“Mr. Hunter assured me your skill is quite extraordinary.”
“Perhaps Hunter is easily impressed,” James said with a snort. “Besides, if I spent all my time showing off my souvenir sketches and regaling others with my adventures, I would be declared a dead bore.”
Prudence shook her head as she helped herself to the last fairy cake. “Your adventures make you the least boring person in all of Bath, Sir James. How can one not want to learn about foreign countries and the culture there? About headhunters and zebra finches and exotic orchid blooms which smell of chocolate?”
James regarded her in a teasing manner. “Miss Pentyre, I fear you are a romantic and even bookish woman.”
“I am bookish,” she admitted, her chin tilted upward. “I make no apology for it.” She did not doubt it was yet another reason she had not married. She was a bluestocking. Some men professed to admire intellectual females, but Prudence had been quick to notice they seldom married them. Instead, they chose pretty women with less intellect and more dimples. “You may needle me all you like, Sir James. But I should tell you I made up my mind quite early this morning to allow nothing to ruin this day’s outing—not even an argument with you.”
“You do me an injustice, ma’am. I do not wish to argue with you at all,” he insisted.
“Nor I with you,” Prudence replied amiably.
“If you truly wish to peruse my pencil sketches, you need only come to the house to see them. By all means, do so. But don’t bring Margaret,” he added, lowering his voice. “She will mope and sigh with impatience, and we shall feel socially obligated to rush through our task. It will put me all out of patience with her, and I would probably say something rude I should regret later on.”
Prudence blushed. Then falteringly, she said, “I would feel uncomfortable calling upon you at your residence—unaccompanied.”
“And I had made up my mind that you, Miss Pentyre, are a woman of rare courage.” His blue eyes twinkled.
Her blush deepened. She was scrambling her wits to come up with some sharp retort, when he surprised her again.
“Now something I have said has put you to the blush. You are as pink as a peony—quite a pretty pink too,” he said. Then with a sigh of mock resignation, James added, “All right then, bring Mrs. Leyes. Your aunt and my mother can share a bit of gossip over a dish of tea and be perfectly content in one another’s company for any amount of time. You may take as long as you like to peruse my sketches. The one of the orangutan will particularly strike your fancy, I believe.”
When Prudence didn’t immediately reply, he asked, “Will that suit you, Miss Pentyre?”
“Yes, thank you,” she said, wishing she did not feel so awkward in his presence at the most inopportune times. Why his off-hand comments or the proximity of his arm to hers should cause her throat to feel dry and her heart to beat irregularly, she could not say.
“You know, I should thank you for asking to see the sketches. I have an endless capacity to brag about my exploits. You are giving me yet another opportunity to do so.”
Prudence regarded him thoughtfully. Although his rough face appeared both open and intelligent, his manly cheeks seemed warm with color. In that moment, she knew James felt self-conscious too. He was not a shameless braggart—not at all. He had a humility, which sometimes was not readily apparent when one was not looking for it.
Before she could offer him a reassuring reply, they were startled by a shout from Arthur and a shriek from Margaret. Prudence spun around. An apparent gust of wind had seized Margaret’s hat and sent it tumbling along the ground, the untied ribbons trailing like the tails of a kite. Harry made a snatch for it, but the wind blew it out of his reach.
“I’ve got it!” Robert called out. But as he attempted to grab the hat, another playful gust sent it rolling down the hill.
“No, I’ve got it!” Harry declared prematurely.
“It is blowing away!” Margaret wailed.
The two young men made a contest of the hat’s retrieval. Margaret and Clarissa laughingly cheered them on. Arthur and Eleanor did the same. James jeered as Harry and Robert shoved and pushed one another in a playful manner, both attempting to be the first to rescue Margaret’s runaway bonnet. Amused by their efforts, Prudence’s lips curled in a smile.
When Robert stumbled, falling to his knees, Harry came barreling down behind him. With too much momentum to prevent himself from doing so, Harry tripped over his friend. He then rolled head over heels down the hill—literally.
“Clumsy nodcock!” James hollered out.
Harry tumbled to an abrupt stop on the side of the hill. He sprawled there, silent and ominously still.
