by Carola Dunn
“If she were too well fed,” he responded, “she’d lose interest in hunting harpies.”
“I daresay she would. Are they not reputed to be as foul-smelling as they are sharp-clawed? Poor Maera!”
“I felt she’d prefer a new profession to the ignominy of being chased out with a broom.”
“Certainly, although she’d not have stirred without my word. However, I did not appreciate your defending your dog before your wife! What precisely is a draggle-tail?”
“It is not a word a lady need know,” Ben said severely.
“I can guess, then.” Her delightful smile faded. “Lord Clifford, we must—”
“You must remember to address me as Benedict.” He hesitated. Only his sister used his nickname. Why did he feel impelled to offer it to this irrepressible woman who had rejected him? “Ben, if you prefer.”
“Ben will do nicely. Benedict is a splendid name to be saved for special occasions. My friends call me Nell.”
She accepted him as a friend? Inexplicably his heart lightened. “We cannot discuss our plans here, Nell,” he said quickly as the landlady returned with two dishes for the dog. “Later.”
In any other female, he’d have assumed her acquiescence to be the result of feminine submissiveness. In Lady Eleanor—Nell—it could only mean that she understood and agreed. Fortunate indeed that her understanding was quick; otherwise, no less resolute than stubborn, she would argue until convinced.
He would always know her opinion—except that there was to be no always. The most he had to hope for was occasional meetings as friends.
“I’ll have the bed done in a jiffy, madam,” said Mrs Quick, “and then you can lie down till dinner’s ready, with a compress for your poor face. More ale, sir?”
“Thank you, no, but it’s excellent.”
“The men walks over from miles about for a sup of our ale,” she said, beaming, and once again bustled away.
“She cannot be in league with that dreadful man,” Nell exclaimed. “All right, not another word on that subject. Juliet says you often go up to Town to speak in Parliament. My father and Bertie never bothered. Tell me about it.”
By the time Mrs Quick came to fetch her, he had discovered that, at least on the subject of chimney-sweeps and the Corn Laws, her political opinions coincided exactly with his.
“Maera needs to go out,” she said, rising. “Would you mind… That is, perhaps you could take her into the yard, Ben.”
“Oh madam, that would never do,” Mrs Quick protested at once. “There’s the chickens back there.”
“Mae—” Nell began indignantly.
“Maera is far too well trained to chase chickens,” Ben broke in, “but I can take her into the lane if you prefer.”
“If you please, sir. She’s a big creetur, and chase or no, I’d be afeard they’d be scared out of laying. This way, if you please, madam.”
As the women departed through the far door, Maera watched, ears pricked, puzzled. Since Ben had claimed the dog as his, Nell had been able to say neither “come” nor “stay.” A proper clunch he’d look now if his valuable, perfectly trained harpy hound refused to go out with him.
“Well,” he said to her, “are you going to make a fool of me?”
She gazed up at him hopefully. The white tip of her tail quivered.
“Come.” He started towards the door. Maera hesitated, glanced sadly back at the door where her mistress had disappeared, and followed.
Her relief when they returned to the Candlestick was not flattering. She was overjoyed when Nell came down for dinner, her hair combed, her face less painful if no less red.
They ate in the corner of a room now filling with weary, thirsty farmhands, most of whom scarce spared a glance for the strangers. After dinner, Ben was in a quandary. Even in the present outrageous circumstances, he couldn’t bring himself to suggest that they retire to their shared bedchamber.
Lingering over gooseberry tart, Nell seemed equally reluctant to make so indelicate a proposal, but at last she sighed and said, “We must make plans. I’ll go up. Do you mind taking Maera out again?”
Perhaps they could claim Maera as a chaperon, Ben thought wildly ten minutes later as he climbed the narrow stair, the big dog padding at his heels. Whatever Nell said, her reputation was liable to end up—like her petticoat—in shreds. Honour would force him to marry her.
Somehow the prospect no longer appalled him.
She was sitting on the bed, her knees clasped in her arms. Her face brightened as he entered—but not in welcome for him. “Oh, I was afraid you’d leave her downstairs. Thank you.”
