Emer had shaken her head. “No one is planning any trips, miss,” she said regretfully. “I had been hopin’ we’d go for the Christmas week, at least, and I could get a good look at how the maids dress their ladies there before you go into society. But no one’s sayin’ a thing.”
Grainne swallowed. “Emer, I must tell you, I would not set much stock in going. I think the threats of my father to put me into dancing lessons and send me to Dublin to be presented were idle. He will not spend so much time.”
“Why would you say that, miss?” Emer’s hand jumped a little, and Grainne knew she’d struck a nerve. She’d have to be careful though, or she’d end up scarred for life by that cursed curling iron.
“Just a thought I had,” Grainne said carelessly. “Perhaps I am only being whimsical. We shall see what happens.”
Her maid’s nervousness belied her secret, as did the lengthy hair-dressing, and so Grainne had fully expected a guest at dinner. Someone that would affect her future life as a lady. There was no one who could have been invited who might have pleased her, but Mr. Maxwell… he was just dreadful.
Mrs. Kinney just shook her head. Mr. Spencer, who had heard the racket and come to investigate, looked grim. But he said nothing to her. Instead, he looked at his guest. “Mr. Maxwell, pray join Miss Spencer and I in the parlor while we await dinner.” She steeled herself for his cold hand on her elbow, and let him steer her into the dim chamber and guide her to a divan. The gentlemen began to speak of planting wheat, and she was left to gaze out the rain-streaked windows, as she had been doing nearly all day. Her life had grown very dull, she thought. And installed as the mistress of Boyle House, she would do the same thing there. She would just gaze out of different windows.
They sat down to dinner, a very quiet and solemn group, and no sooner had the soup been served then Mr. Maxwell opened his plump lips and began to describe a beautiful sheepdog he had observed at a fair in the next county.
Grainne put her spoon back down on the napkin and turned her attention back out of the windows. She would go mad within a month of the wedding, she supposed.
***
Peregrin had scarcely been gone two hours, having removed himself to Lord Kilreilly’s house for supper, when William heard footsteps on the path outside.
He had been sitting before the fire and drinking ever since Peregrin left. The Irish were no fools when it came to whiskey, and he’d been drinking superior stuff for some time, but that bottle had been emptied and set carefully on the mantlepiece, and now he had broken into something significantly more raw. It was a peasant’s liquor, he told himself, since he himself was not much more than a peasant anymore. No birth and no portion, that’s what this life was, he sighed to the glass and the fire. Just this cottage and the charge of the horses in the earl’s hunting stable. No wife and no family, just this bottle and the company of the flames.
Perhaps he’d get a dog. A man could be friends with a dog.
He was starting to despair, in truth, that he would not be able to go home for some time. If Peregrin was right, and Violetta was steadfastly waiting for him in London, still giggling with her vapid confidantes about her future as a countess, still lying in bed until the afternoon hours drinking chocolate and reading the gossip sheets, hoping to see her name… he could not go back. He could not marry the twit. Not for anyone. Certainly not for his father. He had never been able to please his father, no matter how high he jumped or how fast he galloped, and he had no talent in anything else. He was not a banker nor a lawyer nor an importer, although his father thought that he should be able to embody all of those talents in order to run the family investments scattered around the Empire. He was only a farmer and a horseman. That was not good enough anymore, it seemed. A man of wealth must sit behind a desk and make more wealth.
He could not. It could never be.
His thoughts strayed, as ever, to Grainne. She could never be who she truly was, either, and it was his fault. He had caught her. He had turned her in to her father. He ought to march over to the house, and hand her his father’s address, so that she could write to the earl and give away his son’s cover. He had gone to ground, but Grainne could dig out his burrow and leave him to the hounds, and it would only be just and right of her.
And Grainne would marry Maxwell, and mope around his little estate, gazing disconsolately out of the windows at the sheep on the lawn, and he would have to marry Violetta, and endure her primping and her giggles and her empty-headed comments and those awful, awful fish-lips of hers.
William groaned.
There was a rap at the door, and the handle turned. William thought he should start locking the door.
“Will!”
He turned, so rapidly his head spun and his eyes crossed. Peregrin must have noticed, because he shook his head and looked cross. “This is how you spend your evenings? You’d be better off at Almack’s fighting off Violetta and drinking lemonade.”
“What else would I do?” William was impressed that he was not slurring his words. He was so very good at holding his drink. That was an accomplishment, father! “I am lying low.”
“Well, not anymore. You’re going back to England.”
William squinted. “What? You’re not making sense.”
“There was a courier sent to me at Kilreilly’s. I arranged to be notified at once if anything should change in London, of course. Your father has taken a turn. The doctor’s carriage is outside around the clock, the knocker is off the door; there is straw spread on the street. This could be the end, William.”
William gaped. “This cannot be true.” His drunken head was spinning now in truth, he thought. The room would not be still.
His father, dying! His father was a whirlwind, a man who never sat down unless it was behind a desk to sign papers and order correspondence, a man whose life was a constant whirl of activity and industry from morning until night. Such a man could not have taken to his bed, not even out of grief over a wayward son who would not do what he was told.
