Kidnap Confusion

by Judith Nelson

  "But you are not at liberty to use it!"

  "Make me at liberty," he coaxed, but Miss Tolliver shook her head.

  "It would not be right."

  "But my dear!" He appeared astounded. "I have 20,000 pounds. A year!"

  Her lips quirked slightly, but she refused to succumb.

  "And a fine home. Several of them, in fact!"

  "I do not care for such—"

  "I am considered a fine dancer and a fair conversational­ist; I can hold my own at whist and piquet—"

  Miss Tolliver eyed him consideringly. "You play piquet?"

  Now it was his turn to nod. "Well. And besides—Lazaurus likes me!"

  He said it as if it were the clincher, and in spite of herself, Miss Tolliver smiled.

  "There," he said. "That's better. Now all you have to do is say 'Giles' to make me quite happy again."

  "Severely Miss Tolliver told him that she could not be accountable for his happiness, reminding him that he had been about to tell her what it was that was 'too bad' about her before they dwindled into this silly conversation.

  "But my dear," he protested, "this is just it. It is too bad that my 20,000 pounds a year and my way with poultry make me acceptable to every member of your family but the one whose opinion I value most!"

  Miss Tolliver was heard to murmur that it was not that he was unacceptable to her, it was just that—just that—

  "Just that?" his lordship pressed, leaning forward to capture one of her hands as it moved restlessly in her lap.

  Miss Tolliver watched her small white hand disappear into his two large brown ones, and gulped.

  "Giles, really—" she began weakly, trying to pull her hand away.

  He smiled. "Yes, really, Margaret," he agreed, leaning forward just as an irate squawking was heard from the western edge of the gardens, followed immediately by an indignant demand that someone get that infernal bird away from him before he made fricassee out of it.

  "Oh, dear!" Miss Tolliver rose quickly and picked up her skirts to hurry toward the sound. "Gillian!"

  The earl, following more slowly behind her, repeated the name with disgust. "Gillian! Of course. Where there's trouble—always Gillian!"

  Chapter 20

  In this instance, however, Miss Tolliver and the earl wronged Gillian, for when they rounded the last hedge in expectation of seeing the earl's second youngest brother, they found instead an angry John, his color heightened, as with the judicious waving of his hat and riding crop he kept the ruffled Lazaurus at bay, while Aunt Henrietta stood severely by, shouting at him not to harm her rooster.

  He was shouting back that he wasn't going to have the rooster hurting him, either, when he caught sight of Miss Tolliver and his eldest brother and, considerably aware of the ridiculous picture he must present, clamped his lips together and restored his hat to his head, whereupon Lazaurus, seeing his advantage, rushed in, wings flapping, to do a scuff and scratch dance on John's highly polished riding boots.

  "Oh, dear!" Miss Tolliver said, hurrying forward to rescue the astounded gentleman, who stared with bulging eyes at the results of the assault on his new boots. "Lazaurus, it is too bad of you!" she said, shooing the rooster back to her aunt, who stood glaring at John.

  "Sloth!" the old lady said succinctly, picking up her bird and tucking it under her arm, where it sat sounding off angrily at those around it. "Lazaurus never can abide sloth!" And so saying she turned on her heel and, ignoring the open-mouthed John and his now amused brother, stalked off, clucking softly to her rooster and promising him a nice bowl of corn to soothe his nerves.

  "To sooth his nerves?" John repeated after her, watching them go with a disapproving eye. "Well, of all the—"

  He became aware of his brother's laughter and turned to glare at him with the same disapproval. "Oh, yes, it's all very well for you to laugh, Giles. The crazy bird likes you! But look at these boots! My valet will never get the scratches off, and I shudder to think what he is going to say, for very particular about my boots is old Timms, and—"

  "As well he should be," Miss Tolliver seconded him warmly, interrupting the earl's response that his brother ought to be able to deal with his valet—hopefully better than with a rooster! Miss Tolliver's eyes were reproachful as they turned toward the earl, before busying herself again with removing the random feather from Mr. Manfield's coat and cravat. "Boots are very important, I'm sure."

