and horses were stabled at the top of the cliff-set town. Then Philo dropped his feet to the floor with an impact that rattled the vehicle and sat forward. “It’s hopeless, isn’t it? We’ll never clear his name.”
“Or keep me from getting arrested for doing something treasonous? Sometimes I am afraid not.”
“Mother would say to pray about it.”
“Mother says to pray about everything.”
But her prayers hadn’t kept Father alive nor put enough food on the table those first years after his death. On the other hand, God was providing now—abundantly.
If only You will show me the right way to go.
For that day, the right way to go—socially, if not spiritually—was a picnic with the Devenish family and others. Expecting poor fare as he had received on his other visits to the Devenishes, he dined on bread and cheese before he left. Philo joined him, then declined to go along.
“I thought I’d go down to Ashmoor and do some riding.” Philo’s gaze shifted around the room and color touched his high cheekbones. “I find I like the odorous beasts.”
“One of us should. You can learn to ride well, and then you can teach me instead of one of these uppity English grooms.” Meric grinned. “But Miss Babbage will miss you.”
“Miss Baggage had best keep missing me with every handkerchief she drops my way.”
“Miss Baggage?” Meric raised a brow.
Philo grimaced. “She is not as virtuous as these ladies all pretend to be. The other night . . . But I’m not a gentleman if I tell.”
“She got a bit bold, did she?” Meric’s lips twitched. “You looked a bit red when you came into the drawing room.”
“And I’ll say she looked pleased with herself. Is she trying to get me in a compromising position or something?”
“Maybe she is, but tell her you’re going back to America as soon as I set up my nursery, and she’ll run as fast as she can.”
“No, she won’t.” Philo shook his head. “She says she will persuade me to stay.”
“A pair of willing lips on a pretty girl has persuaded many a man from more important courses.”
“Perish the thought.” Philo shuddered, then rose and went to the door, where he hesitated a moment before saying, “Unlike you, I don’t have torn loyalties. I am an American, born and bred.”
Long after his younger brother left the dining room, Meric stared at the blank panels of the door, the bread turning to the consistency of unleavened dough in his middle. Philemon Poole felt no loyalty to England. To him, it was the land that had made a false accusation against his father, condemning him and his family to a life of back-breaking labor that ultimately killed Father, then imprisoned the heirs for no crime other than not leaving for Britain early enough to arrive before the war began. With that attitude, Philo just might have fallen in with a bad crowd there in Devonshire, a crowd bad enough to get him to help French prisoners escape from Dartmoor with the purpose of freeing American prisoners eventually.
Meric gave himself a hard shake like a dog coming in from the rain. This was ridiculous. If he kept up with his string of suspicions, he would be blaming the vicar and his sister for conspiring against the Crown.
With images of Philo’s fatigue, though they had all been in their rooms by midnight the night before, Meric climbed the steps to his room to consult with Huntley as to proper attire for a picnic. “Something I can move in freely.”
“I am afraid, my lord, that you will not look fashionable in such attire.” Huntley looked like he held half of a lemon’s juice in his mouth. “The best I can do is a pair of buckskins and that dark brown coat.”
“And a kerchief instead of a cravat?” Meric asked hopefully.
An invisible hand inserted the rest of the lemon’s juice. “My lord, I would never be able to hold my head up with the other gentlemen’s gentlemen if you did such a thing. For shooting, perhaps. For riding alone about your estate, perhaps. But to a social event? Never so long as I draw breath.”
“Heaven forfend I should shorten those breaths.” Laughing despite the notion of getting trussed up like a chicken going to market, Meric allowed his valet to choose his garb and guide him through the intricacies of tying a cravat.
“You are learning well, my lord.” A sugarplum’s sweetness replaced the lemon juice.
Meric departed, hands in his coat pockets to stop himself from running a finger between the collar and his throat. He took the carriage again. He would have to find some way to exercise if he didn’t walk around the countryside. Otherwise, he feared resembling Mr. Devenish, Carolina Devenish’s brother, more Philo’s age than Meric’s and already sporting a paunch barely concealed beneath his fine coats. For now, he settled himself back against the cushions—called squabs for some reason no one could explain to him—and tried to think of appropriate avenues of conversation for the afternoon.
The weather—fine.
The harvest—acceptable.
The viands—not at all appropriate considering Mrs. Devenish couldn’t set a fine table. The only time she had provided decent refreshments was that night of the musical soirée, when a disaster got them begging from people they wouldn’t invite to their house.
When he arrived in the garden, where the picnic consisted of tables moved outdoors instead of set inside the house, Meric discovered his efforts at conversational gambits were unnecessary. Everyone was speaking of Lord Bainbridge’s imminent arrival in the county.
