The Battling Bluestocking

by Scott, Amanda

  Lady Gordon chuckled, her equanimity completely restored. “Since dearest Papa himself gave Jessica that pistol because of all her traveling about from one relative to another, I doubt he would say much more than that she has been stirring the stewpot again,” she said, grinning at her sister. “I’d forgotten it is your habit to carry it in your muff, however.”

  “Well,” said Lord Gordon indignantly, rounding upon her before Jessica could reply, “your papa may use such a vulgar expression, though I’ve certainly never heard him do so, but it ill becomes you to let such words fall from your lips, Georgeanne.” His brows were heavily furrowed. “I don’t know how it is that you so often forget yourself when your sister makes her annual visit to us, but I cannot help but think her influence upon you is a deleterious one. Unless you take care to resist that influence, I shall find myself forced in future to consider refusing to allow you the pleasure of her company.”

  “Oh, no, Cyril!” her ladyship exclaimed, turning beseeching eyes up toward his stern ones. “I’m sure I beg your pardon if I said anything to offend you. I shall take good care not to do so again.”

  Lord Gordon patted her hand comfortingly but stiffened when Jessica’s musical laughter rippled through the coach.

  “Don’t be a peagoose, Georgie,” she said. “Cyril is merely ruffling his feathers because he is put out with me at the moment. And it is patently unfair of you, sir,” she added, shaking her head at him, “to threaten poor Georgie like that when what you really wish to do is to come to cuffs with me. Not that you ever win such confrontations, of course. Nonetheless, you know perfectly well that, despite our differences, you look forward to my annual visits simply because your servants are never so efficient or your household so well run as when I am present to see to those things for you. Confess now that you were put out this year when I delayed my arrival in order to devote the time necessary to reorganize Madeleine’s household to accommodate the new heir.”

  It was Jessica’s habit each year to leave her fond parents to care for each other at the family home in Gloucestershire, in order to engage in a tour of certain other relatives’ homes. She was happiest when she felt needed, and her talents for organization and basic housekeeping were generally much admired by those who exploited them. Lord Gordon, however, had a preference for more submissive females, and much as he might enjoy the fruits of her efficiency, he could not approve of Jessica’s forthright manner of speech.

  “Nonsense,” he retorted now as color suffused his jowly cheeks. “I am persuaded that your younger sister appreciated your assistance after suffering through the dreadful ordeal of childbirth, but it is surely coming it a bit strong to suggest that you reorganized the Earl of Porth’s entire household. You overrate your abilities. Furthermore, you’ve not the slightest sense of delicacy, and if you encourage Madeleine to flout Porth’s authority the way you continually encourage Georgeanne to flout mine, I am certain the man was glad to see the back of you.” After that promising start, and pointedly ignoring a weak murmur of protest from his wife, he plunged with renewed vigor into a full-scale diatribe, describing in detail his sister-in-law’s shortcomings and how he’d have dealt with them if he’d been so unfortunate as to have had the raising of her.

  Jessica heard him out meekly, merely donning her pink gloves before inserting her hands once again into the huge chinchilla muff, and regarding Lord Gordon with wide, solemn eyes. When he had finished, she gave that characteristic little shake of her head and favored him with an admiring look.

  “It is the most amazing thing, Cyril,” she said earnestly, “but you never seem to lose yourself in verbiage, no matter how furious you get. When I lose my temper, I always seem to get my tongue tangled just when I want to make my most telling point. Papa does, too. You deliver a far better scold than he does, doesn’t he, Georgie?” She turned to her sister for confirmation of that interesting fact, but poor Lady Gordon, appalled to find herself included in such a discussion, merely shrank back into her corner. Jessica smiled encouragingly, but her gray eyes glittered with suppressed anger.

