by Joan Vincent
“Yes, Father,” she dutifully agreed and jumped lightly to her feet. “I am certain Mr. Ballin will return soon.” Audacia waited for a moment wishing to tell her father of the morning’s incident in the woods. But she realized Sir Aderly was no longer aware of her presence as he tightened a bolt here and adjusted a belt there upon his experimental harvester.
A glimmer of a frown passed through Audacia’s eyes, now the brilliant blue of her flannel shirt. “I do hope it will go better for you this afternoon,” she tossed to her father; then went humming from the workroom.
* * * *
“I’ll take the tea to my room,” Audacia told Miss Bea. She picked up the tray filled with the necessaries from the kitchen table. Seeing the other’s disapproval, she added, “But you may bring me a light lunch. Some of the soup you made yesterday and a few slices of fresh bread, with butter, please. And—” she halted at the door, ”some of that pigeon pie would be good. Was there any pudding left?”
“A ‘light’ lunch, miss?” Miss Bea asked with just a gleam of humour.
“Of course it is light. I’ll have none of the brisket,” laughed Audacia. “I can come and eat here if you wish.”
“No, miss. It isn’t fitting for the lady of the house to eat in the kitchen. I’ll bring it up directly.”
Concern flickered over Audacia’s face. “You shouldn’t be doing so much. Perhaps I should speak to Mary Correl about coming during the day to help.”
“I see no need for that. There’s only the four of us in this household and I haven’t seen the day when I couldn’t care for so few. It would be far more proper to see to the hiring of an abigail for you, miss,” the housekeeper answered, taking advantage of the conversation to put forth her oft-espoused wish.
“And what would she do for me?” Audacia asked laughing as she eased the door open with her elbow. “Undo my breeches?” With a wink at the shocked Miss Bea, she left.
* * * *
“Poor Miss Bea,” Audacia murmured aloud as she fastened the last button on her day frock. “I must be very trying on the good soul,” she added while hanging the flannel shirt and breeches neatly in the armoire. She then took out a blue wool shawl and draped it across her shoulders to ward off the January chill. The fire in her room was small and did little more than keep the chill from the vicinity of the fireplace.
Audacia’s bedchamber was on the west end of the second floor of the red Keuper sandstone house. Her father’s bedchamber and two others, now unused, a sitting room, and a sewing room occupied the remainder of the floor. Below this beneath were the morning room, which Audacia thought oddly named since she and her father supped there, and a large and a small parlour. The latter had long ago been taken over by her father’s books and papers.
Miss Bea’s realm was the kitchen, scullery, and her own small room at the far end. Mr. Ballin ruled the solarium, workroom, and his small chambers just off it. Not too far from the house, in view of Audacia’s room, was the barn—a haven to Sir Aderly’s elderly greys and their lone cow as well as to the young woman’s numerous rescued animals.
Sir Aderly, his two children, and Miss Strowne had moved to the dull-rose red stone house near Bedworth shortly after the death of his wife. In his grief the baronet had sold his comfortable home in Grosvenor Square and purchased this modest farm of 500 acres, which had a comfortable, for his habits, yearly income of £500.
Leasing the land out to neighbouring farmers had proven highly satisfactory to Sir Aderly as it freed him for his agricultural experiments and inventions. Only a small plot, used for experimenting with grains, was still under his control. The past four and ten years had little variation for the Aderly children as their father lost himself in his workshop or bolted off to meetings with Watt, Wilkinson, and other experimenters in Edinburgh and London.
The biggest alteration in their lives had been four years past when Daniel, at age four and ten, had been sent off to school. This, however, had been far too late to prevent Audacia from having aped and adopted all her younger brother’s ways. Hard as the valiant housekeeper had tried, the girl had grown up practicing few of the feminine niceties or habits deemed essential by society, especially the London “ton.” Preferring the tomboyish ways Audacia used the city-bred manners Miss Bea drilled into her only as she chose.
The housekeeper, though doubtful of success, had never given up the prospect of awakening Sir Aderly to the need for refinement in his daughter’s ways. Thus far she had never quite managed to separate him from his machinery experiments long enough to be successful. Her love for the young miss came through even the worst of her scolds. That rendered them fruitless and assured Audacia that there was little need for what Miss Bea called the “essentials of genteel behaviour.”
The common folk about Bedworth had accepted the warm, loving, motherless girl from the day of her arrival in their midst and had long laughed at her boyish mannerisms. The local gentry, however, especially the leading women, had taught Audacia as she reached the stage of young womanhood to use discretion by their disapproval and sometimes by overtly excluding her from social events. The gossip that Miss Aderly went about in breeches at times provoked expressions of disapproval, but nothing was done as no one had seen her in such attire.