Though she sat on top of the patchwork coverlet, Nell was swathed in a voluminous white cambric nightgown. It was not an enticing garment, but Ben couldn’t help staring. Was her lack of propriety more profound than he had supposed? Was she not merely unconventional but unchaste? Despite his shocked dismay, his loins stirred. Was she inviting him…?
A blush intensified the scarlet of her sunburn. “Mrs Quick insisted on lending me a nightrail. I put it on over my clothes lest she should come back to see if I needed anything more. She won’t come now. I’ll take it off.”
Fully dressed beneath she might be, but he studied the low, sloped ceiling as she knelt up on the bed to disrobe. In the tiny chamber, bed, clothes press, and washstand took up all but a small strip of floor, most of which Maera occupied.
“Mrs Quick did not query our lack of baggage?” he asked in a strangled voice.
“No. I believe she is too flustered by our presence and dare not ask any questions for fear of arousing our curiosity. She or her husband must have spoken to Nimble Jack by now. There, that’s better.” With the removal of the suggestive attire, she appeared to have regained her sang-froid. “There is no chair. You will have to sit on the bed while we make our plans.”
Ben perched perforce at the foot of the bed, leaning back against one of the posts. They agreed to sneak down to the stables as soon as all was quiet, lead out the horses—by now they were both convinced the chestnuts were there—and make off at once. Retribution for Nimble Jack could wait.
That decision led to talk of the Law, thence to the plight of the poor, to Parliament, to London’s music and theatre, to literature and philosophy. More often than not, their opinions coincided, but even when they argued, Ben was constantly conscious of the candlelight on her hair, the alluring swell of her breasts, the glimpse of a neat ankle when she shifted.
If this were madness, who would choose sanity?
The sound of voices below gradually died. Footsteps sounded on the stairs; a latch clicked. The old timbers of the house creaked and groaned, settling for the night. Maera slept the sleep of the just, raising her head once to stare at the door, then drifting back to foot-twitching dreams of rabbits—or perhaps of harpies. The passionate song of a nightingale drifted through the narrow casement, open to the warm night.
“Was it Beethoven you were playing that day?” Ben said abruptly.
She did not need to ask which day. “Yes. The Appasssionata sonata.”
“You had not played any of his works in the evenings.”
“Phyllis said you would…prefer more decorous music.” She studied her hands as if she had never seen them before. “I let her persuade me to deceive you shamelessly, to make you believe I am the soul of demure conformity.”
“But why? Why did you accept my offer?”
“To escape from her. I have had other offers, you know, quite a few over the years, but never a suitor worth leaving my father for. Then he died and Bertie married Phyllis. You must not suppose she is a bad person, or intentionally cruel, yet anything seemed preferable to staying at Brantwood.”
“Anything!” The word burst out from the pain within. His parents had not cared for him enough to stay at home. Lady Eleanor Lacey, a spinster at her last prayers, desperate to escape, did not want him. He had striven to make himself utterly unexceptionable and thought he had succeeded. He had deluded himself. What was wr
ong with him?
That question he could not ask. Nell was looking at him with concern, about to speak. “You should have told me you wanted a fashionable wedding,” he said harshly. “I’d not have refused.”
“But I didn’t! Phyllis insisted on inviting all the nobility she could think of with the slightest connection to either family. As many as will fit into St Mary’s, at least. I assumed she had consulted you.”
“No. I begin to see why you are eager to leave.”
“I should not have involved you in my difficulties. I didn’t really mind hurting your pride, and I didn’t believe you had any feelings to be hurt.”
“A gentleman does not display his feelings.”
“A perfect gentleman,” she said thoughtfully. Recalling Juliet’s tales of her parents’ notorious peculiarities, she fell silent. The silence of their surroundings closed in around them. Nell bit her lip. “A perfect gentleman—nonetheless, you must not feel obliged to help me rescue Vesta and Vulcan.”
“Having come thus far, I’d not miss the adventure for the world.” Ben reached out to take her hand and she gripped hard, the stone of the ring digging into his palm. “Nervous?”
“A little. Shall we go now?”
“I’ll just take my boots off. They’d make a noise on the stair. I had best carry them down.”