  “It is quite all right, my dear,” she said. “I understand perfectly why you go in such awe of him. So much sound and fury. You never did react well to blustering. No doubt it is only when you see his little rages directed at me that you can recognize them for the simple expulsions of overheated air that they really are.” An indignant gasp from her brother-in-law drew her attention, and she bit her lower lip ruefully. “I should not have said that, Cyril. It was not at all becoming of me. One day this wretched temper of mine will be my undoing, but you really have no right to scold me in such a fashion. I am of age, you know, and you have no authority over me. However, we shall not quarrel anymore today, so you may be calm. I am persuaded that it cannot be at all good for your health…all that blood rushing to your face like that. Oh, look,” she added as the coach passed between a pair of tall stone-mounted wrought-iron gates, flanked by enormous yew hedges, and past a staring, ruddy-cheeked lodge keeper, “I do believe we must have arrived at Shaldon Park.”

  Though he was quite puffed up with offended indignation, Lord Gordon was momentarily diverted by Jessica’s words and cast a glance out the window. The respite was a brief one, however, and he soon renewed his tirade, assuring her that as master of the house in which she was presently residing, he did indeed have every right to scold, and adding a catalog of Jessica’s misbehavior over the past five or six years’ worth of visits to Gordon Hall. Though she did not interrupt, she paid not the slightest heed to him now, fixing her interest instead upon the lovely hedge-protected park through which they were passing and upon the distant occasionally glimpsed view, beyond the tall, thick hedges and a wide variety of flowering and deciduous trees, of the gray Atlantic, which had become visible again as a result of their having been traveling steadily uphill. A few moments later, she enjoyed a brief view of gray water from either window, for Shaldon Park was located just at the point where Cornwall narrows before flaring into the rounded hook known as Land’s End or, more properly, the Penwith Peninsula. The neck of the peninsula being a mere four miles wide at that point, visitors to Shaldon Park were thus rewarded on clear days and from specific vantage points with a spectacular view of the Atlantic to the north and west and the English Channel to the south.

  “Tell me about Sir Brian Gregory,” Jessica said, suddenly curious to know more about the man who owned Shaldon Park.

  Since she had cut into his lecture mid-sentence, Lord Gordon looked more offended than ever, but because he could not resist puffing off his knowledge of the local gentry, he responded more temperately than might otherwise have been the case.

  “Undoubtedly the wealthiest landowner in this part of Cornwall,” he said grandly. “Owns a dozen mines here, in Devon, and in Somerset, plus a plantation—sugar, I believe—in the Indies.”

  “Goodness,” Jessica said, properly impressed. “Have I ever had the privilege of meeting this King Midas?”

  Lord Gordon frowned in disapproval of her levity, but his lady shook her head. “I cannot think that you have,” she replied, “for he was abroad when you visited us last year, and I think he was nearly always gone to London for the Season just prior to your annual visit to us. I know he generally departs several weeks before we do. He does occasionally favor us with a call, and twice he has accepted invitations to dine, but we rarely meet him in London, and being a bachelor, he does not entertain here. He’s very handsome,” she added with a sidelong glance at her husband. “At least, I think he is.”

  “Rubbish,” pronounced her spouse. “Man’s a fine rider to the hounds…A Melton man, you know…keeps a snug little box in Leicestershire. Excellent seat. But he pays scant heed to the proper mode of fashion. Dresses all by guess. Not the sort of fellow to attract the ladies at all.” Lord Gordon smoothed his coat with a finicking finger as if to punctuate his statement.

  “My goodness, Cyril,” Jessica murmured dulcetly, “how well you understand our sex.”
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br />   “Bound to,” he replied, puffing out his cheeks. “Been on the town since I don’t know when. A goodly number of years—must be twenty by now, I expect. Fancy I ought to know a point more than the devil.”

  “Indeed.” She smiled at him sweetly, winked at her startled sister, then leaned forward to peer out the window, hoping to catch a view of the house that went with the beautiful park. Dusky pink wild roses were budding along the roadside, and daisies waved their cheerful heads in a nearby grassy meadow. Then, just ahead and above them on the hillside, loomed the house. It was built in the Palladian style of mellow South Somerset sandstone from the Hamdon Hall quarries, its broad central facade domed in white Luxulyanite, an attractive porphyritic granite quarried from the Cornish village which gave it its name. The two flanking wings boasted white colonnades of the same sun-glinting granite.

