by Mary Balogh
But he only grinned, and she suddenly realized that perhaps many of the men secretly hoped that they were on the losing team.
“Are you enjoying yourself?” she asked. There had been so little chance during the past two weeks for private conversation with him.
“Enormously,” he said, tightening his arm about her. “You have done superlatively well, Kate, with both the house party and this.” He gestured about them with his free arm. “You are happy?”
“Yes,” she said.
He turned his head to look down into her face, his eyes searching hers.
“Dash it all.” He grinned. “I was looking forward to breaking his nose.”
She set the side of her head briefly against his shoulder.
“And what of you?” she asked. “You have hardly moved from Charlotte’s side.”
He did not immediately reply, and she looked up at him.
“There are problems with being Merton, Kate,” he said. “Especially now that I have almost reached my majority. I am eligible, am I not? I see fellows like me all the time deliberately avoiding the ladies for fear of a leg shackle. But the thing is that I like ladies. I like Miss Wrayburn.”
“But you are not in love with her,” she said.
“Kate,” he said, “I am twenty. She is seventeen— eighteen today”
“But you think she does love you?” she asked him.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t think so. She is a jolly girl, and I think she just likes me as I like her. But it has struck me that I have to be careful now just in case some lady should mistake friendliness for courtship. I would hate to break anyone’s heart, Kate. I would hate to break Miss Wrayburn’s, though I do not think she has a tendre for me. It is conceited of me, I suppose, even to imagine that there is a possibility that she might. But I am Merton.”
“Oh, Stephen,” she said, “you are such a very decent young man. I am proud of you. But you are not responsible for anyone’s heart unless you have specifically laid claim to it. You must not hide from ladies and treat them coldly as so many gentlemen do. You must be yourself. Everyone will love you—and that will have nothing to do with the fact that you are the Earl of Merton. But everyone will come to understand that your heart is something precious, to be given to the lady who can win it—when you are considerably older than you are now”
“Ah, Kate.” He chuckled. “It is wonderful to be a saint in my sisters’ eyes. I do hope I will not be hurting Miss Wrayburn in any way, though, when I leave here. This house party has meant so much to her. And I really am very fond of her.”
“And she of you,” she said. “I doubt there is more than that, Stephen. She is looking forward to her come-out next year. I will make discreet inquiries, though, and set your mind at ease if possible.”
He sighed. “Why do we always think we will be free and perfectly happy once we grow beyond the restrictions of childhood?” he asked her.
She stretched up and kissed his cheek.
“Oh, I say,” he said, “we had better get down to the lake before we miss one of the wrestling bouts. Have you seen the mud hole, Kate? It makes a fellow envious of those wrestlers.”
Katherine shook her head and made no comment.
25
“H O W are you enjoying the fete, Clarence?” Jasper asked, clapping a hand on his shoulder.
Clarence turned his head and looked suspiciously at him. It was probably the first time he had heard his full name on Jasper’s lips. They fell into step together on their way down to the lake—almost everyone’s destination since word had spread that the mud wrestling was about to begin.
“I see you did some shopping while you were in London,” Jasper said. “Those are very smart clothes indeed, and I know many discerning gentlemen who would give a right arm for those boots.”
They were white- topped and sported gold tassels. The rest of his clothes bordered on the dandyish too. His starched shirt points were high and in grave danger of piercing his eyeballs if he were to turn his head too sharply. His neckcloth was tied in an elaborate, artistic knot more suitable for an evening ball than for an afternoon fete.
“I visited my tailor and my bootmaker, yes,” Clarence admitted. “One feels obliged to keep up with the latest fashions when one intends to mingle with one’s peers.”
“The ladies have had eyes for almost no one else all afternoon,” Jasper said.
“I think you exaggerate,” Clarence said, “though I have drawn my fair share of attention, it is true. Some ladies appreciate a gentleman who knows how to dress well and how to behave with dignity and decorum and allow his inferiors to participate in the games.”
