“I daresay he did not even notice that I followed you,” Susan said evenly. “Nobody ever pays heed to me.”
Daintry arched one eyebrow and said mockingly, “No one? Not even Sir Geoffrey? Come now, that is carrying things too far, I think. Or have you changed your mind about that handsome husband of yours? Why, I can recall when you thought him the most magnificent, the most charming, the most perfect of men.”
“Well, Aunt Ophelia never thought him so,” Susan said, moving across the room toward the tall, blue-silk-draped window.
“Aunt Ophelia does not appreciate masculine charm,” Daintry said, abandoning her search and drifting restlessly toward her dressing table. “Nor am I generally drawn to aesthetic-looking blond gentlemen, myself, but you did not answer my question. Have you altered your opinion of him?”
“Do not be nonsensical,” Susan retorted without turning. She added in a worried tone, “Do you think it is safe to take the girls out so soon after that rain? The cobbles in the courtyard are still wet.”
“We won’t be riding on cobblestones, silly,” Daintry said, watching her and wishing the light had not been behind her when she had asked about Sir Geoffrey. Susan never seemed to want to talk about her husband, and Daintry had little wish to press her now. “We mean to ride toward the sea,” she said, “but you need not fret, you know, for I will take excellent care of them both just as I always do. Come unfasten my buttons, will you? There must be fifty of them down the back of this frock, and I cannot reach most of them. Where the devil is Nance? I rang ages ago.”
“You are so impatient,” Susan said with a look of fond exasperation. She dealt swiftly with the buttons, however, and by the time she had finished, Nance had arrived.
“About time,” Daintry said, glaring at her. “I want my red habit, black boots, and black gloves. And please don’t be all day about it, Nance. My nieces are waiting.”
“Oh, aye, and so they are,” Nance said, grinning at Susan. A plump Cornishwoman with warm brown eyes and a rosy complexion, she had served at St. Merryn nearly all her life—as had her sister, mother, and grandmother before her—and if she had ever possessed a formal attitude, she had long since abandoned it. Laughing, she said, “As if I and everyone else in the house did not know who’s come to call. And as if it were your custom to wear your best habit on a drearsome day like this one. The old blue one were good enough for Miss Charley and Miss Melissa afore today.” Abandoning her teasing attitude the moment Daintry’s expression hardened, she said, “What’s he like, Miss Daintry? I asked Medrose if he were a handsome lad, ’n all, but you know what a stick he is. Mr. Stiffrump, that’s him to the life, and not one word would he say to me about my Lord Penthorpe.”
“Very proper of him,” Daintry said. “I hope you do not gossip with the other servants about my affairs, Nance.”
“As if I would,” Nance said, whisking the red habit out of the wardrobe and laying it upon the high bed, where with its black cord trim, black-fringed epaulets, and jet buttons, it stood out splendidly against the sky blue silk spread. Returning to the wardrobe, she stretched to reach a box on the shelf above the rack, saying as she did so, “But I still want to hear about that young man, Miss Daintry. I’ll not breathe a word—”
“I will not wear a hat today,” Daintry said.
“Nonsense,” Nance said. “You’ll never wear that lovely habit without the hat what goes with it.”
“You must not go bareheaded, my dear,” Susan said quietly. “’Twould be a most unworthy example to set for the girls.”
Daintry ground her teeth but said no more about the hat. Susan was right. It would not do to teach the little girls to scorn the dictates of fashion. Not yet, at all events.
She was out of her frock and into the habit in a trice, and Nance stood back to look her over. “Does your complexion proud, that red does. Suits you to a treat. I’m right glad you and my Lady Ophelia was able to talk your mama out of having it done up in the light blue muslin she fancied so strong for you.”
“Susan is to have that,” Daintry said, smiling at her sister. “It will be most becoming to her, and will make up into just what she will want for riding in Hyde Park when we go to London in February. Moreover, muslin, fashionable though it may be, is not my notion of suitable material for a riding dress.”