“Such a pity he is bringing his fiancée,” Miss Babbage was saying as Meric approached the small company. “I thought one of us would surely have the opportunity to make a—ah, Lord Ashmoor, welcome. We are discussing Lord Bainbridge’s arrival. Have you met him, the new one, that is?”
“I haven’t had the privilege
.”
And hoped he didn’t. He might be tempted to plant him a facer for how he was treating his sister.
“We have known him all our lives.” Miss Devenish’s cheeks were pink. “I thought him well deserving of the name Beau.”
“Beau?” Meric stared at her. “Bainbridge’s name is Beau?”
“Not really,” Miss Babbage said. “It is something dull like Richard or John, but his family called him Beau from the time he was an infant.”
“And he is.” Miss Catherine Devenish sighed.
“So I think we shall have to have a ball in their honor,” Miss Devenish said with haste.
“And speaking of Lord Bainbridge,” Miss Babbage said in her languid way, “will you have to invite the sister?”
“When even he will not have her in the house?” Miss Devenish tossed her head, sending a cloud of rose scent wafting around the now flowerless garden.
Half expecting a swarm of confused bees to arrive, Meric took an involuntary step back. He hadn’t noticed her giving the perfume too lavish a hand in the past, nor being spiteful to another female. But the look on her face at the mention of Miss Bainbridge was downright hostile.
Defense of Miss Bainbridge burned on the end of his tongue. The way the young women and a couple of men, whose names eluded Meric, leaned toward Miss Devenish said no defense would be accepted. So he excused himself to procure a cup of tea, since no coffee was apparent, and fall into a conversation about hunting with the fathers of the young ladies.
Hunting, he had long since learned, had nothing to do with stalking deer to put food on the table. It meant riding to hounds somewhere in the northern counties in pursuit of a fox that had likely done no one harm. Men broke their limbs and even their necks in galloping across fields full of rabbit holes and leaping over hedges, but it stopped none of those who were hunting mad.
“You are welcome to join us at our hunting box in Lancashire,” Devenish said to Meric. “Can set you up with a fine gelding up to your weight.”
“Not this year, thank you.” Or the next, or the next . . . “I have other matters I should be seeing to,” he concluded.
“Like setting up your nursery, eh?” Devenish nudged him in the ribs hard enough to slosh the tea in his cup.
Meric gave him a noncommittal smile, made his excuses, and wandered to another group of men discussing the American war.
“They are fools if they think they can defeat us.”
“We will get our colonies back and then some, mark my word. They cannot win a land battle to save their lives.”
“Or their country.”
The men laughed.
Meric bit back the urge to remind these men how many British merchantmen had lost their ships and cargoes to American privateers. The United States might lose everything to Great Britain’s superior strength, but they would see that the island empire suffered in the meantime.
But he dared not voice his opinion on that either.
He glanced around for another group of people to join, one with whom perhaps he could express his viewpoint on even a minor issue. None materialized from the score or so of people present, so he turned toward his hostess, forming some excuse to leave.
Miss Devenish latched on his arm. “Oh, do come back and join us, my lord. We are considering getting up a party to attend the harvest moon assembly in Clovelly tomorrow night. It will be full of yokels, but ever so much fun for that. We will dress up like peasants like Marie Antoinette did.”
“Have a hankering for being guillotined?” He smiled to make a jest of his words.
Miss Devenish and the others who had joined her laughed.
He refrained from pointing out that a true harvest moon was the full moon within two weeks of the autumnal equinox, which October eighth was not. No sense in spoiling their pleasure. No sense in staying home alone with a gloomy Chilcott either.
“All right,” he agreed, “I’ll come.”
“And do bring your brother.” Miss Babbage’s smile held something in it that Meric called less than ladylike.
He shook his head. “He’s off to Ashmoor for a few days. And now I should be off home too. I have ledgers calling my name.”
A bevy of protests rained upon him. He bowed over several hands, nearly carried Miss Devenish’s to his lips, remembered how dull the afternoon had been with him having to keep his mouth shut at literally every turn, and refrained.
Did he truly want to commit himself to a lifetime of this? It surely could not be what God wanted for him.
Inside the house, he waited in the entry hall between two stone-faced footmen while his carriage was brought around. If he were walking, he could have simply departed and been a mile toward home by the time the vehicle rumbled up to the door. Climbing up for the solitary journey to travel inside a wooden box like a piece of jewelry, he considered learning to drive a showy team and purchasing a curricle. That way he could drive himself. His coachman could teach him. The man never spoke a word, but he drove well.
