The Major Meets His Match

by Annie Burrows

  ‘Kindly step aside,’ she said, in a haughty voice quite unlike her own. ‘I have pressing business to attend to.’

  He stepped aside. But only to fall into step beside her when she set off again.

  ‘What do you think you are doing?’

  ‘Escorting you.’

  ‘I have no need of your escort.’

  ‘Tut, tut, Lady Harriet. Have you forgotten already how unwise it is to walk about without protection?’

  ‘No, I haven’t,’ she said bitterly. ‘London seems to be full of men who will take advantage of females who are out on their own.’

  ‘Then what are you doing repeating your error? I took you for an intelligent female.’

  ‘It is not a question of intelligence, but necessity. I no longer possess a footman and maid I can spare to traipse round after me when I’m out doing errands.’

  ‘Indeed?’ He looked down at her in concern. ‘Has some misfortune befallen you? May I be of assistance in any way?’

  ‘You?’ She laughed.

  He clenched his jaw on what had felt like a direct hit.

  ‘You may think of me as a fool, but I can assure you, Lady Harriet, I am no such thing—’

  ‘I don’t think you are a fool,’ she interrupted. He would have felt pleased to hear her say that, except that he had a feeling she had something else equally derogatory to say instead.

  ‘You are too full of cunning and trickery to ever be mistaken for a fool.’

  ‘Trickery? Whatever can you mean?’

  ‘Oh, don’t give me that. You told me yourself you are playing some kind of devious game. So why don’t you go back to it rather than following me around?’

  ‘Because I cannot leave you to wander about the streets, without protection. Since you say you have no footman, I can very easily fulfil that function for you today.’

  ‘I cannot believe you wish to do any such thing. You must have better things to do with your time than...follow round after me, just to annoy me.’

  He almost said that he didn’t and that, anyway, annoying her was much more fun than anything else he could be doing. But though it was true, telling her that wasn’t going to produce the result he wanted. So he sighed. Adopted a mournful air.

  ‘I’m afraid not. I have nothing better to do than loiter about the taverns and clubs, drinking my days away. Or gambling my fortune away. Don’t you think it is positively your duty to save me from myself? Because at least if I was affording you some protection, I couldn’t be getting into any mischief, now could I?’

  ‘What utter nonsense! Besides, I have no need of your protection. See?’ She lifted her umbrella and waved it under his nose. ‘If anyone should importune me, I can defend myself.’

  He demonstrated that she was in error, by taking it from her hand in a move so swift that she gasped. Then scowled.

  ‘Hmmm,’ he said, smacking the handle of it against his gloved palm. ‘Yes, you could indeed do someone a nasty injury with this, should they have the effrontery to accost you. And having seen how well able you are to defend yourself, even when armed only with a riding crop, I have no doubt that you would set any number of villains running for their lives. But,’ he said, handing her back the umbrella with an ironic bow, ‘if I am at your side, the villains would not bother you in the first place. So I will be saving you from an embarrassing and possibly unpleasant scene.’

  She made the noise again and started walking a bit faster.

  ‘May I enquire where you are going?’

  ‘What business is it of yours?’

  ‘None whatsoever. I am just curious. We have already passed Ackermann’s, which is the only place any person of fashion might consider visiting, along here.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ she said with a good deal of resentment, ‘I am going to...to an employment agency, to hire a big, burly footman and a maid who enjoys going for walks.’

  ‘Very sensible,’ he said soothingly. And then, when she did no more than dart him a look loaded with resentment, saw that it was up to him to keep the conversation going. ‘You mentioned lack of staff. Does that explain why there was nobody to answer the door when I called upon you yesterday?’

  ‘You called upon me?’

  ‘Yes. At least, I accompanied Archie, who was wishing to talk with your mother. I had planned to smile at you across the room as you refused to speak to me, just for the pleasure of baiting you.’

  ‘Now that I can believe.’

  ‘Archie and I were most disappointed to find the knocker removed from the door. We assumed you had gone back to the country.’