“His lordship will like that red sarcenet better on you,” Nance said. “Sit down and let me tidy your hair before we put on your hat. Is he handsome, then? Tell me all about him.”
“He is well enough, I suppose,” Daintry said repressively. In the mirror she saw Nance glance at Susan again and was not surprised to hear her sister chuckle. Shifting her gaze to Susan’s reflection, she said, “I suppose you think he is a marvel of masculine pulchritude.” Privately she thought Penthorpe a good deal better looking than Sir Geoffrey Seacourt, but she doubted that her sister would agree.
Susan laughed. “Lord Penthorpe is very large and handsome in a rugged sort of way, Nance, and I think Daintry likes him more than she would have us believe. I cannot think why I never noticed him in London, you know, for although Lord Tattersal’s son was still alive at the time of my come-out, and Penthorpe was thus quite ineligible, one would think we’d have noted him before he joined Wellington’s army, for he has a vast air of command. He even stood up to Papa when Papa wanted him to stay here.”
“Don’t he mean to stay? Why not?”
While Nance tidied Daintry’s unruly curls into a semblance of order, Susan explained. “He is staying with friends in the neighborhood, and I can tell you, Papa is none too happy about that, for his friends are at Deverill Court, of all places.”
“Susan.” Daintry said no more than her name, but Susan flushed to the roots of her hair and looked down at her hands.
Nance said, “Now don’t be scolding her, Miss Daintry. I’d have learned it all soon enough, if not from one of the maids, then from Annie, since our cousin Sarah works days at the Court.” Setting the hairbrush on the dressing table, she picked up the hat, a confection of scarlet silk fashionably decked with an assortment of plumes, ribbons, and black Naples lace, and set it carefully atop her mistress’s dusky curls, anchoring it with a jeweled brass hatpin. Surveying the result, she said, “Best you tell me the facts yourself, so as when some fool begins telling fairy tales in the servants’ hall, I can set him straight.”
“You will do no such thing, Nance,” Daintry said, meeting her gaze in the mirror and holding it.
Flushing even more brightly than Susan had, Nance muttered, “No, o’ course I won’t. I know better than to discuss my betters, and so you should know, miss.”
“I do hope so, Nance, and that you will refrain from discussing them even with Annie, since she no longer works here herself. You may go now. I will ring for you when I return.”
Without another word, pausing only long enough to collect the clothes Daintry had discarded, Nance left the room.
Susan said, “You’ve upset her.”
“Nonsense,” Daintry said, peering into the mirror and trying to decide if the tilt of her hat was as becoming as it might be. Then, realizing that she could not possibly be doing such a thing on Charley’s or Melissa’s account, she turned to face her sister. “I cannot imagine why you would think I had upset Nance. She is not so easily daunted. When next I see her, she will be scolding me for something or other. You know she will.”
Susan smiled. “You are right, I suppose.”
“I am. Just because you turn tail whenever anyone looks slantwise at you does not mean that everyone else does.”
“Do I do that?”
“You do.”
Susan bit her lower lip. “I don’t mean to, but I do not like loud voices, and I cannot bear to make people angry. And you—Well, you do become so very …”
Daintry chuckled and, getting to her feet, moved to hug Susan. “I do, don’t I? Threw my first temper tantrum before I was three, got my own way, and never looked back.”
Susan shudde
red. “Which just goes to show how different things were for you than for me. The one time I told Mama that I would do something she had told me I could not do, she snatched me up across her lap and beat me with her hairbrush till I screamed. That was not the only time, either, I can tell you.”
Daintry grimaced. “She never did such a thing after Aunt Ophelia came to live with us, did she?”
“Not like that.” Susan sighed. “But I never stopped being afraid she might. With you, it was so different. Even Papa—”
“Oh, come now,” Daintry said, chuckling, “you are not going to say Papa never punished me, for you know perfectly well—”
“Oh, I know he did, but he never seemed to become so angry with you as he did with me—or with Charles, for that matter.”