  "Well, yes—that is—" It again occurred to John that he was cutting a ridiculous figure, and he stopped his sentence to brush his riding crop against his breeches. "Thing is, that bird is a menace! Attacks an innocent man—"

  The earl, prepared to enjoy himself, interrupted to ask what his brother had done to earn the rooster's ire. John said it was no such thing; he had returned perhaps a half hour earlier from a visit to one of the estate's tenants and, it being such a beautiful day, had stretched out on the grass, his back to a tree, there to contemplate the world. And if he had happened to doze off for a few moments—well, surely there was no harm in that. . .

  "Sloth," the earl pronounced, echoing Aunt Henrietta's word. "Sloth, sloth, sloth."

  John's chin came up, and he regarded his elder brother with disfavor. "No such thing," he said, and stalked off toward the house, an errant feather floating on the air behind him as he went.

  "Oh dear!" Miss Tolliver's eyes were rueful as she watched him go.

  The earl grinned, and said, "Quite!"

  * * *

  Miss Tolliver had, through quiet means, acquired the habit of spending part of each afternoon with the earl's youngest brother, Peter. Although he was certainly better, the fourth of the fifth earl's sons still had the remnants of a cough, and those remnants were enough to make the family doctor charge him most forcefully not to overdo. It was a difficult task for someone Peter's age, a boy who possessed a powerful intellect and a not so powerful body, and who would much rather have been able to be out and about, but he bore with it cheerfully, even striving—difficult as it was—to heed the doctor's advice and leave his books several hours a day to rest his eyes.

  Toward that goal he was aided by Miss Tolliver, who took it upon herself to join him in the library for a game of chess or a discussion of various art exhibits she had seen, or books they both had read. Sometimes, when the others were out, they made use of the billiards room, Miss Tolliver explaining guiltily that although it was probably not quite the thing, she had always wished to learn the game, and would be ever so grateful if he taught it to her. Peter, anxious to please his new friend, was glad to comply, not realizing that what he did as a favor for Miss Tolliver was a relaxing exercise for himself.

  Occasionally, too, they met in the music room, where Miss Tolliver played the piano and Peter joined her in duets of some of the old country tunes for which they found music tucked up in one of the room's bookcases. A casual ques­tion to Giles brought the information that the music had belonged to their mother, and that increased Peter's enjoy­ment of it.

  He was awaiting Margaret in the music room several days after John's encounter with the time-vigilant Laz, and was idly strumming the keys of the piano when Miss Tolliver rushed through the door, her color high and her eyes sparkling.

  "Your brother—" she began when she saw him, "is the most high-handed, disagreeable, overbearing—oh!" She put her hands to her cheeks and took a quick turn around the room. "It does not bear thinking of!"

  Peter, who had several brothers, regarded her, consideringly. "Have you been quarreling with Giles again?" he asked.

  Miss Tolliver nodded. "And quarrelsome! That is a good word, Peter! He is one of the most quarrelsome men I know—"

  Peter, who had always thought the earl quite calm, interrupted to ask what they had been quarreling about. Miss Tolliver ground her teeth.

  "All I did," she told him, one hand running distractedly through her hair while the other hand tapped a rapid tattoo on a convenient table, "was tell him that I thought we needed to develop a timetable f
or ending our engagement, and he said—he said—"

  "Aren't you happy here?" Peter asked, his tone of voice as anxious as the expression in his eyes.

  "That's exactly what he said!" Miss Tolliver exclaimed, staring at the boy in surprise. "As if being happy had anything to do with it!"

  "Doesn't it?" Peter asked, again in that anxious tone that made Miss Tolliver cease her mutterings and come forward to place a hand on his shoulder.

  "Being happy is very important, Peter," she told him gently, one hand pushing the hair back off his brow, "but it is not everything. Not always."

  "Oh." He considered for a moment, then asked in a small voice, "but do you really have to go away?"

  "Yes," she said with resolution. "I do."

  "Why?"