Struggling to remove Hoby’s once-glossy creations without the aid of his valet, he watched with a tender smile as she tidied her hair in the tiny mirror on the washstand. Unconventional, eccentric even, but no less feminine for that! She picked up her gloves, he took his and his hat and, squeezing past the now-alert dog, he reached for the door-latch.
“Locked!”
“It can’t be! Your hands are full, let me try.” She tugged in vain. “We’ll have to go through the window. There’s an outbuilding roof just below. I saw it earlier. I was trying to see the yard and stables but it cuts off the view.” They turned as one to contemplate the tiny window. Nell groaned. “You cannot possibly fit through that. Your shoulders are far too broad. I’ll have to get the horses and go for help.”
“Not alone!” he protested, but she slipped past him, slithered out, and dropped from sight. Maera, surprised but game, bounded after her.
He stuck his head out. By hazy moonlight he saw both of them slide down a thatch slope and disappear again. A soft call reached his ears: “We’re down!”
The rash, intrepid little widgeon! He had to go after her, had to squeeze through that window if it killed him. He stripped off his coat, stuffing her necklace into the pocket of his riding breeches.
He made it. He tore both shirt and waistcoat, and wrenched his left shoulder, but he made it. A moment later he strode in his stockings across the muddy yard after the dark figures of woman and dog.
* * * *
Maera headed straight for the far end of the long, low stable building. Nell followed. She didn’t dare look back, for if she did she might turn and run, might try to regain the cosy nest and the reassurance of Ben’s masculine strength.
With a low whine, Maera scratched at the next to last Dutch door. Instantly it swung open. A man stood silhouetted against lamp-light, a burly man, with an object in his hand that glinted evilly.
“Ah, ‘tis the gentry mort come a-visiting, eh?” said Nimble Jack. “I seen you from the hayloft. Tell that bloody brute to stay, and come in, missy, come in.” He reached out and grabbed her wrist.
“Stay, Maera!” Nell said sharply to the snarling dog.
The highwayman pulled her towards him, into an empty loosebox. In the stalls on either side were two black horses. One put his head over the partition and whickered a soft greeting. The other pricked her ears forward.
“Vulcan? Vesta? You have dyed them!” cried Nell.
“Aye, and they won’t be the only ones what’s died, missy,” he said regretfully. “I can’t let you go. I c’d run for it, but you’d turn Madge in. She’s me sister. She been good to me and never asked no questions, and—”
A flash of white shirtsleeves passed Nell. Ben’s fist caught Nimble Jack on the chin. The highwayman staggered backwards, dropping his pistol, but Ben clutched his shoulder with a moan. His left arm hung limp.
Jack recovered his balance and rushed in. Ben blocked a hefty fist with his right arm, then Jack’s second punch met his eye and it was his turn to stagger back, through the doorway. Tripping over Maera, he landed flat on his back in the mud.
With a cry of triumph, the highwayman stooped to retrieve his pistol. But before he could do so, Nell shot him.
Bellowing in surprise, pain, and fury, Jack in his turn clutched his shoulder, but he managed to grasp the gun. Maera, her snarl rising to a bloodcurdling growl from deep within her chest, leapt forward. Her jaws closed on his wrist.
Jack dropped the pistol. “Call it off!” he pleaded.
“Not bloody likely,” said Nell, taking profound pleasure in the vulgarity. She seized his gun. “Good girl, Maera. On guard.”
“I’ll bleed to death!”
“Good.” She was already out in the yard, where Ben struggled to sit up.
“I strained my shoulder climbing through the window,” he explained in a shaky voice, “and now I think I’ve sprained my ankle. I’m sorry, I’m not much use as a rescuer.”
“You were simply splendid,” she said warmly. Kneeling at his side, she put Jack’s pistol in his good hand and pocketed her own. “I’d be dead by now but for you, and you were positively heroic, rushing in with an injured arm. You need a sling first, I think. Your neckcloth will be perfect.” She untied the neat, unobtrusive knot, unwound the rectangle of muslin, and quickly fashioned a sling. “That’s better. Can you rise?”
