by Mary Balogh
It could not be soon enough for Ferdinand.
It was a week of near-despair for Viola. One by one she had to let go of her comfortably negative illusions about Lord Ferdinand Dudley. He was a wastrel who would care nothing about the well-being of the estate or neighborhood, she had thought. His actions proved her wrong on both counts. He was an extravagant, impoverished younger son, she had thought, a man who gambled recklessly and probably had huge debts. But he was going to build new cottages for the farm laborers, Mr. Paxton reported—out of his own money. He was going to pay half the cost of a new schoolhouse roof.
He was not to be driven away either by foolish pranks or by boredom. She suspected that he genuinely liked most of her neighbors. And it was obvious that he was winning their friendship. Under other circumstances, she thought grudgingly, she might even like him herself. He seemed good-natured. He had a sense of humor.
He was idle and empty-headed, of course. She clung to that illusion after all the others. But even that she was forced to abandon before the week was out.
The schoolmaster had marched the children in an orderly crocodile from the village to Pinewood on the appointed morning, and classes had been set up in the drawing room. As she often did, Viola helped out by supervising some of the younger children as they practiced their penmanship. But when a history lesson began, involving all the children, she went downstairs to the library to see if there were any letters.
The library was occupied. Lord Ferdinand sat on one side of the desk, one of the older boys on the other.
“Excuse me,” she said, startled.
“Not at all.” Lord Ferdinand got to his feet and grinned at her—with the sunny smile that was beginning to play havoc with both her digestion and her sleep. “Jamie is late for the history lesson. Off you go, then, lad.”
The boy hurried past Viola, bobbing his head respectfully as he passed.
“Why was he here?” she asked.
“To learn a little Latin,” Lord Ferdinand explained. “Not necessary for the son of a tenant farmer destined to take his father's place one day, one might think. But there is no accounting for the desires of the intellect.”
“Latin?” She knew all about Jamie's brightness and scholastic ambitions, for which his father had neither sympathy nor money. “But who can teach him?”
Lord Ferdinand shrugged. “Yours truly, I am afraid,” he said. “An embarrassing admission, is it not? It was my specialty at Oxford, you see. Latin and Greek. My father would have been ashamed of me if he had still been alive.”
Gentlemen went to Oxford or Cambridge almost as a matter of course, unless they went into the army instead. But they went mainly to socialize and carouse with their peers—or so she had heard.
“I suppose,” she said more tartly than she intended, “you did well.”
“A double first.” He grinned sheepishly.
A double first. In Latin and Greek.
“My brain,” he said, “is so full of dry matter that if you knock on my skull you can watch the dust wafting from my ears and nostrils.”
“And why,” she asked him, “have you been wasting your time climbing over wet roofs at night and gambling?”
“Sowing my wild oats?” His eyes smiled into hers.
She did not want him to be intelligent, studious, wealthy, generous, good-humored, conscientious. She wanted him to be a wild, indigent, unprincipled hellion. She wanted to be able to despise him. It was bad enough that he was handsome and charming.
“I am sorry,” he said meekly.
She turned without a word and left the library. She went back to the drawing room to hear about Oliver Cromwell and the Roundheads and the Interregnum. Music was to follow history. She usually helped out with that too.
But the drawing room door opened just as the history lesson was nearing its end, and the schoolmaster clapped his hands for everyone's attention. Viola turned her head to see Lord Ferdinand standing in the doorway.
“We will dispense with the usual music class,” the schoolmaster said. He frowned ferociously when someone was unwise enough to begin applauding. “For today only, Felix Winwood. Lord Ferdinand Dudley has suggested that since we have the lawns of Pinewood at our disposal and it is a sunny day, we should have a games lesson instead.”
“We are off outside for a cricket game,” Lord Ferdinand Dudley added. “Is anyone interested?”
It was a foolish question, if ever Viola had heard one. “These children do not even know how to play cricket,” she protested.
He turned his eyes on her. “But this is to be a games lesson,” he said. “They will be taught.”
“We do not have the necessary equipment,” she said.
“Paxton has bats, balls, and wickets among his things,” Lord Ferdinand said. “Long gathering dust, it would seem. He is fetching them.”
“But what are we going to do while the boys play cricket?” one of the girls asked plaintively.
“What?” Lord Ferdinand grinned at her. “Girls cannot hold a bat or throw a ball or catch one or run? No one ever told my sister that, which was probably just as well. He would without a doubt have ended up with a black eye and a beacon for a nose.”
One minute later the children were filing two by two down the staircase, bound for the outdoors, Lord Ferdinand leading the way, the schoolmaster bringing up the rear. Viola trailed downstairs after them. Even the children were coming over to his side.
“His lordship has been down to the kitchen this morning, ma'am,” Mr. Jarvey said from the back of the hall. “He has wheedled Mrs. Walsh into making up a batch of sweet biscuits. They are to be served to the children with chocolate to drink before they go home.”
“Wheedled?”
“He smiled and said please,” the butler said sourly.
Yes, he would. He would not be content until he had all the servants worshiping and adoring him too.