Daintry shrugged. “I suppose it was because you both were older. He expected more from you than from me. And, too, when I was small, I was nearly always with Aunt Ophelia if I was not with my governess. Aunt would not permit Mama to strike me, and even Papa respects her wishes. And as for Charles, I can understand anyone’s wanting to smack him. I do myself, quite frequently, and I utterly feel for Davina, though I do not think she ought to flirt with other men the way she does.”
“No,” Susan said, “and speaking of other men—”
“Yes, I know,” Daintry said, picking up her whip from among the clutter on her dressing table. “Not that it wouldn’t do that man a world of good to have to wait a few moments. He has become entirely too accustomed to telling others what to do. If I am going to marry him, that must certainly change.”
“You do like him then,” Susan said, getting up to follow her when she moved to the door.
Daintry looked back over her shoulder. “Like him? Pooh, he is just a man like any other, though not so bad as I’d feared he might be,” she added, remembering a singularly attractive smile, warm golden hazel eyes, and the bemused way he had looked up at her that first moment after entering the hall.
“He is very large,” Susan said as they walked along the corridor together toward the stair hall.
Daintry remembered his asking if she was disappointed to find him taller than his uncle. She had nearly given her most private thoughts away then. How could one be disappointed when a man’s figure was precisely the same as that possessed by the hero of every romantic novel one had ever read? For regardless of the general disapproval of such reading material at Tuscombe Park, no one had ever forbidden her to read what she liked, and she did enjoy reading a pleasant Gothic romance from time to time.
Realizing that Susan was waiting for a response, she said, “I suppose he is rather large, and he is much too arrogant and overbearing in his manner to suit me. I can tell you, I did not care for the way he took it upon himself to remove my cloak, or the way he invited himself along on our ride, either.”
“I should not care to see him angry,” Susan said quietly.
“Oh, pooh. Much I should care for that.” They had reached the gallery, and peering over the railing, she saw that the two little girls were waiting—one patiently, the other pacing. “Oh, good, the girls are there.” Glancing toward the drawing-room door, she added, “If Penthorpe thinks I shall fetch him, or wait while he procrastinates, he has another think coming.”
She had started down the stairs before she realized that Susan was no longer with her but had in fact vanished in the disconcerting way she had perfected as a child. Then the sound of the drawing-room door caught her attention, and she turned, sighing at the sight of the large man coming out of the room.
“I hope you were not trying to sneak away,” he said.
“At least you did not bring Papa along to insist that I let you accompany us on a nice, sedate ride toward the moor, sir. I promised the children I’d take them to ride on the shingle to see the smugglers’ caves, and I do not break my promises.”
“None of them?” He was beside her now on the stair, his hand firmly at her elbow. She could feel its warmth through the material of her sleeve, and though she did not require assistance to get down the stairs, she decided it would be unseemly to pull away. Few of her friends in the neighborhood treated her at all protectively, although, in London, gentlemen frequently offered such assistance—generally with a great deal of pomp and flourish that she found most disagreeable. To Penthorpe’s credit, he managed the gesture so neatly and naturally that she found, to her own surprise, that she rather liked it
“There you are, Aunt Daintry,” Charley exclaimed. “We thought you were never coming. It does not take me nearly so long as that to change a frock. Hello, Lord Penthorpe. Are you really going to ride with us, sir?”
“I am—part of the way, at least—and I promise I shall not try to talk you into riding toward the moor.”
“Oh, good,” she said, laughing. “Not that I was afraid you would, of course, for Aunt Daintry promised, but I did fear that Grandpapa might insist, and then, of course, we should have had to obey. Not that Melissa would mind. She likes riding on the moor. But today,” she added, turning and giving Melissa a nudge toward the front door, “we are going to ride on the shingle and see the caves. Will you come that far with us, sir?”
Daintry stiffened but, determined to avoid outright rudeness in front of the children, managed to hold her tongue.