  ‘No. We...’ Lady Harriet paused at the corner of Catherine Street, looking distinctly harassed. ‘I believe the, er...employment office is just up here,’ she said. ‘Please, I would rather you did not come any further.’

  ‘If I didn’t know any better, I would think you were intending to visit Bow Street!’ He laughed as he made the suggestion, but Lady Harriet flinched and looked downright guilty. ‘Good, God! You are heading for Bow Street.’ A feeling came over him very similar to the one that had overtaken him when he’d seen her hangdog expression on emerging from her uncle’s study. A rush of concern that was this time so overwhelming that he turned and, forgetting all notions of propriety, took hold of her by both shoulders. ‘Are you in some sort of trouble? Are you sure hiring a Runner is the best course of action? Have you nobody else to advise you? Dammit, what is your mother thinking of, letting you run loose in London on such an errand?’

  ‘Mama does not know I have come,’ she said, swiping to left and right with her umbrella to remove his hands from her shoulders.

  ‘Yes, but the Runners? Really? Are you sure?’

  She chewed on her lower lip, suddenly looking very unsure and very vulnerable.

  ‘Lady Harriet, if you are in some sort of fix, you’d do much better to let me help you out of it than trying to battle on alone. I didn’t get the nickname of Ulysses at school for nothing.’

  She looked up at him, as though perplexed. And then her expression closed up completely. ‘You will have to forgive me, but I have not the slightest idea what you are talking about. I know nothing about Ulysses except that he was some character out of Ancient Greece.’

  ‘Oh. Right.’ He scratched his nose. ‘Well, Ulysses was the most wily and...er...cunning of the generals fighting in the Trojan War. But it wasn’t until he was on his way back from the wars that his talent for using those two weapons, against apparently insurmountable odds, were really put to the test. For instance once, according to legend, he and his men were imprisoned in a cave by a one-eyed giant.’

  ‘A giant?’

  ‘Yes. And every night, this giant would eat one of his men for his supper.’

  ‘Eurgh!’ said Lady Harriet.

  ‘Yes, but then one night Ulysses got the giant drunk and while he was asleep blinded him by poking him in the eye with a sharp stick.’

  ‘He sounds perfectly horrid,’ said Lady Harriet, wrinkling her nose.

  ‘Well, it was a desperate situation. He couldn’t sit back and let that giant eat his men, one by one, could he?’

  She shrugged with one shoulder. ‘I suppose not.’

  ‘Well, the giant bellowed and his brothers came to find out what was the matter, and he shouted out—oh, I should perhaps have mentioned that Ulysses had already told the giant that his name was Nemo. Which means nobody, in Latin, do you see? So when the giant shouted, “Nobody has blinded me”, they all thought he’d got windmills in his head, and wandered off without helping him.’

  ‘They must have been incredibly stupid.’

  ‘Well, big fellows often are, I’ve found. But back to Ulysses and his men. The giant went off out to work, as he always did each day. He was a shepherd. And being a giant, his sheep were huge. Since he w
as blind, he ran his hands over the back of each sheep as he let it out of the cave to make sure it was a sheep and not one of the men who were getting out. But Ulysses got his men to cling to the underside of the sheep and so they all escaped.’

  Lady Harriet frowned up at him. ‘So your school friends named you after a man who told lies and blinded people?’

  ‘You are missing the point. Ulysses used his brains instead of brute force to save both his own life and that of his men. And that was what I did, when I was at school. Used my brains to escape the attention of bullies, since I was too puny to fight back.’

  ‘Puny?’ She looked up at him. Glanced at his shoulders. Back up to his face.

  ‘No,’ he admitted, completely unable to stem a flush of pride at her assessment of his physique, ‘I’m not puny now. But I was the youngest, and weakest, of three brothers. And the older two got a lot of pleasure from holding me face down in the mud, or by the ankles off a bridge, or what have you.’