The idea of taking up sporting driving was such a fine notion, he began to envision the sporting vehicles he had seen in London—the colors that would suit him, the sort of team, if he would hire a boy to stand behind—
A giant’s fist seemed to slam into the side of the carriage, knocking Meric into the corner of the seat. His head struck the side of the vehicle. Ears ringing from the impact, he tried to right himself. His head spun. He was still off balance. Sunlight blazed too brightly through one window, the sea shimmered and sparkled far below the other.
Sea in one, sky in the other.
He wasn’t off balance. The carriage was tilting, teetering on the edge of the cliff.
He flung himself at the window. Too small for him. The door was on the downward side. If he exited that way, he would tumble two hundred feet to his death. But if he didn’t get out, he would tumble two hundred feet to his death.
He shoved at the hatch in the roof. The carriage rocked, swayed, slid farther over the edge.
And the hatch didn’t move.
Shouting he knew not what, he kicked at the window, smashing glass, splintering the frame. Each blow rocked the carriage further. Wood and steel creaked and groaned. No coachman shouted. No horses whinnied. Only the vehicle protesting and his boot heels slamming, slamming—
A panel sprang free of the carriage’s side. Meric threw himself through it, ripping his coat, his shirt, his arm on the splinters.
He landed on scrubby vegetation and rocks at the top of the cliff. Clung to all, clambering to the road. Behind him, the carriage gave a final groan and rolled down, down, down, then the drop grew precipitous and the coach took flight until it smashed on the rocks at the edge of the sea.
The horses and coachman did not go with it. They were nowhere in sight.
16
“You will go to the assembly with me tomorrow night, will you not?” Miss Morrow’s eyes pleaded with Honore from across the dinner table.
Honore widened her eyes back. “And not allow Mr. Tuckfield to have you all to himself for once? I doubt he will appreciate that.”
“I need a chaperone, and who better than you?”
Honore laughed. “Almost anyone, I expect the rest of the county will say.”
“But the rest of the county will not be there. At least not those who . . . would disapprove of you. It will mostly be freehold farmers and tradesmen and the like. They will be honored at your presence.”
“Possibly.”
None of them shunned her in church as did her peers. On the contrary, they treated her with the same affectionate respect they always had.
“But I doubt my brother will approve.”
“Your brother, if you will forgive me for speaking so bluntly, has not placed himself in a place to approve or not.” Frost dripped from Miss Morrow’s tone. “And he is not your guardian, is he?”
“No, Christien—that is, Monsieur de Meuse, my sister Lydia’s husband—is my guardian. Still . . .”
T
he idea of music and dancing and spinning around the floor to a reel, even with some ham-handed farmer as her partner, sounded better than sitting in her bedchamber half emptied of her belongings as the maids and footmen carried them to the dower house.
“You know you love to dance,” Miss Morrow pressed as though reading Honore’s mind. “And it has been long enough since your father’s death for a local party like this.”
“Yes, nine months for a father is quite long enough, and yes, I love to dance. But it will be odd to arrive with my steward.” She tilted her head and observed Miss Morrow through her lashes. “I am surprised you are not going with Mr. Chilcott.”
“Mr. Chilcott did not invite me.” The frost turned to icicles. “And I would not have gone with him had he done so.”
“Indeed? Why is that?”
Miss Morrow bowed her head as though concentrating on making a cross with her knife and fork, then an X, and then a cross again. “He is not even officially courting me and thinks he can tell me what is good for me.”
“Indeed? Such as?”
Miss Morrow pushed back her chair. “Just do, please, come with me. The likes of the Devenishes and Babbages will not be there to criticize you.”
Nor, in that event, would Lord Ashmoor. But a night filled with music and Cornish pasties would keep her from moping over the fact that his lordship had gone off to a picnic at the Devenishes’ house that afternoon. She hoped he choked on chicken as dry as Devonshire rock. She hoped he recalled the fine repast she had served him though she had not expected a guest. She hoped he had an absolutely terrible time and left early.
“All right,” she said, “I will go.”
“Wonderful.” Miss Morrow went to the door. “Shall we go see what we can wear?”
Nothing too fancy for the expected assembly. Honore pulled out a gown from her Season the previous year, one of the few in a color other than white—a pale rose muslin with a pattern of silver leaves embroidered around the neck and hem and a broad band down the front of the skirt. She gave Miss Morrow a similar dress in pale primrose with gold embroidery, and they settled themselves in a small parlor to add a flounce to the bottom to accommodate for Miss Morrow’s greater height. As with most of their evenings, this one ran its course in quiet talk of books, of the novel Honore was trying to write when she found the time, of things they must remember to take to the dower house the next day in the event Lord Bainbridge arrived on Saturday.
A Reluctant Courtship Page 15