“You are not going to join the tug- of- war, then?” Jasper asked.
“By no means,” Clarence said.
Jasper squeezed his shoulder.
“I cannot tell you,” he said, “how much it means to Charlotte that you and Aunt Prunella have given your time and suffered all the discomforts of the road in order to be with her as she celebrates her eighteenth birthday We have had our differences over the years, Clarence, but I must express my gratitude to you for this. You are a good sort.”
“Yes, well, Jasper,” Clarence said, “we never would have had differences if you had always behaved as you ought. But it is my duty as one of Charlotte’s guardians to be here today, and it is Mama’s pleasure. Perhaps you have not always understood how very fond we are of my cousin.”
Jasper kept a hand on his shoulder as they joined the crowd that had gathered about the mud pond, a safe distance away so that no one would get splashed. The eight wrestlers, all of them laborers from the farms, were stripped to the waist and barefoot—evidence of the depravity of the fete that Jasper could almost see Lady Forester storing away in her mind to be used later with her uncle, who was also present with Uncle Stanley and Dubois.
Arbitrary rules had been set for the wrestling. In each bout, the contestant who could send his opponent sprawling full length into the mud three separate times was the winner. Mud being what it was, it was not easy for any man to keep his footing in it for very long. The first round of bouts was over within ten minutes, but they were minutes of intense excitement for the crowd of spectators, who roared and squealed and groaned and cheered every time one of the men went sprawling and splashing in the mud. All eight were covered with it from head to toe before the round was over—and all eight went dashing off to swim in the lake before the semifinal round began among the four winners.
“Ah, this brings back happy memories of childhood summers, does it not, Clarence?” Jasper said rather loudly. “We had good times, though they were often happier for you than for me.”
Clarence looked at him suspiciously.
It was not difficult to draw the attention of people who were merely waiting for the fun of the mud wrestling to resume. A number of people half turned to listen.
“Sir Clarence Forester,” Jasper explained to them, “was younger than I, but he was always somehow more nimble and sure of foot. If ever we climbed a tree, it was always I who fell out and tore my clothes. And if ever we climbed to the balustrade on the roof of the house— it was considered unsafe for boys and so was forbidden, of course—it was always I who was not fast enough to get down before being caught.”
He laughed.
So did a good number of the people close to them.
So did Clarence.
“But it was always your idea to climb, Jasper,” he said. “It was only right that you were the one to be punished.”
“And so it was,” Jasper said, and laughed again.
Jasper had fallen out of the tree because he had dared Clarence to follow him up, and Clarence, standing on the ground, had pulled at his heel—before running home to tell on him. Jasper had been caught up on the balustrade because Clarence had run away and bolted the door leading down before running to tell on him.
Once a weasel, always a weasel.
The wrestlers were back for the next round. They
had all learned something from the first round. This one lasted much longer as the slimy brown figures of the wrestlers pulled and pushed and clawed at one another and struggled to maintain their own balance. The crowd shrieked and moaned and cheered and jeered through it all. But inevitably there were just two men left standing in the end.
There was another break in the action while the four men loped off to dive into the lake again.
“Some of these men,” Jasper said loudly enough for a large number of people to hear, “have about as much sense of balance as I have—which is not a great deal at all. Do you remember the time, Clarence, when we wrestled in the boat and I ended up in the water while you were left standing solidly on your feet? I learned my lesson that time. I do not believe I ever wrestled with you again.”
He laughed.
So did a crowd of his guests.
“Yes, well, Jasper,” Clarence said, puffing out his chest and speaking loudly enough for their audience to hear, “my father saw to it that I had the proper instruction in all the manly sports at a young age. You always thought to get your way with brute force, but brute force is never a match for practiced skill.”
“Alas, that is true,” Jasper said.
