by Sheila Walsh
“I will not regret anything, Captain. And now I really must beg you to excuse me. Do not seek to detain me, for I am already late—and have left my gig at your gate where it may readily be seen by anyone coming to look for me.”
For a moment their glances locked; then he jerked the whip petulantly from her grasp, wheeled his horse, and thundered off into the trees, leaving Felicity limp and more shaken than she cared to admit.
The leaden sky was shedding its first spots of rain; by the time she reached Cheynings it had become a steady downpour. She ran from the stables to the house, longing only for the privacy of her room where she might compose her frayed nerves, but the sound of raised voices reached her before she had gained the first landing. Cavanah came from the small drawing room and for the first time Felicity saw him at a loss. His troubled face cleared hopefully on seeing her.
“Miss Vale! Thank goodness you are come! Have you seen young Master Jamie? He is nowhere to be found and Madam is distracted!”
The petty tyrannies of the day were swept from Felicity’s mind; she closed the drawing-room door and stood with her back against it taking in the scene. Amaryllis lay prone upon a sofa in the throes of near-hysteria, with Rose Hibberd close by, red-eyed and far from well, twisting her fingers in a quite untypical gesture of nerves.
Before the fireplace stood Lord Stayne. Felicity saw that his patience was stretched to the breaking point. She judged that calm was the first priority if anything was to be achieved.
“Cavanah tells me Jamie is missing,” she said lightly. “What a monstrous disagreeable boy he is, to be sure—putting everyone about in such a fashion!”
All eyes were on her. In the Earl’s she thought she detected a glimmer of relief.
“Thank God!” he said tersely. “Here is someone, at least, who does not treat a child’s prank as though it were a Greek tragedy!”
“Maxim! How can you be so unfeeling! Jamie has been gone three hours!” sobbed Amaryllis, her delightful lower lip quivering with the force of her emotions. Felicity thought inconsequentially that few people had crying down to such a fine art as Amaryllis. Even though her grief was quite genuine, she cried so ... becomingly! One could not fail to be sympathetic. She put a comforting arm around her cousin’s shoulders.
“Then he will be confoundedly bored by now and wishing to be found. You may depend upon it, my dear.”
Amaryllis shook her off. “You don’t understand. The poor darling was terrified! And I’m sure I don’t wonder at it!”
Felicity straightened up, puzzled, and sought Stayne’s reassurance.
“Fustian!” he exclaimed irritably. “Jamie was instructed to present himself in the library and he cried off. He will be lying doggo somewhere, seeking to evade retribution!”
Felicity had quite forgotten the morning’s events and their consequences. “Oh dear, poor Jamie!”
“You may well say so!” Amaryllis cried passionately. “He would never have known that horrid boy, but for you!”
The truth of this accusation filled Felicity with guilt. “Then it is up to me to find him.”
“He isn’t in the house, miss,” said Rose fearfully. “We’ve turned it upside down.”
“No. But I believe I know where he is.” She looked out at the rain and the darkening sky. “And if I don’t fetch him directly, he will get a well-deserved soaking.”
When she was halfway across the lawns the heavens opened anew. She put her head down, picked up her skirts, and ran. At the lakeside she turned aside to peer into a thicket of trees, now mostly bare of leaf. There was the shape of something dark—the remains of a tree house. She shouted.
There was a rustling above, and a slithering—and a very small, very bedraggled boy landed with a sodden thud at her feet.
Felicity looked into the scared face and found time to give him a quick hug before grabbing his hand.
“Come along, my lad. Show me how fast you can run.”
“I didn’t mean to stay so long,” Jamie sobbed as they ran. “But Uncle Max was very angry...”
“Well, of course he was angry, stoopid. You behaved very badly, both of you. But Lanny has taken his punishment without complaint.”
“Oh!” There was a hiccupped sob. “I ’spect Uncle Max will be more angrier than ever now ... I only meant to hide until you came. I waited and waited...”