  ‘How very nasty of them.’

  ‘They were brutes,’ he agreed. ‘And it was through them that I learned to dodge and weave my way through life. Or, if all else failed, when cornered, to come up with enough jokes or antics that they got more amusement from making me play the clown than roasting me over a fire. But this,’ he said when she gasped, ‘is getting beside the point. We are not here to discuss my past, but my ability to help you out of what I suspect is a fix. And don’t give me that look,’ he said when she pulled her lips into a mutinous line. ‘You wouldn’t be going to the Runners, all on your own, if you didn’t need somebody’s help. And see here, Lady Harriet, I served in the army for the best part of ten years, after serving my apprenticeship in dodging trouble first at home and then at Eton. I know I appear in society like a bit of a...wastrel, but you have already told me you’ve seen through my disguise. The disguise I adopted when I was a boy, to make bullies think I didn’t care, so there was no sport to be had from tormenting me.’

  ‘Oh, are you in torment, then?’

  She looked concerned. So he decided to strike while the iron was hot.

  ‘I was, when I thought you had left Town and I might never see you again,’ he said candidly. ‘However,’ he continued when she blushed and frowned, and looked as though she was about to voice an objection, ‘we are not speaking of me. But you. And why you feel it necessary to visit the offices of Bow Street. Which, I give leave to inform you, is not at all the sort of place a virtuous young lady should venture, even with a footman in tow.’

  ‘It is not,’ she said, shifting from one foot to the other, ‘something I can tell you.’

  ‘Then it is something that is going on within your family.’

  She gasped again. Telling him he’d hit the nail on the head.

  ‘Hmm, well, that explains Lady Tarbrook’s reluctance to speak of why your mother removed you from her care.’

  She screwed her mouth up into a tight, resentful line.

  ‘I was there, too, that day Lord Tarbrook stormed into the drawing room and hauled you out, in front of all the visitors, to give you a dressing down. At least, I heard him shouting and then saw your face when you came out of his study. Although I cannot see that a rift within your family circle would warrant a trip to Bow Street. Nor how you come to be at the centre of it.’

  ‘Will you just stop this? This is not a guessing game. It is a very serious...’ She pulled herself up. To her full height. And glared at him.

  ‘Surely you know you can trust me,’ he said gently. ‘After all, I kept what happened between us, in the park, a secret, did I not?’

  ‘Only because it was to your advantage,’ she said mulishly. ‘If anyone had known about it, you might have had to marry me.’

  ‘Nonsense. I have told you that I am adept at escaping tricky situations. If I hadn’t wanted to marry you, no amount of threats would have prevailed. I would have found a way to wriggle out of that particular snare, you may be sure. The reason I kept your secret was because...’

  She looked up at him. Right in the eye. Which made him swallow.

  ‘You are an innocent, that’s why. If anyone had heard what you’d done, they might have placed an entirely different interpretation on events. And you didn’t deserve that.’

  ‘You maintain that you were protecting me?’

  ‘I was protecting you.’

  She didn’t look convinced. So he stepped back and folded his arms across his chest.

  ‘Now, look here Lady Harriet. You might as well accept the fact that I am going to find out what you are about, one way or another. Either you tell me, right now. Or I will come with you right into the offices and learn what is going on when you inform one of the Runners. Which is it to be?’

  Chapter Eighteen

  He wasn’t going to budge. She could see it in his stance, in the set of his jaw, in the determined glint in his eyes.

  So why didn’t Harriet feel furious? Why was she instead tempted to unburden herself? To this man, of all people? The man who’d proved he could take nothing seriously?

  It was partly because, the moment she’d set out that morning, she’d fallen prey to all sorts of disturbing thoughts. What if the men at Bow Street didn’t believe her? What if they did believe her, but ignored her request for discretion and blundered in, frightening the servants again? After they’d trusted her to do the right thing. Or, worst of all, what if they discovered it was Uncle Hugo himself who’d had the jewels copied, because of amassing huge debts, somehow? That made so much sense, since she’d never believed a man so self-absorbed could really have been that concerned about the servants, that she then spent several minutes agonising over the consequences, should that prove to be the case.