His smile was extremely attractive. “Not today, I think,” he said, then added to Daintry in a lower voice, “I did not speak merely to foist my company upon you, you know, but to keep your estimable parent from forbidding your outing altogether.”
She said in the same tone, as the children vanished through the doorway, “I am not ungrateful, sir, and will certainly acquit you of any other motive. My father would not have forbidden the ride, but he might well have insisted that we ride to the moor, and the girls would have been disappointed.”
“Where will you ride, exactly?”
“St. Merryn Bay. There are several caves there reputed to be used by smugglers, though I daresay the men are as likely to have been wreckers as free traders, when all is said and done.”
“I know those caves from my childhood,” he said, frowning. “The path down from the cliff is extremely steep, is it not?”
Feeling her temper rise at the implied criticism, she kept her tone even with difficulty. “Both girls are excellent riders, sir. Charley could ride down that trail blindfolded and sitting backwards, and although Melissa is a more nervous horsewoman, she will not have any trouble, I assure you.”
“Nevertheless, I think now that perhaps I’d better accompany you,” he said. “That path will be slippery from the drizzle, and even though you will certainly take your groom, you will be glad of more help than his, I think.”
“That is hardly your decision to make,” she said, annoyed.
He was silent until she looked up at him, and there was an enigmatic look in his eyes when she did, but it vanished, and he said sternly, “Our betrothal gives me the right to make it.”
She bit her lip, then said, “You go too fast, sir, if you think to give me orders upon such short acquaintance.”
“Do you deny my right? I heard you say you had given your word to honor this betrothal, or is your word worth no more than that of most females?”
Indignation threatened to overcome her. “I do not break my word once I have given it, but if you think to run roughshod over me, my lord, you had better think again. I will make you wish you had never been born if you try it.”
He smiled. “Shall we catch up with our charges before they ride off without us?”
She gritted her teeth but made no objection. The girls were already mounted, Charley on Victor, her favorite bay gelding, and Melissa on a pretty little gray mare. Daintry’s wiry groom held the reins of the silver-dun gelding she favored, and of a large black-roan stallion with a white blaze between his eyes.
“Oh, what a beauty,” she said, moving to stroke the black’s silky muzzle. “So tall and powerful, yet so dashing and alert.”
“My horses have to b
e large to carry my weight,” he said. “That is Shadow. But come, my dear, your charges grow restless.”
She felt his hands at her waist before she realized his intent, and there was a brief, exhilarating sense of weightlessness before she was deposited on her saddle.
Handing her the reins, he said, “Do your leathers require some adjustment?”
“No, thank you. Clemons knows just how I like them.” She watched as he swung effortlessly into his own saddle, and she was amused to see that, despite the presence of the groom following at a discreet distance, he kept an alert eye not only on the two little girls as they rode down the drive but on herself as well.
She was proud of the children. Both had light hands on the reins and excellent, firm seats in the saddle. She saw at once that Charley was impatient to gallop, so she said gently, “We will walk the horses for fifteen minutes, my dears, but then you may have a gallop if the road is not too mushy from the rain.”
Her escort looked at her with raised eyebrows but made no comment. Sighing, she said, “I suppose you think they ought to be riding with leading reins, Penthorpe.”
“Not at all,” he replied, smiling back at her in a way that made her look swiftly ahead at the gravel drive. “I might, however, have waited a bit before tendering hope of a gallop. The roads are bound to be in too dismal a state for one.”
“Perhaps,” she agreed, “but if I had told them as much, Charley would be so anxious to prove me wrong that she would communicate her anxiety to her horse. This way she will be content to ride quietly and will soon recognize, for Melissa’s sake if not her own, the foolhardiness of riding too fast on a slippery road.”
Though he looked doubtful, he said nothing more for several minutes, and indeed, appeared to be listening with some amusement to the one-sided conversation going on ahead of them. As usual, Charley was doing all the talking, while Melissa listened and nodded. After a time, he turned to her again and said, “Though I would not dare to suggest leading reins, I own I did think they would still be riding ponies at their ages.”
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