Miss Spencer Rides Astride (Heroines on Horseback)

by Alexander, Sydney

  But he did not.

  Mr. Spencer flung his hat down upon a convenient table and commenced to pace the room, his boots squashing the faded Indian carpets beneath his feet, the floor boards creaking in protest. Up and down the little parlor he stalked, his hands fisted behind him. Grainne fancied she could fairly hear his teeth grinding. She waited, heart in her throat.

  At last he stopped his marching and turned. “Grainne — ” he began, and then stopped, as if words failed him. He turned his gaze away from her and looked out the window behind her divan, gazing out at the little stretch of grass and dead brown stalks that was the house’s autumn garden. “Grainne, you have deceived me,” he ground out at last. “Most grievously. You have consorted with a gypsy and a horse thief. You nearly lost Lord Kilreilly’s finest mare. I cannot pretend to understand what sort of meaning all of this mischief had to you. I cannot begin to imagine what plans you had made with this… this man.” He spat out the word, as if he could not believe he was using it to describe such a low creature. “All I can know is that you have run free and wild for too long, and it is time you were brought to heel. It is time you learned restraint, and discipline, and manners. All the things that you have taught the horses so beautifully.” He paused, and Grainne leapt up from the divan before he could continue.

  “Do not say it, father,” she pleaded, voice cracking with despair. “Do not say you will keep me indoors, and try to make a wilting flower out of me. I cannot bear it.”

  “I cannot bear what you have become!” Mr. Spencer’s own voice cracked unhappily, and he wrung his hands behind his back, but he still would not look at her. “I cannot bear that your mother should have ever seen you this way: dressed like a stable lad, all day in the saddle, without a polite word or a pretty gesture to recommend you. And to fall in with horse thieves!” He spun at last, and Grainne shrank back from the grief in his eyes. “To sink so far beneath your station in life as to think to consort with horse thieves. Oh, Grainne, my daughter, things have gone too far.”

  Grainne sank back down on the divan, hands trembling. She thought the high military collar of her riding habit was going to choke her. She thought that being forced to stay indoors and play the lady would kill her.

  But her father’s voice became implacable and smooth as he found his stride, enumerating in detail the activities that would fill her days henceforth. The sewing and cooking lessons with Mrs. Kinney, the dance lessons with Miss Cavendish, the governess up at the Big House who minded Lord Kilreilly’s three silly granddaughters. The visits to the village dressmaker to order up a more suitable wardrobe for a young lady whose family was, although perhaps not aristocratic, still irrefutably gentlefolk.

  “You shall learn to run a household, as you should have learned when you were a girl,” Mr. Spencer intoned. “And you shall marry a suitable man, and my shortcomings as a father shall not have failed you in the end.”

  Grainne could not reply; she was breathless with tears at the end of this recitation. And her father, having shaken her world to its very foundations, left the room without another word, nor a glance back at the daughter he had let run wild for ten years.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Peregrin arrived, unexpected and unasked-for, on a grey afternoon, alighting from a post chaise with all the lightness of a vagabond on the run. “My hunters are on their way much more slowly,” he confided to William by way of a greeting. “I would never hurry such fine beasts. I trust you will see to their care yourself, as you love me.”

  William could scarcely believe his eyes. “What in God’s name are you doing here, man? I thought you in London, keeping an eye on Violetta for me.”

  “Come to do a little hunting, of course! Kilreilly was good enough to invite me, and I cannot turn down a gallop on these downs. And besides,” he added with a sidelong grin. “I wanted to come and check your resolve. Alas, your affianced bride is unwavering in her devotion.”

  “My resolve!” William started trudging up the muddy road towards his cottage, without bothering to see if Peregrin would follow. “Do you doubt my ability to hide from my father and marriage for time immemorial? For it is absolutely necessary to my sanity, I can assure you.”

  “Marriage, for certain.” Peregrin's bright face darkened a little. “But you know… your father's health… that might be a different measure of your soul, my friend.”