  Jessica expelled a little sigh of satisfaction. The house was exactly as she had hoped it would be, a jewel set off by the flower-filled park surrounding it. As they drew nearer, the carriage wheels crunched on gravel, and she could see a well-tended drive circling a smoothly scythed lawn, in the center of which was a white marble unicorn, rampant, hooves raised in what appeared to be an enthusiastic welcome to approaching guests. A moment later they drew to a halt before sweeping steps that led to the portico, and glancing back at the unicorn, Jessica observed that his left eye was closed in an unmistakable wink. That little bit of whimsy made her more curious than ever to meet the owner of Shaldon Park.

  2

  “YOU LADIES WILL REMAIN in the carriage whilst I attend to this matter,” Lord Gordon stated firmly as a gray-livery-clad flunky ran down the broad granite steps to open the door of the coach.

  Ignoring him, Jessica accepted the aid of the flunky and descended to the gravel drive. A statuesque young woman, she was broad of shoulder and hip and narrow of waist, and nearly as tall as the lad who assisted her. Twitching her gray wool skirt into place, she straightened her hat, settled her muff on her left arm, ignored her brother-in-law’s indignant muttering, and turned to see where the highwayman had gone.

  He had managed to dismount unassisted and was presently looping his reins through a ring at the top of a white post set into the ground near the bottom left of the steps. He glanced up as she watched him, but he was not looking at her. Instead, he seemed to be watching the flunky, who was now assisting Lady Gordon from the coach. Lord Gordon followed a moment later, and the youth turned his attention to the highwayman. Jessica saw the lad’s eyes widen, but he looked quickly away again, almost, she thought, as if he had received some sort of signal. She looked again at the highwayman, but he returned her look blandly with nothing more than a slight twinkle in his eyes.

  “Shall we go in?” he asked, gesturing to the others to lead the way.

  “Seems to me you’re in a dashed almighty hurry,” Lord Gordon told him suspiciously.

  “Only to have the matter over and done,” was the response.

  “You’ll be hanging from a gallows once this is over and done, my lad,” his lordship informed him roundly. “I shouldn’t think you’d be in such a headlong rush to reach that end.”

  “Oh, I’ll wager it won’t come to that, my lord,” the highwayman returned with an ironic little chuckle.

  He seemed momentarily more sure of himself, Jessica thought, her curiosity by now thoroughly aroused. There was a hint of cockiness now, too, and the attitude was no longer appealing. Indeed, what had appeared to be boyish impudence before now seemed little more than insolence, and it was beginning to irritate Miss Sutton-Drew.

  They moved up the steps toward the tall, highly polished double doors that marked the entrance to the house. There was no need to knock, of course, for their arrival had been noted by those within, and the doors swung wide as they drew near. A stately butler admitted them, informing Lord Gordon that Sir Brian was in his bookroom and would receive them at once. Jessica noticed that the highwayman slouched a little and kept his head turned away from the butler. However, if that worthy thought it odd that he was admitting a masked man with a bloodstained jacket to his master’s house, he gave no sign of it, merely requesting that they take seats in the drawing room, off the hall to the right, while he went to inform his master of their arrival.

  The drawing room, like the entry hall, was elegantly appointed. Jessica mused that despite Lord Gordon’s condemnation of his mode of dress, Sir Brian’s house showed no sign of not being well-tended. Blue velvet curtains hung at tall diamond-paned windows on two sides of the room. The front windows overlooked the drive and the lawn with the winking unicorn, and those at the side overlooked ornamental shrubbery and neatly tended formal flowerbeds. The furnishings appeared to be mostly Sheraton, from the striped blue-and-silver-silk-covered mahogany settee facing the fireplace to the slim-legged side chairs near the wall. Several tables, including a splendid satin wood sideboard banded with rosewood inlays, also stood near the walls, which were papered in a subie pattern of blue pinstripes set wide apart on a cream background. A series of blue-gray-and-pink Aubusson carpets covered the highly polished wood floor, while silver accessories and bowls of brilliantly colored flowers completed the decor.

  The room appeared to be lived in and homey, despite the formality of most of the furniture.