Margaret screamed, “He is killed!” Her hands flew to her flushed cheeks.
James scrambled to his feet. With a stab of alarm, Prudence attempted to rise also. James reached down, jerking her to her feet. They watched as Robert Ludlow stumbled his way toward his fallen friend.
“Harry! Oh, Harry!” Margaret cried. “Is he dead?” She fixed tear-filled eyes upon each of them in turn.
Prudence felt the increased pressure of James’s hand upon her elbow as he led her toward her cousin’s side. As her eyes met his, James cast her a crooked smile, saying quietly, “Now we know.”
Then he darted after Arthur, who had hurried down the hill to lend his aid to the unconscious Harry Paige.
Chapter Eleven
“Oh, poor Harry!” Margaret cried out.
Eleanor, seeing how Margaret was determined to race down the hill to Harry’s side, snatched at her arm to prevent her from doing so.
“Let me go to him,” Margaret pleaded, pulling against Eleanor’s firm grip.
“No, Margaret dear, listen to me. You may take a tumble too and twist an ankle. We cannot have another mishap,” Eleanor said. “Not now.”
Prudence chimed in, “All our efforts must be put toward assisting Harry. Surely you must agree?”
Margaret began to weep, covering her face with her hands. Clarissa appeared pale and anxious. “Perhaps I should…do you think I should go to him?” she asked, looking from Prudence to Eleanor.
Eleanor shook her head. “There is not a thing you can do at the moment, Miss Paige. Arthur and Sir James will let us know if and how we can help.” She reached for the young woman’s hand, giving it a reassuring pat. “Harry will be fine. You will see.”
Prudence slipped a comforting arm around Margaret’s trembling shoulders. Her cousin was so distraught with weeping that Prudence reconsidered what James had said earlier about young women growing up to be like their mothers. She had not thought so at the time, but Meg was giving every indication of being the sort of woman always at risk of slipping into a decline.
“Pull yourself together, Meg, for Heaven’s sake,” she whispered in Margaret’s ear. “You are making a spectacle of yourself.” Suppressing an urge to slap her cousin across the cheek, Prudence instead pinched Margaret’s arm and heaved a disgusted sigh. She did loathe this sort of emotional self-indulgence.
Margaret gulped a breath and then swallowed back a final sob. Clarissa, having retrieved a handkerchief from somewhere, pressed it upon her friend with a worried frown. “Please don’t cry,” she pleaded. “Please don’t.”
Arthur returned to the crest of the hill where the ladies stood waiting for some word regarding Harry’s condition. “He’s come around,” Arthur said, smiling—which relieved Prudence heartily.
“How badly is he hurt, Mr. Greenwood?” Clarissa asked, her hands clutched tightly together. Prudence noted a hint of anguish in the girl’s tone, despite her calm demeanor.
“He’ll be all right,” Arthur assured her. “He had the wind knocked out of his sails for a bit. I am not a physician, of course, but I believe Harry will be plagued by a sprained ankle—nothing more.”
This announcement was followed by a collective sigh of relief from the ladies.
“James says we’ll need to cut Harry’s boot off. The foot and ankle ar
e already quite swollen. We need to get him back to town at once.” With a slight smile, Arthur added, “Harry is feeling the pangs of foolishness every bit as sharply as the pain in his ankle.”
“Harry is young and healthy,” Prudence said matter-of-factly. “He’ll heal quickly.”
Arthur nodded. With an apologetic glance at Eleanor, he added, “I am sorry, my dear, but we must bring our delightful little party to an abrupt end.”
Eleanor gave him a wan smile. “Certainly, Arthur. If Miss Leyes and Miss Pentyre will help me gather up the remainder of the dishes, we shall be ready to go when you give the word. Miss Paige, you will want to speak with your brother, I am sure.”
“Come, Meg,” Prudence said, happy to have something to do. With a firm grip upon her cousin’s elbow, she tugged Margaret purposefully forward in Eleanor’s wake. Margaret went reluctantly, watching over her shoulder as Arthur lent his arm to Clarissa, to escort her down the hill to Harry’s side. Prudence watched as James and Robert heaved Harry to his feet.