William suddenly felt all the weight of being that wayward son, of causing such grief. He had sent his own father into a decline so serious that the doctors were sighing over his bedside even now, as he lay about this Irish cot and drank the local rot-gut. “I must go back,” he said bleakly. “But I cannot. I swore I would outlast them both.”
Peregrin sighed and took the bottle from William before he could take another swallow. He eyed the clear liquid with distaste. “You are living the life of a peasant in truth,” he said drily. “Now attend to me. We were talking like fools before. You are the son of an earl. You cannot hide here while the estate goes without an heir. If your father should die and you are nowhere to be found, your cousin will stop at nothing to have you declared dead yourself, you understand that, do you not? And then you might as well stop here in Ireland for the rest of your days, or go to Australia to live amongst the convicts, it matters not, for you will have lost your estate and your fortune and your name.”
His cousin would like that, he supposed. William had never been close to his grasping relation. “Charles would have me officially deceased in a fortnight,” William agreed reluctantly. “But Peregrin,” he paused, swallowed, unsure that he should even bring up the subject, but it was too important to keep silent about. “There is this: there is the girl.”
“The girl?” Peregrin was hanging the kettle over the fire; whatever hurry he might be in to rouse William from the cottage, there was always time for tea.
“The master’s daughter… Grainne.”
“The one you caught lifting her skirts for a gypsy?”
William winced at his crude summation. “It wasn’t like that. She was duped. She was afraid her father was going to take away her charge of the stables, and keep her indoors like a young lady.”
“It sounds like that is exactly what she needs, if she is so wild.”
“It is my fault she was driven to such excess,” William insisted. “Her father meant to replace he
r with me from the first. She knew it. She saw my coming as the last nail in the coffin. She saw no other way out.”
“Will the kettle never boil!” Peregrin prodded at the kettle with a poker. “Listen, man, the girl was going to get into trouble one way or another. She already knew the gypsy when we arrived, remember? He was watching her at the horse fair. They probably cheated a dozen men in horse deals before you’d ever stepped foot in Ireland. Stop blaming yourself for a girl of little morals and less sense. You already have one of those waiting for you in London to worry about; there is no reason to saddle yourself with another.”
“I care about this girl, and there is the difference!” William cried defiantly. He jumped up from his rough wooden chair, fists clenched, and threw Peregrin a wild look. “I care about her deeply, and I cannot just go back to England while she is left here alone to deal with the fate that I brought upon her.”
Peregrin was unimpressed by his friend’s theatrics. “Liquor makes you a Shakespearean hero,” he said drily, leaning back in his chair and steepling his fingers. “Let us hope that tea returns you to a young Englishman of good sense.”
The kettle whistled.
“I’m going to say good-bye to her, at least,” William announced.
“You will do no such thing.” Peregrin had his back to William, hunched over the fireplace while he fussed with the kettle. “You will take your leave of her father in the morning, like a nice, normal gentleman, and offer your apologies to the lady of the house like a nice, normal gentleman, and we will hear no more of falling in love with stable-girls. William, must I remind you that we still have your engagement to Violetta to deal with? And that will be no easy nut to crack.”
The door slammed, and Peregrin turned around to see that he was alone in the cottage.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Grainne leaned on the chilly window-pane, chin on her palm, and gazed out through the cold moonlit night. The pastures down below the house were empty tonight; the horses in their boxes to safeguard them from the evening’s chilly rain, and the moon was shining down on fields so wet they glimmered like water meadows. Hardly fit for any sort of riding for days, she thought, if the weather does not break. There would be turned fetlocks and twisted knees, if the men were not careful.
The men. William Archer, the head huntsman, in charge of the lads, in her place. He was the one who would have to be careful of her darling horses. They were lost to her now, out of her reach, beyond her care.
Her father was downstairs, closeted in his library with Mr. Maxwell. She knew what they were talking about, and for once the subject with Mr. Maxwell would have little to do with sheep, unless he had come up with them somewhere in his dowry requirements. She fancied him leaning across her father’s table, his ears waggling, his muttonchops bristling, inquiring how many sheep she would bring with her to Boyle House. It would be the saddest marriage contract Ireland had ever seen.
And the saddest marriage.
She almost wished to go to Dublin instead, take her chances with the gentry there, learn to curtsy like a lady and perhaps stumble through a dance or two. But she knew what she had told Emer was true: her father would waste no time and no money on her now. She had gone too far. She had been one step away from a scandal. She had nearly disgraced her father so severely he would have lost his place at Kilreilly, lost any chance of another place with another lord. She was a danger to everyone as long as she was unwed.
She watched the long fingers of the weeping willow whisk the cold little pond below the house, and wondered if he would even wait for the banns to be read, or acquire a special license and have it done before the week was out. The weeping willow suited her mood exceedingly, and her eyes followed the long mournful curves of its branches, sweeping back and forth along the shore of the pond — and what was that?