  Adding to the casual air was a leather-bound book that had been left open on the settee. Jessica picked it up and shut it as she took her seat. If the person reading it lost his place, so much the better, she thought. Maybe next time he would mark his place properly instead of taking the risk of damaging the book. It was a good one, though, one of her favorites, Marmion by Walter Scott. She preferred the Gothic romances that her father and many others so heartily disapproved of, but she loved good poetry, too. She wondered if Sir Brian had been reading the book.

  “You might as well take off that mask now,” Lord Gordon said testily, glaring at the highwayman, who had been watching Jessica.

  The masked man hesitated indecisively for a moment, but then with a darting glance at Lady Gordon, he shook his head. “Not yet, I think,” he said, adding, “By Jove, though, with your leave, I will take a seat. I seem to have gone a trifle weak at the knees.”

  He looked dangerously pale, Jessica thought, and the light of amusement had vanished completely from his eyes. As he sank with obvious gratitude onto one of the side chairs, he watched the door leading into the hall, and it seemed to Jessica that the apprehension she had noted earlier had manifestly increased.

  Lady Gordon sat down upon the settee beside Jessica, and his lordship moved toward one of the tall front windows. He peered outside for a brief moment before turning back and addressing the room at large.

  “I say, where is Gregory? His man said he would be with us immediately. I cannot like attending to this sort of business with ladies present. I don’t know what I can have been thinking of to allow the two of you to accompany me.”

  The highwayman regarded him over his mask, a glint of amusement returning to his eyes for the moment. “Can’t say I noticed that you were given a deal of choice in the matter, my lord.”

  “That’s enough of your impudence, my lad. You’ll be singing a different tune once Sir Brian has you in charge, I daresay.”

  The highwayman fell silent, clearly giving consideration to his lordship’s words. Then he said in a more subdued tone, “I wager you’re in the right of it, my lord. Moreover, something tells me I shall do better without the mask, as you suggested earlier.” So saying, with his right hand he first pulled off the disreputable slouch hat, dropping it onto the floor beside him and attempting to smooth his tousled hair. Then, with the same hand, he reached back and, not without some difficulty, loosened the knot holding the mask in place, letting it fall forward, then pulling It from his shirt collar and dropping it on the hat. Lady Gordon gasped at the sight of the handsome young face thus revealed, and the highwayman smiled ruefully at her. “I was afraid you might recognize me, ma’am. We met some months ago, did we not?�
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  Jessica stared at her sister in amazement, but before Lady Gordon could speak, the door opened from the hall and the butler announced Sir Brian Gregory.

  As she turned to take her first look at the owner of Shaldon Park, Jessica noted that the highwayman’s rueful smile had lingered, but this time it seemed to be directed at the man just entering the room. A look passed between the two, and Sir Brian’s dark eyes narrowed slightly, but otherwise he seemed only mildly surprised as he looked over the persons waiting to speak to him.

  Her brother-in-law’s strictures notwithstanding, Jessica liked the look of her host very much. He was certainly no dandy, and she doubted very much if even the Corinthian set would claim him to its membership, unless of course he was indeed the very apt sportsman that Lord Gordon seemed to think he was.

  He appeared to be some five or six years older than she was herself, and he was a good deal taller, too, well over six feet, with broad, muscular shoulders and slim hips. His dark brown riding coat had clearly been cut for comfort rather than style, and though his shirt was white and clean, the breeches he wore above polished top boots were scarcely what her mother would have decreed as proper attire to greet ladies in his drawing room. He wore no jewelry except for a carved emerald signet ring upon his right hand. Nonetheless, she agreed with her sister that the man had the sort of looks that she liked best. His dark blond hair looked thick and windswept without appearing to have been coaxed and bullied into the style, and his face, framed by smooth side whiskers, was deeply tanned, with strong, firmly etched features. The nose was straight and well-shaped, the chin square with an almost stubborn look to it, and the lips twitching now with a touch of humor that also lit his deep brown eyes. The man seemed to radiate an arrogant vitality that appealed to Miss Sutton-Drew deeply.