  "Peter." She joined him on the piano bench, one arm around his shoulder. "You know it is all a hum, this engagement between your brother and me. You know we're not really to be married—"

  "But why not?" Peter cried. "Don't you wish to marry Giles? Because he is really a very good sort, and perhaps if you knew him better—"

  Miss Tolliver's throat constricted as she told him it was not a matter of wishes; it was simply the knowledge that circumstances had dictated their engagement, but they did not—could not—dictate their marriage.

  "But Giles wouldn't have told everyone you were engaged if he didn't think it was the right thing to do!" Peter objected.

  Miss Tolliver was heard to say that his lordship's motives had been most pure, but. . .

  "Then you have to marry someone!" Peter told her.

  She assured him—with every sign of loathing—that she did not, but he persisted.

  "It is all our fault—Gillian's and mine. I do wish you would consent to be Giles's wife, and stay here at Willowdale with us."

  Miss Tolliver thanked him for his kindness, but said quite firmly that nothing could prevail upon her to marry his brother.

  "Are you sure?"

  She met Peter's anxious look with a resolute one of her own. "Quite."

  The boy took a deep breath. "Then," he said, the words coming in a rush, "would you like to marry me?"

  Miss Tolliver sat back suddenly on the piano bench, her arm dropping from around Peter's shoulders onto the keys behind them, which made a loud and a not tuneful kerplunk as she regarded him in amazement.

  "My dear!" she exclaimed.

  "I would try to be a good husband," he assured her. "Truly I would. And then you wouldn't have to go away—"

  Miss Tolliver reached for his hand, and pressed it warmly. "Peter," she asked, "how old are you?"

  He looked away, then back. "Thirteen," he said. "Two months hence. Does it matter?"

  Miss Tolliver sighed. "Quite a bit," she told him. "I am twenty-eight. Fifteen years older."

  "Oh." He bit his lip, and it was apparent he was considering deeply. Then he looked at her, and his eyes were hopeful. "I shall grow older, you know. In seven years, I shall be twenty!"

  "Yes," she agreed, her graveness matching his own as she willed herself not to laugh. "But in seven years, I shall be older, too. When you are twenty, Peter, I shall be thirty-five!"

  It was plain that that thought had not heretofore occurred to him, and his lips parted slightly. "That old!"

  "That old, Peter," she agreed.

  He rallied like a gentleman, declaring stoutly that he did not care. She smiled, but although she was deeply touched, she added that she could not accept his kind offer.

  "But you have to marry one of us," Peter objected, "and you won't have Giles, who is quite old, too, so age shouldn't matter there, and you won't have me, and I don't think Gillian would make a good husband for you—"

  Gravely Miss Tolliver agreed that Gillian would not.

  Peter looked at her doubtfully. "Would you like me to speak to John?"

  Her mind occupied by the feeling that she was getting deeper and deeper into a web of the Manfield men's weav­ing, she had been half-listening. Peter's last words, how­ever, made her straighten with a loud "What?"

  "I asked if you would like me to speak with John," he said, "because I would—except that—well.. . well I think John would marry you, out of duty, if we made him see it, but somehow . . . I don't think. . . You wouldn't wish to be married out of duty, would you?"

  "No." Miss Tolliver squeezed his hand, and her voice was firm. "No, my dear, I would not."

  Chapter 21

  In Miss Tolliver's mind the discussion was ended, but in Peter's mind it went on. He felt responsible for the situation in which the lady now found herself—after all, he knew, if it hadn't been for his and Gillian's kidnap attempt and subsequent bungling, Miss Tolliver would be at her home in Yorkshire now, and she and the inhabitants of Willowdale would never have met. That thought left him feeling curiously bereft, and he did not dwell on it. Instead, after much private thought in which he could not hit upon a solution as to how best to help her out of her predicament, he took the matter up with his brother Gillian. Thus it was that, two days later, on one of the early morning rides that Miss Tolliver and Gillian had fallen into the habit of taking, Miss Tolliver received her second proposal from a Manfield male.

  They had paused together at the top of one of the small rolling hills that characterized the earl's estate, and Miss Tolliver was quoting Shakespeare:

  "Full many a glorious morning have I seen Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye, Kissing with golden face the meadows green, Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy. .."