A movement, coming from the shadows, and crossing the silver lawn at an angle, heading not for the front door or the back, but directly towards her window.
She leaned out, curious.
And then as the figure came closer, she recognized the person by gait and height and build: it was William Archer. Her heart leapt, and she was confused by her own rising feelings. He had ruined her life, and yet he was the only person in the world she wanted to see.
Perhaps she had gone mad before the marriage had even commenced.
“William!” she called, as hushed as she could, and he turned up his head and took off his hat so that the moon fell full on his face. He was meltingly beautiful in the moonlight, as lovely in the shadow and silver as he was in the daylight with the sun shining about him like a god. And that was when Grainne knew, her heart racing, that she had not fallen victim to some silly crush. She had fallen in love with William, real and true and hopeless love. She had been in love with him during this whole sordid business. That was why she hadn’t fought him when he’d taken her away with Len, that was why she hadn’t wept for Len and his faithlessness, that was why she had been leaning on this windowsill tonight, feeling the cold wind raise gooseflesh on her arms; because she had been trusting, and loving, and hoping, for William.
“Grainne!” he exclaimed. “Why are you leaning out of your window like that? You may fall!”
“Would you catch me?” she asked, only half-teasing, and positioned herself upon the window-sill. “Would you whisk me away from here, and all my sorrows?” Perhaps he would. Perhaps he only needed the suggestion.
“I cannot,” he said, and his voice was heavy with sorrow. But not as heavy as hers, at hearing the words. Whatever hope had sprung up in her chest dissipated immediately. He had not come to rescue her from her fate, after all.
“I would come with you,” she tried, abandoning all pretense. “I was not born to be Mrs. Maxwell, and preside over sheep-shearing gangs, and you know it, William Archer.”
He only shook his head. “I must leave in the morning. I wanted to tell you I was sorry.”
She could not reply. Her head seemed to swim and for a moment she wavered back and forth on the ledge of the window.
“Grainne!” William cried, truly alarmed. “Please, I beg you, get down from that window ledge before you fall.”
She shook her head. “I am fine. Go away and leave me alone.”
“Grainne, I wanted to tell you…” he stopped, and in the moonlight she could see his features blur with confusion. “I wanted to tell you… how… I…”
“Yes?”
“How I regard you.”
“Oh.” She wasn’t sure what he meant by that, but it was not a thrilling avowal of love, and anything less than that was bound to be disappointing. She leaned her chin on her hand again. “I regard you, too.”
He looked at her inquiringly. “You do?”
She nodded. “Mmhmm. Exceedingly. Such regard.”
“How long have you had such regard for me?”
“Ages.” Grainne began to warm to the game. “I think have regarded you since I saw you with the fox cub. I could never have such regard for a man who was not gentle with animals.”
“I feel the same way about your way with animals,” William admitted. “But your way with me… I am taken with that as well.”
Grainne felt her cheeks heat. The conversation was beginning to get quite interesting. “I endeavor to treat those I hold in high regard and esteem with the same level of respect and gentleness that I would treat my horses,” she said playfully. “I might even regard you more than my Gretna.”
He smiled up at her. “That is high regard indeed! I am honored.”
She grew more daring. Let them come to a point, and she would see if she could win him over at last. “And what shall we do with all this shared regard, sweet William? I grow chilled on this window-ledge, and you tell me you are to say good-bye. All the signs would point to our parting, and yet our regard for one another ought to prohibit such a leave-taking.”
His smiled faded. “I must return to my father’s sick-bed,” he said gravely. “I have no time to spare. I
must be in London as soon as possible.”
“London!” Grainne was shocked. She had never imagined, in all of her little fancies about William’s background, that he would have connections in town. How would he have become such a horseman if he had been raised in the city? And if he was truly a bastard son, as she had decided he was, how was it that he would be admitted to a death-bed by the rest of the family?
William nodded. “My father is in London. I have a duty to be with him.”
Duty, Grainne thought disconsolately. They all had duties to their fathers. Hers was particularly unpalatable, though. She wondered if she could put it off at all… buy a little time, perhaps. He was her last hope. “Will you return to us?”
William looked at the ground, and the moon glinted on the smooth locks of his mahogany hair, the same color as Gretna’s shining coat. There was a long pause before he looked up at her again, and she thought she saw something shine on his cheek. “I will not.”
She caught the great sob that rose up in her throat before it could escape, and with a wave of her hand she slipped back inside the house, closing the window determinedly behind her. She would not tell him good-bye, she would not watch him walk away from her. He had made his choice. He had come here, he had taken everything from her, and now he was leaving without her.
She had thrown herself across the rumpled bed, and was just contemplating letting her tears run free, when there was a scrape at the shutter.
Grainne’s heart raced. He couldn’t… the tree… her mind went in every direction and arrived at the same destination. The crazed man had climbed up the ancient oak tree outside the house, and found himself on her windowsill. “Fool!” she whispered and rushed to the window. What if he should fall — or be heard —
Miss Spencer Rides Astride (Heroines on Horseback) Page 12