“He is a dangerous gentleman, Miss Thornhill,” the butler added. “I have said it from the start.”
“Thank you, Mr. Jarvey.” Viola wandered to the front doors, which stood open. They were down on the lawn beyond the box garden. There was a great deal of noise and commotion, but order was being created out of chaos, she could see, without Mr. Roberts having to step in with his loud schoolmaster's bellow. Lord Ferdinand Dudley was gathering everyone about him. He was explaining something and gesticulating with both arms. And everyone was listening.
She might have guessed that he would be good with children, Viola thought bitterly. After all, he was good with everyone else. She stepped outside, drawn as if by a magnet.
By the time she had descended the steps to the box garden and taken a meandering route through its gravel paths to the low hedge dividing the garden from the lawn, the children had been divided into groups. Mr. Roberts was throwing the ball out to a widely scattered group, who were practicing catching it and throwing it back as quickly and accurately as possible. Mr. Paxton—the traitor!—was leading a group in batting practice. Lord Ferdinand Dudley was showing another group how to bowl.
Viola watched him lope up to the near wickets, throw the ball in one fluid overarm motion, and shatter the far wickets every time. He had stripped down to his shirt and breeches and boots again, she could not fail to notice—he was wearing the same tight black leather breeches he had worn when she first saw him in Trellick. He was patiently and good-naturedly instructing his group, none of whom displayed the smallest suggestion of talent. Then he spotted her.
“Ah, Miss Thornhill.” He strode toward her, his right hand extended. “Allow me to help you over the hedge. Have you come to join us? We need another adult. How would you like to take the schoolmaster's place while he instructs the batters and Paxton sets out the pitch ready for a game?”
Viola had very little experience with physical sports. But she had been caught by the gaiety of the scene. She set her hand in his and stepped over the hedge, smiling gaily before she could think of reacting any other way. A few minutes la
ter she was throwing the ball underhand, silently lamenting her inability to throw it nearly as far as Mr. Roberts had done, but nonetheless enjoying the fresh air and exercise.
“You will have more success if you throw overarm,” a voice said from directly behind her.
“But I have never been able to throw that way,” she told Lord Ferdinand Dudley. To prove her point, she bent her arm at the elbow and hurled the ball with all her might. It hurtled ahead at a downward angle and landed with a thud on the grass perhaps twelve feet away.
He chuckled. “The motion of your arm is all wrong,” he said. “You will do better if you do not clutch your upper arm to your side and tighten all your muscles as if for a feat of great strength. Throwing has little to do with strength and everything to do with timing and motion.”
“Huh!” she said derisively. The children, she half noticed, were all running toward Mr. Paxton, who was about to explain some of the basic rules of the game to them.
“Like this,” Lord Ferdinand said, demonstrating first without a ball in his hand and then with. The ball arced out of his hand and landed some distance away. He went and got it and held it out to her. “Try it.”
She tried and achieved perhaps thirteen feet. “Huh!” she said again.
“Better,” he said. “But you let go of the ball too late. You are also locking your elbow. Let me help you.”
And then he was right behind her, holding her right arm loosely just below the elbow and making the throwing motion with her.
“Relax your muscles,” he said. “There is nothing jerky about this.”
The heat of his exertions radiated from his body. His vitality somehow wrapped about her.
“Next time open your hand as if throwing,” he said. He chuckled softly again a moment later. “If you had had the ball that time, it would have bounced right at your feet. Throw when your arm is just coming to the highest point. Ah, yes, now you are getting it. Try it on your own—with the ball.”
A few moments later she laughed with delight as the ball arced upward out of her hand and sailed an impressive distance before curving in for a landing. She turned to share her triumph with him. His eyes were smiling into hers from a mere few inches away. Then he went striding after the ball and she crashed into reality.
She did not join in the noisy, vigorous game that followed. But she did stay out on the lawn, cheering batters and fielders with indiscriminate enthusiasm. After the first few minutes Lord Ferdinand took over the bowling when it became obvious that none of the children could pitch the ball anywhere near the batter. He threw with gentle ease, not to shatter the wickets, but to give each batter a chance to hit the ball. He laughed a good deal and called out encouragement to everyone, while the schoolmaster and Mr. Paxton were more inclined to criticize.
Viola unwillingly watched Lord Ferdinand. She could tell that he had a real zest for life. And he was genuinely kind. It was a bitter admission.
A procession of servants was coming from the house, she could see at last, surely long before the hour could be up. But the game was over, and everyone sat down on the grass, enjoying the rare luxury of steaming chocolate and sweet biscuits. Lord Ferdinand seated himself cross-legged right in the middle of a dense mob of children and chatted with them while they ate.
Then the schoolday was over and the long crocodile of children, walking in orderly pairs, was marched off down the driveway by Mr. Roberts while the servants carried the empty cups and plates inside and Mr. Paxton disappeared back in the direction of his office. Lord Ferdinand was pulling on his coat when Viola turned back to the house.
“Miss Thornhill,” he called, “would you care to join me in a stroll? Along the avenue to the hill, perhaps? It is too lovely a day to be spent indoors.”