Prudence spent the next half an hour assisting Eleanor and Margaret to collect the forgotten butterfly nets and repacking the large picnic hamper—a task never as pleasant as unpacking it when one is in eager anticipation of the al fresco feast. From their position at the top of the hill, she could look down and take note of the progress of the men as they helped the hobbling Harry down the hill—one painful step at a time—to the waiting carriage below.
The return journey was a bit more crowded this time with Harry Paige squeezed in between Clarissa and Eleanor Greenwood. His swollen foot had been propped up on James’s coat, rolled into a bundle and placed upon the seat between Prudence and Margaret, who occasionally whispered, “Oh, poor, poor Harry!” in a sad, whimpering murmur.
With a sheepish smile, Harry dismissed her concern with self-deprecating humor. “I fear I am a clumsy nodcock, just as Sir James said. But like the proverbial rolling stone, I gathered no moss.” Clarissa shook her head, rejecting her brother’s weak joke.
“Oh, Harry,” Margaret half sobbed.
Irritated by her cousin’s tiresome behavior, Prudence felt an overwhelming urge to shake Margaret by the shoulders until her teeth rattled. When exchanging a quick glance with Clarissa, who sat across from her, Prudence thought she detected the same impatience reflected in the young woman’s somber face as well.
While James rode escort beside the barouche, he sent Robert Ludlow on ahead to inform Mr. and Mrs. Paige to send for a doctor as soon as possible and to have footmen waiting to assist Harry into the house. Upon arriving at the Paige residence, James dismounted, telling the Greenwoods he would stay until young Harry was quite comfortable and they should take Miss Leyes and Miss Pentyre home. This they did most willingly. If Eleanor and Arthur had been surprised by Margaret’s unseemly behavior, they were gracious enough, considering the circumstances, to overlook her emotional outburst. When Arthur dismounted his saddle horse and came around to hand down Margaret from the carriage, Eleanor leaned across to touch Prudence lightly on the arm, saying, “I suppose Margaret and Harry Paige…”
She removed her hand and left her supposition unfinished.
“On Margaret’s part anyway,” Prudence acknowledged. She could feel the heat rush to her cheeks.
It didn’t make sense to her how Margaret had been so admirably discreet and close-lipped for months, maybe even years, regarding her feelings for Harry Paige, only to reveal everything today by bawling in so vulgar a manner. “I confess I am quite embarrassed by her display of emotion. I’ve never known Margaret to make such a cake of herself.”
Eleanor gave Prudence an understanding smile. “Margaret is young. Girls of her age are often given over to emotional excesses.”
“She is more than twenty,” Prudence informed her, bridling a little. “She is hardly a girl any longer.”
Upon entering her aunt’s house, Prudence, in a sidelong glance, noted Margaret’s pale face crumpling with distress again. “Meg, do pull yourself together, I beg you. If Aunt Judith sees you carrying on like this, she’ll suffer a spasm.”
Margaret choked back a sob and straightened her posture a little.
“I shudder to consider what the Greenwoods must think of your vulgar display of emotion this afternoon,” Prudence hissed. She removed her hat with a jerk at the ribbons. “Even Clarissa seemed taken aback by your unseemly behavior.”
“I shall call upon her tomorrow and confess my feelings for her brother,” Margaret said with a watery sniff.
“I would hardly think a confession will be necessary,” Prudence replied acidly, tugging at her gloves and dropping them on the small ivory-topped table in the foyer. “Clarissa has surely guessed by now, and Harry too no doubt. Or maybe he thinks you are just a silly pea goose.”
As she observed Margaret’s slumped shoulders and drooping lips, Prudence experienced an unexpected change of heart. The girl had been nursing a secret passion for Harry Paige for quite some time. Then she’d had to cope with an unwanted offer of marriage from James. The dread and guilt of not wanting to accept his offer—on top of nourishing hopes that one day Harry would return her love and affection—had left Margaret overwrought. No doubt she was at her wit’s end.
Considering her own emotional turmoil in the past weeks, Prudence decided she was in no position to judge her young cousin too harshly. Poor Meg! Still, she had been embarrassed by her cousin’s lack of composure. She could only imagine what her distressed aunt would say when she learned of it. Prudence was not surprised, however, when Aunt Judith reacted with predictable concern regarding the accident.