  At least, she said it was Shakespeare, and Gillian, not one to judge, and lending only half an ear to the lyrics he did not appreciate nor fully understand, surprised both the lady and himself by suddenly blurting, "Will you marry me?"

  Miss Tolliver's quote ended abruptly as she turned a startled face to his bright red one.

  "I beg your pardon?" she asked, thinking she had not heard right.

  "I said," Gillian repeated manfully, trying not to feel as if his life were passing before his eyes, "will you marry me?"

  Later he could not say what reaction he anticipated, but hers was not the one. Miss Tolliver began to laugh.

  "Here—I say—" Gillian stared at her in surprise and not a little chagrin, and the lady did her best to stifle her giggles.

  "Oh, Gillian—" she started. "I am sorry—but if you could see your face! My dear boy, you look as if you'd rather have a tooth drawn—have all your teeth drawn—than asked me, and yet—"

  "No, no!" Gillian assured her, abashed. "Not at all. Would be most happy to marry you. Really. That is—"

  His voice trailed off at the infelicity of the thought, and helpfully Miss Tolliver took it up for him.

  "That is, if you wished to be married," she said gently.

  Head down, he nodded. "I knew I wouldn't do it right," he said, voice and face glum. "Told Peter so. Told him no matter how many times I rehearsed it, I was bound to make a mull. . ."

  "Ah." Miss Tolliver nodded too. "Peter. I might have known."

  Gillian looked at her worriedly. "Mustn't blame Peter, you know. He's right. It's our fault you're in this predica­ment. And if you don't wish to marry Giles . .. Well! Stands to reason you should marry one of us. Peter is too young. You told him he was too young. But me—well!"

  Unwilling to spoil his self-image as a man-about-town, Miss Tolliver pointed out that he, too, was underage, and that it was not to be supposed that his guardian would consent to his marriage before he attained his majority. Gillian stared at her in surprise.

  "Hadn't thought of that," he admitted. Miss Tolliver said she thought he had not.

  "But still—" Gillian was torn between relief and his desire to acquit himself as a gentleman. "Would make a push . . . That is, if you wanted. . ." i

  The words trailed off, his face so hopeful that Miss Tolliver had trouble containing herself once again. She told him, voice grave, that she was convinced they would not suit. Relieved, Gillian confided that he had told Peter the same thing, but
he would have done his best if she'd had her heart set on marrying him. The reassurance that Miss Tolliver's heart was in no way damaged by their being unbetrothed seemed to clear away the last of his doubts, and happily he suggested that they ride on. Miss Tolliver agreed it was the best thing they could do.

  Peter was as near to angry as he ever got with Gillian when that young man reported back on the lack of success of his mission, even going so far as to call his brother a gudgeon in a tone that put Gillian remarkably in mind of John. Gillian demanded to be told just what Peter thought he could have done, since the lady obviously did not wish to marry him. Peter's explanation that no lady of any spirit or self-respect would want to marry a man who so obviously did not want to marry her struck Gillian forcibly, for he had not thought of it before.

  "Oh," he said, the good fortune he had felt at his narrow escape from matrimony easing away as the knowledge that he had not behaved as he ought slipped in. "I never thought—"

  Severely Peter told him that one of his chief problems was that he never thought. Privately Gillian agreed it might be true, but he was not going to admit such a thing to his younger brother. Instead he asked what could be done, and Peter frowned deeply before answering. Miss Tolliver had told him she did not wish it, but still. . .

  "I think," he said finally, "that we should apply to John."

  The interview with John came in the library, and it did not, in his brothers' minds, at least, go well. For one thing, they interrupted him in the midst of some weighty corre­spondence that he was loathe to leave, and when they did at last persuade him to leave it to discuss their problem with them, he was so shocked at what they had done that Peter could not help agreeing with Gillian that they would have been better off to keep their own counsel, and not to seek his. John told them severely that it was wrong of one brother to propose to a woman betrothed to another brother; in fact, he said, his eyebrows beetling together in a good imitation of their grandfather, who was always awe-inspiring when angry, he thought even two such numbskulls as they would know that—