Felicity’s heart smote her. She had neglected him of late. Poor lamb! His hair was plastered to his head and rain ran down his face to mingle with his tears. She put a protective arm around him, urging him on as he stumbled.
A figure loomed ahead of them. It was the Earl carrying an enormous umbrella. Without a word he scooped Jamie up under one arm and, signaling Felicity to keep close, they ran for the house.
Amaryllis came running down the staircase as they reached the hall, Rose Hibberd in her wake. She exclaimed at the sight of her son standing in a growing pool of water with a decided hangdog air.
“Rose—take Jamie upstairs at once! He must be got out of those wet clothes if we are to escape a severe inflammation of the lungs!”
“One moment, if you please!” The Earl spoke sharply. “Jamie, when you are dry you will come to the library.” Jamie looked apprehensive; his mother flew at once to his defense.
“Maxim! You would not ... Jamie has suffered enough. He must go straight to his bed!”
“Nonsense, Amaryllis! A good rubdown and a change of clothes should suffice. Don’t pamper the child—you do him a disservice.” He met Jamie’s shifting gaze. “Shall we say one hour, Jamie?”
The boy nodded reluctantly. Before Amaryllis could open her mouth again, Felicity intervened to suggest that Rose did not look at all well and that, as Jamie’s mamma, she must surely wish to supervise Jamie’s toilet for herself. A further gentle reminder that he should not be kept standing about in his wet clothes sent the whole party upstairs without delay.
In the silence that followed, the Earl surveyed his schoolmistress and said with surprising mildness, “Thank you. I see you are able to organize others to an inch ... but should you not change out of your own wet clothes? We do not want you taking a chill.”
She put a hand to the hair which had come down and now hung around her shoulders in dripping tendrils.
“Not I,” she laughed.
“Ah no—I was forgetting. You are a seasoned campaigner, are you not?”
The gentle irony brought confusion and she moved away. At the stairs she turned. “My lord?”
At once his face hardened. “I hope you will not plead Jamie’s cause?”
“No. He has behaved badly and must, of course, be punished. But I do feel some degree of responsibility; if you could just take into account that he is but a small boy who has never been much subjected to discipline until lately?”
The Earl’s face was unreadable. “I am not a monster, Miss Vale.”
“No, sir—of course not.” She half smiled and left him.
It crossed her mind as she stripped off her wet clothes that she should have told him about Captain Hardman, but the thought of another confrontation in a day already fraught with problems was too much to contemplate. Her head was throbbing; all she really wished to do was to lie down, but the memory of Amaryllis’s distress plagued her.
Her cousin was prostrate upon her bed when Felicity sought her out. Curtains of heavy gold brocade were drawn across the windows and a single lamp was shaded so that it did not shine in her eyes.
“Dorcas tells me you have the migraines,” Felicity murmured sympathetically. “How horrid for you.”
Amaryllis turned a fretful, tear-drenched face on the pillow. “Nobody cares how I suffer! Maxim accounts it mere self-indulgence!”
“Oh, but then, men are quite insensitive to all disorders—except their own! I know how utterly wretched migraine can make one feel, for Mrs. Patterson suffered most dreadfully from time to time. There is a special tisane I used to infuse for her. Perhaps it would relieve you?”
&nb
sp; “You are so ... strong!” Amaryllis sighed, when she was presently persuaded to sit forward and sip the soothing potion. “I daresay you will think me a very poor creature, only I cannot help it if my nerves are delicate.”
“No, indeed,” Felicity reassured her, wishing very much that she, too, might comfortably succumb to a strong attack of nerves. “But you must not fret about Jamie, you know. The discipline will do him no harm.”
Amaryllis shuddered “He should not have been chastised.”
“Well, he has borne it with disgusting cheerfulness. I have just heard him bragging to all who will listen that Lord Stayne had called him ‘a plucky young ’un’ and was to take him fishing next week.”
“I hate this place! I had such a pretty house in Chelsea—and so many friends, but Maxim was adamant that it was quite the wrong place to bring up Jamie. He never cared a jot when Antony was alive! I wish he would marry and produce a whole brood of heirs—and then I could go back to Chelsea and be happy.”