  She foresaw Kitty’s Season coming to an ignominious end. The town house having to be sold. The entire family having to retreat to the countryside, which both Kitty and Aunt Susan would hate. And they’d hate her, too, for bringing it all down upon their heads. Because the one thing they would not do was blame Uncle Hugo, who, although it was his fault, had been taking steps to secure their future before anyone found out—

  ‘Lady Harriet!’

  She blinked out of her tangled web of conjecture to see Lord Becconsall still standing in her path, arms folded, expression stern.

  ‘It...it isn’t really my tale to tell,’ she said, passing her umbrella from one hand to the other. ‘Oh, dear, I really don’t know what to do.’

  ‘Is there nobody you can turn to for help?’

  She shook her head. Mama didn’t care. Papa was too far away. And nothing but the direst emergency would induce him to come up to Town anyway, since it was a place he heartily detested.

  ‘Lady Harriet, I am here.’ He spread his hands wide. ‘Both willing and able to help you, no matter what it is that is troubling you so deeply.’

  He looked so sincere. For a moment the temptation to unburden herself was so strong she almost confided in him.

  But then she remembered why doing any such thing would be foolish in the extreme.

  ‘Typical,’ she said. ‘The only person who has taken any notice of what I planned to do today had to be you.’ She jabbed him in the stomach with her umbrella for emphasis. ‘The one man I cannot trust with this...business.’

  He rubbed his midsection ruefully.

  ‘Of course you can trust me Lady Harriet. I swear, on my honour—’

  ‘Honour? Hah!’

  ‘That I will hold whatever you tell me in the strictest confidence.’

  She wanted so badly to believe him it was almost enough to make her weep with vexation.

  ‘Do you take me for a complete idiot? When you’ve just boasted about your cunning and your love of telling lies in one breath, you then ask me to trust you in the next. As if it were some kind of test of my gullibility. When I know full well t
hat you already regard me as a joke.’

  ‘What? How on earth do you come to that conclusion? Look, I may have teased you a bit, but—’

  She stamped her foot. ‘Don’t think you can wriggle out of this one, Ulysses,’ she spat out. ‘I heard you with my own ears.’ As though she could hear with anyone else’s. This was what he’d reduced her to. Stamping her foot like a toddler and talking gibberish. ‘You were laughing about me with your friends. About the wager you’d made.’

  ‘You misunderstood—’

  ‘No, I didn’t.’

  ‘Yes, you did.’ He stepped forward. Leaned close and lowered his voice. ‘I’ve just told you how I cover up my feelings by playing the fool. And that was what I did, after you’d left the park. When all I could think about was finding you again. But I didn’t want to admit to my friends how much. So I made it seem like something I didn’t care about at all.’

  She’d planted her hands on her hips the moment he stepped forward. And it suddenly struck her how peculiar they must look, standing toe to toe the way they were. Right in the middle of the pavement so that other pedestrians were having to weave round them, like a stream of water dividing round a pile of rocks.

  If anyone her aunt knew were to see her like this...

  Only that wasn’t very likely. Nobody from her aunt’s circle was in the habit of getting up this early, she shouldn’t think. Nor would fashionable people stray to this part of Town even if they did.

  ‘I needed to find you, Harriet,’ said Lord Becconsall. ‘Needed to find out if, once I was sober, you were as perfect as you’d seemed when I was foxed. That the kiss we shared was as magical as I recalled, or merely a combination of drink and a blow to the head.’

  Magical? He’d thought that kiss magical as well? She could feel herself leaning into him. Gazing at his mouth.

  His lying, deceitful mouth.

  She pulled herself up to her full height.

  ‘Except that you didn’t.’

  ‘Didn’t what?’

  ‘Kiss me again. Nor even attempt to. Not at any point.’