  William stopped in his tracks and faced Peregrin. The rain dripped from his wide-brimmed hat and down his back. His voice was as bleak as the cold Irish sky when he spoke, slowly and deliberately, determined to overpower Peregrin’s constant japing for once. “I receive no reports from London in this God-forsaken place. No one in my acquaintance even takes the papers. I am not invited to the earl’s house, of course. You must tell me, what is happening?”

  Peregrin winced. “He’s been confined to his house, William. He’s been ill since just after you disappeared. A report was put about that you had gone to the continent and he could not bear the loss.”

  William stared at his old friend, but his eyes were unseeing. He hated his father, he despised his father, he wanted to make his father pay, didn’t he? So why did he feel so despondent at the thought of the old man dying alone?

  He hadn’t always hated him, that was why. William felt a stinging wetness at the corner of his eyes.

  Peregrin, clearly nervous, clapped his hand on William’s shoulder, attempting to lighten his mood. “I don’t think he’s in any true danger at the present, William. He’s never been a frail man, you know that. But if I hear anything to the contrary, I will certainly inform you directly.” He paused, and chose his next words carefully. “You said when you came here that you would outlast either Violetta or him, you know,” he said quietly. “I do not know if you meant that in truth or in temper. But Violetta waits prettily for your return. It may be him you are outlasting after all.”

  William could only shake his head at him. Peregrin took his elbow. “Come,” he said. “Before we both catch our deaths, and your father and Violetta outlive us both.”

  ***

  Grainne refused to get out of bed, and poor little Emer was nearly in hysterics.

  “Miss Grainne, come now miss, there will be the most terrible trouble if ye don’t get up. Himself will be in a fierce temper and ye know he hasn’t been any good to anyone since… since…” She fumbled for words.

  “Since he found out I was going to run away with a horse thief?” Grainne asked flatly. She tucked the counterpane up beneath her chin. “I do not care.”

  “Oh miss… Such a thing to say… You were doing no such thing, miss!”

  “I was,” Grainne said matter-of-factly. She saw no need to sugar-coat things. “I fancied myself in love with a horse thief. Isn't that funny, Emer? All I care about are those horses. Do you know, I do believe I had simply forgotten that Gretna wasn’t mine, or even father’s, at all? I thought of her as mine. And now I shall never ride her again.” She slid dull eyes towards the window. “And who rides her now, I wonder?” The rain slid down the pane of glass. “No one today, I suppose. She will stand in her box and gaze outdoors. And I shall do the same.”

  Emer was well and truly frightened now. A village girl by birth, she had spent a few barefoot years watching the master of hounds, grand as any lord, trample the fields and scatter the children in the lanes with his snorting, plunging horses, before her mother gratefully gave her into service and she was sent below stairs at the master’s pretty little manor. She had been terrified of the master when she had first come into his home, and six years in his service, badgered by the venerable Mrs. Kinney, had not improved her impressions of him.

  Only the daughter of the house had been kind to her, when they were both young together, a child in service and a child of privilege.

  She remembered now the fearless young girl who had always kept her pony hard at the master’s heels in the old days, and thought she should like to see Grainne stay as fierce and wild forever.

&
nbsp; But she could not go on as she had been, dressed as a man, riding astride like a man, giving orders like a man. The world did not like women who were fierce and wild, however beautiful. Miss Grainne would just have to learn to live in gowns and stays, Emer thought. It wasn’t the best fate for a bird so used to soaring, but neither was being turned out of her father's house. She went on pleading with her mistress to get out of bed and eat her breakfast like a good girl.

  Eventually Emer’s plaintive cajoling won and Grainne slunk gracelessly from her bed, trailing half the bedclothes across the floor, and allowed herself to be plied with tea and bound into her little-used stays and dressed in chemise and petticoat and a plain morning dress. It was cut modestly, but even so, Grainne and Emer both had occasion to raise their eyebrows when they stood before the pier glass and saw the abundance of bosom that Grainne had been contemptuously hiding beneath loose peasant blouses and an indifference to proper stays.