“I warned you something like this might happen,” Judith gasped, when informed of Harry Paige’s mishap. Her hand fluttered to her throat.
Prudence gave a snort of laughter. “You did not,” she protested. “You cautioned us against bees, chilling breezes, and unforeseen rain showers, but you said nothing about a simple accident befalling a clumsy young fool.”
“Harry is not a fool—nor is he clumsy!” Margaret declared, her eyes kindling.
Turning to her daughter, Judith reached for her, saying, “Margaret, are you sure you are all right? You look quite pulled. One would think you suffered your own mishap.” Her tone was anxious.
“I have a headache, Mama, nothing more,” Margaret replied.
“And it is no wonder she has a headache,” Prudence spoke up, turning to her aunt. “Meg has been crying her eyes out ever since Harry tumbled down the hill. I confess I was greatly embarrassed by her immodest display of emotion. Harry Paige did nothing more than sprain his ankle and wound his manly pride. I daresay the doctor will give him a teaspoon of laudanum to help him sleep and require a cool compress to be placed upon the ankle to reduce the swelling.”
“What he needs is an onion and potato poultice,” Judith said knowingly. “It is the best thing for swelling.”
“Poor Harry,” Margaret lamented, lips trembling. Prudence heaved an impatient sigh.
“My dear, I can see for myself you are quite worn out by this day’s misadventure,” Judith said, hurrying forward to take her daughter in her arms. “You should be in bed.”
“Yes, Meg is worn to a frazzle,” Prudence agreed. She studied Margaret’s pale countenance, the droop of her lower lip. Prudence felt out of sorts with her sniffling cousin. She frowned as she watched Margaret retrieve a crumpled handkerchief from the sleeve of her dress, using it to wipe her eyes and blow her nose—now pink and slightly swollen in appearance. Never had Prudence realized such a difference in their ages and temperament before today.
“Go to your room, Margaret,” her mother ordered. “I shall be up presently. You’ve worn yourself to a thread with weeping, and I’ll not have you contract a fever. I will bring you a fortifying cordial,” she promised. Turning to Prudence, she added rather accusingly, “I did caution you that something might happen.”
“But nothing happened to Margaret,” Prudence pointed out. “Tell her to stop crying. It will go a long
way, I believe, in preventing a fatal decline.” She watched her cousin ascend the stairs with a weary posture. Margaret did appear worn out. Embarrassed then by her show of temper, Prudence apologized. “I am sorry, Aunt Judith. I believe I may be overtired as well. It has been a trying day. Margaret has sorely tested my patience.”
The day, in fact, had been lovely. Only Margaret’s humiliating behavior had cast a pall. Prudence wondered too what Eleanor Greenwood’s unrevealed surprise might be. She would have to make a point of asking her later as the couple had had no opportunity to share their bit of exciting news. A surge of homesickness washed over Prudence then. Perhaps she should consider returning home earlier than she’d originally planned. But as she contemplated making the necessary travel arrangements, she was struck by a disturbing notion: once she left Bath she would in all likelihood never see James again. This horrid possibility caused her to experience a queasiness in the pit of her stomach.
“Was her behavior so unseemly?”
“What?” Prudence asked, distracted.
“Margaret’s behavior?” Judith asked, turning to watch her daughter’s retreating figure. “Was it truly shocking?”
“It was shameful. What Mrs. Paige will say when Clarissa tells her of it, I shudder to think. You must be diligent in your efforts to keep Margaret from wearing a path to their door. Harry’s mother will not want my cousin constantly underfoot while her son is convalescing.”
Judith sniffed into her handkerchief, closing her eyes briefly. “Perhaps you could speak with her, Pru?” she suggested in a meek voice.
Prudence sighed. “Aunt Judith, how can you think Meg will listen to my admonitions? She did not do so when it was a matter of accepting Sir James’s marriage proposal.”
“But this is different.”
“Is it?” Prudence queried. “I do not see how.”
“Margaret did not care for Sir James,” her aunt pointed out. “But she cares for Harry Paige, perhaps more than either of us imagined.”
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