He had been about to take the boat out without first going back to the house to change out of his good clothes and to get permission, which would doubtless have been denied. He had been standing in the boat, about to sit down, his back to the bank. Clarence, standing solidly on the bank, had taken an oar and tipped him in.
“What other sports did you learn, Sir Clarence?” Hortense Dubois asked. “You must be very good indeed if you can defeat Lord Montford. He has a repu tation for winning everything he tries —or so Mr. Gladstone was telling us just yesterday, was he not, Marianne?”
“Well,” Clarence said, “I am handy enough with my fives, Miss Dubois. I have gone a few rounds with Gentleman Jackson himself.”
“With Gentleman Jackson” a young man from the village said. “I have heard of him. He is said to be one of the best.”
“Not one of the best, young man,” Clarence said. “The very best.”
“Clarence is too modest, Miss Dubois,” Jasper said, “to tell you how good he is at fencing. I take it you are still as good at it as you used to be, Clarence?”
“Well—” Clarence said.
Jasper clapped a hand on his shoulder again.
“Now don’t be modest,” he said. He grinned about him. A large crowd was listening now, including—at some distance—a wide- eyed Katherine. “Remember the afternoon when you routed me in every single bout? And at the time you had only just started learning. I would say it was a good thing the rapiers were tipped or I would have looked like a fountain of blood. Sorry, ladies, that is not a pleasant image, is it?”
“Oh, do tell us about it, Lord Montford,” Miss Fletcher begged. “I love to watch two gentlemen fencing. There is no more manly sight.”
“I simply could not get past Clarence’s guard,” Jasper said. “Yet he could get past mine with ease every time. It was really quite lowering for me—but a grand display by Clarence. I daresay he was his fencing master’s star pupil.”
“Well,” Clarence said, “he did say I was the best he had ever had, but he had been teaching for only five years or so at that time. Perhaps later he discovered someone who was better.”
“I most certainly doubt it,” Jasper said with a sigh.
“Devil take it,” Merton said, exchanging a pointed look with Jasper, “if we had known Sir Clarence was coming, Monty, fencing could have been added as a sport for today. Is it too late?”
“I have no rapiers in the house,” Jasper said. “You do not have any with you by any chance, Clarence, do you?”
“I do not,” Clarence said, sounding rather as if he had almost swallowed his tongue. “Unfortunately,” he added.
“Very fortunately for me,” Jasper said with a laugh. “Of course, you were just as good with an oar.”
“One can hardly fence with oars, Jasper,” Clarence said, and looked about him, smiling at the laughter his words provoked.
“It would have to be something more creative than simple fencing,” Jasper said. “Not a jousting match with oars while standing in the boats—that would put too severe a strain on my lamentably poor sense of balance. Although having to keep one’s balance would add spice to such a jousting match, would it not? What is a little more solid than boats but not quite as solid as the ground?”
The head groom—the only person whom Jasper had taken into his confidence—spoke up on cue.
“There are these planks, my lord,” he said, pointing to them. “The ones we set across the mud pit so that we could get right over it to add more water. They are eight inches wide.”
“You are suggesting, Barker,” Jasper said, aghast, “that Sir Clarence and I stand on one of those planks each—over the mud—jousting with oars? When I am wearing a white shirt?”
“It is a mad—” Clarence began, equally aghast.
“And against a star fencer?” Jasper added.
“I will wager, Monty,” Merton said, looking very deliberately at him, “that you cannot win a bout but will be tipped ignominiously into the mud.”
“Now wait a minute,” Jasper said, holding up a hand. “This is foolish. I wish I had not said anything about Clarence’s fencing skills. Much as I find any wager hard to resist, this one—”
“I will wager against you too, Jasper,” Uncle Stanley said, looking at him with narrowed eyes.
And suddenly there was a chorus of voices, all urging this impromptu jousting bout between Lord Montford and Sir Clarence Forester. The two wrestlers who were returning from the lake ready for the final bout were almost forgotten.
Jasper held up a hand.