  “They’re like a pair of ripe melons,” Grainne offered vulgarly, rather taken aback by her unused curves.

  “Oh miss,” Emer breathed, feeling as though her time to shine as a lady’s maid had come at last, and unwilling to lose it, “You are beautiful as any grand lady in Dublin.”

  Grainne smiled wryly at her own reflection. “It is a pity I am only the cousin of an earl, and not a very close one, for I think you would very much like to see Dublin.”

  “Wouldn't you, miss?" Emer had never been beyond the clutch of thatched cottages that was the village. She had never even been beyond the iron gates of Kilreilly’s estate, for all that her sister Bridie was in service there. She longed to see Dublin.

  “I cannot imagine a city of brick, with a sky of smoke, to be more alluring than the prospect out of that window.” Grainne glanced over at her window and laughed at the dull sky and the rivulets of rain streaming down the glass. “I would wager it even rains in Dublin, too.”

  ***

  William thought he had never seen so much rain, and as an Englishman, that was really saying something. He had been in the yard since first light, what little there was of it, throwing dirty straw out of boxes by lamplight. The other lads had arrived, tried to engage him in their usual banter and general foolishness, and been snubbed for their pains. Now they were ignoring him outright, willing to wait until his temper abated, and starting to tack up horses and take them out to exercise despite the foul weather. William himself, finding that he was entirely out of straw to stab with a pitchfork, tipped the last bin into the muck pile and went trudging through the rain to fetch his saddle.

  He ignored the lads on the ménage and took Bald Nick out onto the soggy meadows, thinking to find some ground solid enough for a good gallop, but everywhere the footing was slick and treacherous. He pulled up the big chestnut and sat for a little while under a half-bare elm tree, thinking.

  There, just after the crown-piece of Nick’s bridle and just before his pricked ears, was a tiny hairless line, edged in stark white fur. It was the last remnant of the scalping he’d taken while crashing Grainne through a five-barred gate. That and a faintly-perceptible tensing of his body as they galloped up to another such obstacle in the fields. But Grainne had come through that terrible accident without fear. She was truly, utterly fearless, William decided, and the thought filled him with a fierce protectiveness and pride so strong that he wanted to turn back and race like a madman to the house where her father had imprisoned her.

  But it was not his place. Grainne might be wonderful, and of admirable spirit and an irrepressible nature that was unlike anything he had observed in a female before, but she was still, when one was brutally honest, a disobedient daughter whose father had every right, indeed, responsibility, to take her strongly in-hand and teach her how a young lady of good breeding must behave in society.

  William sighed. The voice in his head sermonizing sounded exactly like his father’s. Another topic he didn't feel up to exploring his feelings on.

  When he arrived back at the yard Peregrin was there, supervising the bedding-down of two sleek and large-boned hunters. William handed his reins to an astonished Tommy, quite forgetting that he wasn’t The Young Lord here, and hurried to greet his friend. He had been a surly churl last night, leaving Peregrin to tramp alone to the Big House in the dripping rain while he scowled at the fire and thought of his father. Now he put on a big smile, hoping to gain forgiveness. “Perry, you must be mad to bring your horses to this godforsaken isle. Surely we are all going to be washed into the sea by this endless rain.”

  Peregrin clapped him on the back, evidently bearing no hard feelings for the night before. “I ask for but a few clear days. The hunting here is truly capital. And you should know, huntsman.”

  William laughed and was just walking over to examine the much-vaunted hunters in their boxes when he had a prickling realization that all eyes were upon him. At first he could not understand the scrutiny. Then, as Peregrin walked up to the stall door, Seamus backed out of his way with a bob of the head and William realized that his familiar fashion with a member of the gentry was not typical for a huntsman in a stable yard. Dammit! Had he just outed himself as a fraud and a peer?

  “Mr. Fawkes and I have done much hunting together back in England,” William said quickly, hoping to cover up his mistake.

  Peregrin at once recognized their mistake. “Indeed,” he agreed. “Archer and I have become close as brothers. Nothing bonds like the love of good horses, wouldn’t you agree?”