“If you will give me…a hand.”
Not your hand, with its echo of his proposal, she noted sadly, helping him to stand. To cap her many ineligible habits, she had used shocking language and she had shot a man.
“Heavens, I must try to stop Jack bleeding to death. I confess I was aiming for his heart, but all the same, I should not like to have his death on my conscience.”
She supported Ben into the stable. When he was seated on the manger, the pistol trained on Jack, she called off Maera and started to bandage the highwayman’s shoulder and wrist with strips of her desecrated petticoat.
“Don’t know why you bother, miss,” he said gloomily. “I’d as soon bleed to death as end up on the nubbing cheat.”
“The nub—the gallows? Oh, I hope it won’t come to that. Purely for your sister’s sake,” Nell added severely. “She was kind to me. I shall discover who is the local magistrate—I daresay I am already acquainted with him—and ask him to inform me if any more highway robberies take place in this district. If they do, I shall tell him where to find you. If you reform, he shall learn nothing from me.”
“What about the gentry cove?”
She followed his gaze to Ben, who appeared stunned by her forbearance.
“After all,” she defended herself, “Maera and I have done Jack far more damage than he ever did us. But, oh dear,” she added guiltily, “I believe you are going to have a perfectly dreadful black eye!”
Benedict, Viscount Clifford, stiffest and starchiest member of the Ton, burst into helpless laughter and laughed till he cried.
* * * *
Ben did not dare let Nell return to the house for his boots. There was no knowing what the Quicks might do. In any case, his ankle was swelling and he’d be no better off with one boot than none. As for his hat, if she had no bonnet, why on earth should he feel the need of a hat?
She found an oaken staff to support him. She had to lead all three horses, but they followed her willingly. They left by the side gate and Maera took them straight to Grenadier’s saddle.
“I need not have sacrificed my lace,” said Nell with forced lightness, “though after bandaging Jack’s shoulder, not much is left of my petticoat anyway.”
Her frank mention of the intimate garment no longer had the power to shoc
k him. “I wager Maera will lead us back to the dog-cart, too,” he responded in the same tone.
“Oh, Ben, I’d forgotten, Nimble Jack cut the harness. I’ll have to cobble together a makeshift rig.”
“I’m sure I’ll be able to give you a hand with that, but I fear you will have to drive.” To her friend’s house, he thought dismally. “I’m more of a hindrance than a help to you.”
“Not at all. I need you right now, to hold the horses while I retrieve the gear.”
Nell muttered unladylike curses as she ploughed through the stinging nettles and reached into the thorny hedge. Nor was saddling her brother’s restive fifteen-hand hack an easy task. Not until it was done did Ben realise the real problem.
“I think I can mount, but I doubt I can control Grenadier with one arm and one leg. You will have to leave me after all, and go for help.”
“Fustian! I shall ride in the saddle, and you shall sit behind and use your one arm to hold onto me.”
“It’s not a side-saddle,” he reminded her.
“Riding astride is much easier.”
“Astride!”
“No one will see. It’s dark,” she said stubbornly, then wailed, “Ben, I don’t want to go on alone in the dark.”
He infused his voice with all the cheerful encouragement he could muster. “Then somehow we shall manage it,” he vowed.
Somehow they managed it. His ankle throbbed; his shoulder throbbed; his eye throbbed; but he was far more conscious of his arm about her supple waist, her back pressed to his chest, her silky hair tickling his chin, the lavender scent of her. As Maera led the way, the white tip of her tail bobbing ahead, Ben was happy.
Though reality had shaken him when Nimble Jack’s fist sent him flying, Nell’s bandaging of the highwayman had assured him that he was still dreaming. Anything could happen in dreams, couldn’t it?
“Nell, will you marry me?”
She stiffened. An endless pause, before she replied, her tone strained, “I do not consider myself compromised, I promise you. My reputation—except as a jilt—is quite safe.”
“To the devil with your reputation!” He buried his face in her hair and groaned, “Oh, Nell, Nell, see what you have brought me to: swearing before a lady, dismissing her reputation as irrelevant. If you won’t have me, I shall spend the rest of my life only half alive.”