She met Felicity’s eye and moved uncomfortably, the ready tears starting again. “You think me very foolish and unfeeling, don’t you? Perhaps I am. I suppose I loved Antony ... he was very gay and charming, not in the least like his brother ... but he was so seldom home and one cannot grieve forever! And then there was Mamma ... it is very disagreeable to have been in mourning for so long...” She broke off abruptly, aware that even for her, she had been appallingly tactless. “Oh, I am sorry!”
“Don’t be,” Felicity said briskly, standing up.
“I ... I haven’t been very nice to you, have I?” ventured Amaryllis. “You must have been very unhappy.”
“Well, if I was, I am not any longer ... and perhaps we shall be better friends in the future.”
“Yes, I should like that,” said Amaryllis slowly. “You are a very ... comfortable person to be with. Did you never wish to marry?”
“I never found anyone I liked well enough.” Felicity grinned. “Or perhaps they didn’t like me! Men do so like us to be fragile, and it is not easy to feign helplessness when one is obviously built to hold one’s own ... as your Mr. Dytton found to his cost!”
Amaryllis flushed at the reminder, her lower lip caught artlessly between small white teeth. “You are certainly never at a loss. You manage Maxim so well. Do you not find him overbearing?”
“At times!” Felicity admitted with feeling. “But then, I have always been used to men who bark orders, so I have very little sensibility!”
6
Something was worrying Ester; she jumped on the children for the slightest mistake—and when she had snapped at Willie for the second time, Felicity determined to speak.
Ester hedged at first, and then brought out the letter. It was from Captain Hardman—a renewal of his offer to buy the cottage, politely worded, yet it made Felicity’s scalp prickle.
“Show it to Lord Stayne,” she advised bluntly.
“Why? Because he is a magistrate? There’s no need. I have no intention of selling.”
“Is Lord Stayne a magistrate?” exclaimed Felicity, diverted. “All the better then. He’ll be able to judge it with an expert eye.”
“I tell you, there’s no need. There was never less need for me to sell. With this job I am now secure.”
“I still don’t like it. I can’t put my finger on it, but there is a threat in that letter somewhere.”
Ester wavered.
“Lord Stayne would know,” Felicity persisted. “He would be able to advise you.”
“I don’t need advice. I can manage my own affairs.”
“Then why have you been snapping everyone’s head off this morning? You’re worried, Ester. I’ve met the Captain, remember.”
“From what you told me, I doubt he will easily forget the encounter,” said Ester dryly.
The Earl said much the same thing. After Hardman’s protest visit, he had castigated her for not informing him of her meeting with the Captain.
“It ... slipped my mind, sir,” she had lied meekly.
“Hm—Strange! It did not slip Captain Hardman’s mind. Indeed, one might suppose it to have been seared upon his memory!” He gave her a hard look. “If you wish your school to continue, you would be well advised not to make an enemy of Hardman. He is a dangerous man.”
Her chin rose a fraction. “I will remember, my lord. But I will not be threatened—or coerced!”
“Nor will you again trespass on private land, if you please.”
The Manor Court children were withdrawn, to everyone’s regret, and as far as Felicity was concerned that was the end of the matter—until about ten days before Christmas, when the schoolhouse was broken into and wrecked.
She arrived to find every bench, every slate smashed, and whitewash splashed over everything. The children were sent home and in growing anger she and Ester set about clearing up the mess. They were soon overwhelmed with helpers, and by the time the Earl arrived on the scene most of the room had been cleared, the mangled contents tossed outside to await burning, and the floor scrubbed clean.
Grim-faced, he took stock of the situation, and Felicity felt her antagonism rising. The elegance of his mulberry driving coat made her feel dusty and disheveled.
“Pray do not scruple to say what I am sure you are itching to say, my lord!”
“What is that, Miss Vale?”
“Why, that I should not have crossed Captain Hardman—that my unbridled tongue is responsible for this ... outrage.”