  Tommy, who was still holding Bald Nick’s reins, only grunted. But Seamus brightened and agreed, and the other lads followed suit. William threw Peregrin a grateful glance and went to retrieve Nick and soothe Tommy's ruffled feathers.

  ***

  “But where is the girl?” Peregrin asked later, as they sat down to tea before William’s fire. “I would have liked to have seen those legs in breeches.”

  “I think that’s all over,” William said regretfully. “I caught her behaving particularly badly, and her father swears she will never ride another horse of his.”

  “My God man!” Peregrin looked appalled. “I would have run you out of the country on a rail for ruining that splendid creature. What could she possibly have done? And was it with you? Can’t have been; that fellow would have leg-shackled you in an afternoon, for all that you’ve got neither birth nor fortune.”

  “What!”

  “Not here, you idiot. How many times do you forget your disguise every day, I wonder? It’s a mercy I am here to remind you that your name is Archer, not Archwood. Now stop your stalling and tell me what you did to ruin the girl.”

  “Of course it wasn’t me,” William sputtered impatiently. “She gets into trouble enough on her own. She fancied herself in love with some gypsy with a gilded tongue and managed to get a fine horse stolen before all was finished.”

  “A gilded tongue,” Peregrin mused. “And is that how he ruined her?”

  William glared. “She wasn’t ruined. But it was a near enough thing. Had I not caught her trying to run away with him, she might have been. But nothing happened and the association is being hushed up. And she shan’t be allowed back to the yard. I’m to be in charge now.”

  Peregrin lifted an eyebrow. “Head huntsman! And so soon! What a gifted horseman you must be.”

  William poured another cup of tea, and then added a dash of whiskey. Peregrin’s needling was getting under his skin for some reason. “Irish warmer,” he fibbed. “At any rate, it was my understanding that Spencer always meant for me to take over the yard from his daughter; he just hadn’t managed to rein her in yet.”

  “But now he has.”

  “Yes, certainly looks that way.”

  “Because of you.”

  “Because I was protecting her.”

  “You were watching her,” Peregrin persisted, grinning.

  “She was a lady on the hunt field,” William said stubbornly. “I am honor-bound to keep an eye on her safety.”

  “The lady would disagre
e, I’ll wager,” Peregrin chuckled.

  William made no reply. His thoughts were in turmoil, though. Grainne must hate him. He was the one responsible for her downfall, he was the one who ensured she was wrenched from the life that she loved and locked away within doors, he was the one who profited from her shame and punishment by taking on the role of head huntsman.

  She must think him a villain.

  He drank down his doctored tea all in a gulp and promptly choked.

  “Will?” Peregrin was watching his spluttering with some concern. “Should I punch you in the stomach? I once saw a fishmonger do that to an urchin who tried to steal a fish and swallow it whole. The fish came up and the urchin ran away.”

  “A happy ending indeed,” William coughed. “But no thank you.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Dressed for dinner but with her face fit for a funeral, Grainne came down the front stairs to find Mr. Maxwell being welcomed into the house by Mrs. Kinney. She tried to turn right back around, but caught a heel in the little train of her gown and stumbled, nearly falling down the stairs. Mrs. Kinney and Mr. Maxwell looked up at her in some alarm.

  “My dear Miss Spencer, are you quite all right?” Mr. Maxwell asked. She wondered if he purposely spoke through his nose or if it was some nasty case of swollen glands.

  That he had been suffering from since childhood.

  “I am fine, thank you,” she murmured. In reality, she thought that she would have been better off if she’d fallen down the stairs and broken her neck; there’d be none of this ghastly charade with Mr. Maxwell.

  Emer had dressed her so carefully for dinner that she had known there was some sort of mischief afoot. Twenty minutes into the curling of her hair, a distasteful practice which required her to sit absolutely still lest Emer burn her, or her hair, just to achieve ringlets which she thought did nothing for her face at all, she had very carefully, moving her jaw as little as possible, asked Emer if she’d heard anything about traveling to Dublin.