“Now wait a minute here,” he said again. “For very pride’s sake I will feel forced to take on the challenge and suffer a proper dunking in the mud for my pains. But perhaps Clarence is more sensible. Indeed, I am sure he is. And perhaps he does not allow pride to cloud his judgment as much as I do. Perhaps he will not mind if half the guests here believe he must have lost the skills he used to have. What do you say, Clarence? Do say no, old chap.”
“If any nephew of mine proves to be such a sniveling coward,” a thoroughly irritated voice said from the crowd, “I swear I will disown him.”
Seth Wrayburn!
“Uncle Seth!” Lady Forester said. “Can you not see what is happening here? Do you not see that Jasper is deliberately—”
“Silence, woman,” Wrayburn said. “Clarence? What is it to be?”
Clarence attempted nonchalance, but Jasper could see that the hands he clasped behind his back were trembling.
“If Jasper insists upon taking a mud bath and humiliating himself before all his houseguests and neighbors,” he said, “then there is nothing I can do to stop him, is there?”
“Clarence,” his mother wailed.
He threw her a drowning look, but she was powerless to save him.
Clarence had had his mother with him on the occasion of that ridiculous fencing match, when he was ten and Jasper was thirteen. Jasper, who had never had a fencing lesson in his life or ever even watched the sport, had lunged at him a number of times and would have speared his spine via his stomach each time if the rapiers had not been capped. But each time the hit was declared to be an illegal one. There were more rules in fencing, it had appeared, than there were stars in the sky. Clarence, in the meanwhile, had pranced about him like a damned flat- footed ballerina, and every time his waving rapier had whistled within a few inches of a contemptuous Jasper, his mother had declared it a hit and a wondrously skilled one at that—as well as being squarely within the rules, of course.
Everyone’s attention turned to the wrestling, which was a worthy final and lasted all of ten minutes before Lenny Manning tipped Willy Tufts over his shoulder and headfirst into the mud to score a three- to- two victory
The crowd went wild, Katherine prese
nted Lenny with the ten- guinea first prize, laughing as she held her skirts well clear of him while she did so, and Lenny tossed the coins to his sweetheart before dashing off to the lake to wash and into the boathouse to don dry clothes. He would be the hero of the village for weeks to come, Jasper did not doubt.
The tug- of- war was to have been next as a grand finale to the fete. But no one had forgotten the jousting bout, and Barker stepped forward as soon as Lenny had disappeared to set the two specially cut planks across the mud—there had been no need to add more water to the mud, of course, because water flowed there from the lake. A few other men helped him to position them a suitable distance apart and to make sure that their ends were set firmly into the ground on either side.
There was a swell of excited anticipation.
Jasper removed his coat and his boots. Katherine had come to stand in front of him. She was looking steadily at him.
“Hold my coat, if you will, my love,” he said. “It would be a pity to ruin it. I would not need to remove either it or my boots, of course, if I could only be confident of not landing in the mud. Clarence need feel no misgivings, alas, though he may want to be overcautious anyway Those boots would never be the same, would they, if he went in.”
“If he removes them,” Merton said, “he will be telling us that he is not so confident after all and I might change my wager. But I think my money is safe.”
“I have every confidence in the world,” Clarence said, and the silly idiot walked to the edge of the mud hole dressed in all his Bond Street finery.
Barker was fetching two oars.
“Whoever can knock the other off the plank and into the mud is the winner, then?” Jasper asked of no one in particular as he stood at the edge of the hole and frowned down into it. “I will try to make the bout last as long as ten seconds, but I cannot promise. If Clarence was that good as a boy, one can only imagine what he is like now Should we perhaps just proceed to the tug-of-war after all?”
There was a loud chorus of protests, and Jasper took an oar from Barker’s hand, stepped up onto one of the planks, and crossed it to the middle. Clarence followed him on the other plank. He almost lost his footing even before he was in position. What an anticlimax that would have been!