“Is that what you believe?”
She shrugged. “Oh, I know some of the women think the Manor Court children responsible, but children cannot destroy solid wooden desks so systematically.” Tears of anger threatened, but were blinked away. “So much waste! All because of one man’s pique.”
“I think this goes deeper than mere pique, Miss Vale.” Felicity followed him into the now-empty room where some of the village women still mopped and scrubbed. “I begin to wonder if this whole venture was not hastily conceived,” he murmured, half to himself.
“No!” She protested. “You surely do not mean to be so easily routed?”
The Earl’s brows rose haughtily. “My dear Miss Vale, I was not aware that we were conducting a military campaign.”
“No, sir ... of course not. But you wouldn’t ... you couldn’t contemplate closing the school?”
“Something tells me I am not to be permitted to do so,” he drawled. “Doubtless I shall be expected to refit this emporium of learning, and take steps to guard it against further assault!”
“Oh, as to the latter, sir, we need not trouble you,” said Felicity briskly. “I have mustered a sufficient number of the children’s parents to mount permanent dusk-to-dawn pickets.”
“Have you, be damn!” exclaimed his lordship.
“Yes, sir. The men have been most cooperative. I think I can promise there will be no repeat of last night’s trouble.”
“Then I suppose you must have your refit.” The Earl swung on his heel and Felicity followed him outside. He turned to rake her with a glance. “Come. I will drive you home. You look tired.”
“No—really!” she said, flustered. “I ... thank you, sir, but I must stay to see everything completed.”
“Why? Is Ester Graham not competent to supervise the remainder?”
“Yes, but...”
“Well then.” He stepped back to the doorway. “Ester, I am taking Miss Vale home. We may safely leave all here in your charge, may we not?”
“Certainly, my lord,” Ester said mildly, noting her friend’s ruffled manner. “A very good idea. She has worked herself to a standstill.”
“Why—so I thought. You see, Miss Vale—there is no problem.”
Felicity disliked the way she was being maneuvered. “You forget, my lord,” she said crisply, “I have my own conveyance.”
“I had not forgot. Percy shall drive the gig. I am sure such a task is not beyond him, is it, child?”
The young tiger was uncertain whether this was
to be taken as a compliment or no, but the prospect of tooling even a single horse and gig the length of the carriageway persuaded him not to probe the Earl’s words for hidden insults.
There was no more to be said. Felicity’s pelisse was fetched. She suffered the Earl to slip it over her shoulders and hand her up into his curricle, a brand-new acquisition with huge, brilliant yellow wheels. For all of a hundred yards she maintained an injured silence, but the horsewoman in her was soon surreptitiously observing the Earl, noting with reluctant admiration the fine, light hands on the reins, the skill with which he pointed his leaders, the whip’s thong flicking out and whistling soundlessly back up the stick, to be caught with a deft flick of the wrist.
Felicity’s own fingers twitched with longing; only once had she driven a four in hand, and they had been nothing like such light-mouthed beauties as these! She folded her hands resolutely in her lap and turned her thoughts to the day’s events and from thence to Ester. She sighed.
Stayne’s glance was enigmatic. “You are understandably cast down, Miss Vale. But take heart; if I am not mistaken, you will have come about by morning.”
Her ready smile flickered. “I daresay you are right, sir. As it happens, my sighs were for Ester.”
“I thought we had solved Mrs. Graham’s problems. What ails her now?”
Felicity explained about the letter.
“A carefully veiled threat?” suggested the Earl.
“That was my immediate reaction. I wanted her to show you the letter, but she would not admit the necessity. After what has happened today, I begin to wonder if we have the beginnings of a campaign of intimidation.”
“Your reasons, ma’am?” demanded Stayne.
“That’s just it, sir. I’m not sure you would consider them sufficient. But the women were talking today as they worked ... it seems that Lanny Price’s father...” Here Felicity faltered, unsure quite how to proceed; uncertain of the ethics of propounding to a magistrate the findings of an undoubted poacher. His lordship helped her out of her difficulty.