They had been avoiding each other since the night when they had kissed and her attraction to him had warred with the temptation to lure him into falling in love with her. Neither had referred to the incident since. The broken pieces of the urn had been swept up before she left her room the morning after. Another vase had appeared on the table in its place.
It would be as well if they continued to avoid each other. But they could not go on indefinitely like this, inhabiting the same home, each claiming ownership. She just feared that when one of them left, as one of them inevitably must, it was going to be her. She would never be able to prove that the will had been changed or lost.
His eyes were smiling at her. It was another of his gifts—the ability to smile with a straight face.
“That would be pleasant,” she said. “I'll go and put on a bonnet.”
10
D rawing her into the cricket lesson had been a m m mistake. So had teaching her how to throw a ball overarm, especially cozying up behind her to demonstrate the correct motion of the arm with her. Suddenly it had felt like a mid-July day during a heat wave. But even more dangerous than her sexual appeal had been her laughter and her exuberant glee when she had finally hurled the ball correctly. When she had turned her sparkling smile on him, he had only just stopped himself from picking her up, twirling her about, and laughing with her.
And now he had invited her to walk with him.
She was wearing a straw bonnet when she came back outside. It fit snugly and attractively over her coronet of braids. The pale turquoise ribbons, which matched the color of her dress, were tied in a large bow beneath her left ear. She looked purely pretty, Ferdinand thought.
They conversed about trivialities until they were on the avenue behind the house. It was already Ferdinand's favorite part of the park. Wide and grassy, it was bordered on both sides by straight lines of lime trees. The turf was soft and springy underfoot. Insects were chirping in the grass, birds singing in the trees.
She walked with her arms behind her back. He could scarcely see her face beyond the poke of her bonnet. The devil of it was, he thought unexpectedly, he was going to miss her after she left.
“You have been helping teach at the village school for some time,” he said. “Where were you educated?”
“My mother taught me,” she said.
“I understand from Paxton,” he said, “that you have been keeping the account books.”
“Yes.”
“And have taken an active role in the running of the estate.”
“Yes.”
She was not going to be forthcoming on that topic, he could see. Or perhaps on any topic. But she turned her head to look up at him just as he was thinking it.
“Why do you want Pinewood, Lord Ferdinand?” she asked. “Just because you won it and believe it to be yours? It is not a large estate and it is far from London and the sort of life you appear to have been enjoying there. It is far from any intellectual center too. What is there for you here?”
He breathed in the smells of nature as he considered his answer.
“A sense of fulfillment,” he said. “I have never resented my elder brother. I always knew that Acton Park and all the other properties would be Tresham's and that I would be the landless younger son. I considered various careers, even an academic one. My father, had he lived, would have insisted on a commission with some prestigious cavalry regiment. It is what Dudley second sons have always been expected to do. I have never known what it is I want to do with the rest of my life—until now. I know now, you see. I want to be a country squire.”
“Are you wealthy?” she asked. “I think you must be.”
It did not occur to him to consider the question impertinent.
“Yes,” he said.
“Very wealthy?”
“Yes.”
“Could you not buy land elsewhere, then?” Her head was angled away from him so that he could not see her face.
“Instead of remaining at Pinewood, do you mean?” he asked. Strangely enough, buying land and settling on it was something he had never considered. “But why should I? And what would I do with this property? Sell it to you? Give it to you?”
“It is mine already,” she said.
He sighed. “I hope within the next day or two that question will finally be settled beyond doubt,” he said. “Until then, perhaps the least said, the better. Why are you so attached to Pinewood? You grew up in London, you told me. Do you not miss it and your friends there? And your mother? Would you not be happier back there?”
For a long time it seemed she was not going to answer at all. When she spoke, her voice was low, her head still averted.
“It is because he gave it to me,” she said. “And because the difference between living here and living in London is the difference between heaven and hell.”
He was startled—and not a little disturbed.
“Is your mother still in London?” he asked.
“Yes.”
She was not going to elaborate on that monosyllabic answer, he realized. But going to live with her mother seemed to be another solution.
They were almost at the end of the avenue. The hill rose steeply in front of them.
“Shall we climb?” he asked.
“Of course.” She did not even break stride, but lifted the hem of her dress with both hands and trudged upward, her head down, watching where she set her feet. She paused for breath when they were still not quite at the top, and he offered a hand. She took it, and he drew her up the rest of the slope until they stood on the bare grassy top.
He made the mistake of not immediately releasing her hand. After a few moments it would have been more awkward to let go than to hold on to it. Her fingers were curled firmly about his.
“When I stood on top of the highest hill in Acton Park as a boy,” he said, “I always imagined it as the roof of the world. I was master of all I surveyed.”
“Imagination is the wonder and magic of childhood,” she said. “It is so easy to believe in forever when one is a child. In happily-ever-afters.”
“I always believed happily-ever-after could be earned through honorable deeds of heroism and derring-do.” He laughed softly. “If I killed a dragon or two, all the treasures of the universe would be mine. Is not childhood a gifted time? Even though disillusion and cynicism must follow?”