For the past few years Audacia had made an uneasy truce with the more snobbish leaders of the local gentry. Her “peculiarities” were overlooked, if not over discussed, because of her motherless upbringing and the neglect of an eccentric father. Since she showed no sign of having design on any of their sons, they were content to let her take part in social functions in the spirit of “charity.”
The sons of the gentry, on the other hand, accepted Audacia with an easy camaraderie; the daughters with an envious friendship. At one time or another one and all came to her for advice. It seemed that human and animal alike sensed her empathy and sought sympathy, encouragement, or the friendly understanding of her silence.
Audacia’s life had been monitored to a degree by the fact that she had spent long hours helping her father. The arrival of Mr. Ballin two years before had freed her from this. She had taken to wandering the countryside as well as refereeing Mr. Ballin’s and Miss Bea’s constant quarrelling.
All of the young women Audacia’s age had long since had a coming-out ball and had gone to London for the “season” each year since their sixteenth birthdays. If she was troubled by her lack in this area or by the fact that most were engaged or already wed, it was never evident to others. Of late, however, Audacia had become restless, but blamed this upon the confinement caused by an unusually snowy winter.
In her room Audacia poured her tea as she sat in the rocker before the two large windows that overlooked the woods behind the house. Outdoors, a battle among the blue tits, feeding on crumbs and grain the housekeeper had strewn about for them on the snow, caught her attention. She watched as a smaller bird successfully huddle over a scrap of bread despite a great tit’s complaints.
Why, Audacia thought, Geoffrey’s friend is like the great tit. Strong, surely brave, but refusing to use his full strength against one who is weaker. Setting her teacup down, she wrapped the shawl more closely about her. Chilled by the memory of the look in the man’s eyes when he had removed his hand, an uneasy feeling hovered. Those dark eyes, she thought, they held . . . pain . . . torment.
“How can you think that?” she asked softly. “You gazed in them for only a moment.” But instinctively certain she was right, Audacia frowned; wondered why the thought distressed her.
Chapter 3
Like a soft cloak thrown over the land, the late February snowfall concealed much that an earlier melting had revealed. The hungry water hen plodded slowly along the side of the river, her search for food a dismal failure. Catching a flicker of movement, a tiny splash of colour, on the opposite bank, she gave a soft quack. The twisting bob of her head betrayed her hope that it was some beetle digging its way to the surface.
A hasty check assured the hen that the surface
of the river was covered with snow, a sign that it was solidly frozen. With quick swinging steps she began her dash to the other side. Midway across her weight broke the knife-thin crust of ice and snow. She found floundered in the ice-laced water. Quacking in loud, terrified honks, she kicked at the ice edge, tried to climb back onto the surface only to have it crumble beneath her clawed feet.
The clamour drew the attention of two figures. The one on foot was closer and also surer of the direction and thus reached the scene first.
Audacia, her father’s old greatcoat repaired and bundled tightly about her, her brother’s breeches and boots showing beneath it, quickly assessed the water hen’s plight. Left alone, the bird would surely freeze to death as the ice closed about it. She saw no choice but to rescue it.
Casting about, Audacia saw a forked branch in a dead tree. She easily broke it, and then carefully began edging her way toward the still struggling hen. Crooning softly, she tried to calm the bird so that she could use the branch as a fork and simply lift the trapped animal out of the water and back onto the ice.
With each movement forward Audacia listened intently for the telltale sound of cracking that would signal the thinning of the ice. She held her breath as she came within the branch’s reach of the hen and slowly bent forward, manoeuvring its crotch beneath the bird. Then Audacia heaved slowly and steadily. Up went the branch carrying the bird haphazardly along with it.
The panicked flapping of the hen’s wings carried it from the branch. It landed a short distance from the hole in the ice on a thickness able to carry its weight.
Just as Audacia sighed with relief at the bird’s safety, a loud snap cracked in the cold air. Her feet began to sink through the breaking ice.
Arriving at the scene in time to see the greatcoat-clad figure heave the hen to freedom, and then sink into the water, a horseman jumped from his mount at the river’s edge. “Try to stay afloat, lad,” Roland yelled as he strove to break a sturdy branch from the same dead tree. Finding it resisted his efforts, he climbed above it and soon severed it with a few well-placed kicks. Greydon carried it halfway to where the purple-hatted figure struggled for a hold on the ice.
“The lad from yester month,” Roland exclaimed in surprise. He stretched full length upon the ice and pushed the branch toward the bobbing figure.
“Take the greatcoat off. Unfasten it,” Greydon urged, seeing that the weight of the wet garment was pulling the figure beneath the water.
Her teeth chattering like castanets and her fingers so numb they were like blocks of wood, Audacia strove to undo the coat and stay afloat. At last it sank from her arms to the bottom of the river, but her strength was nearly been spent by the effort.
“Grab hold of the branch. Take hold. Try!” Lord Greydon urged. “The branch, lad, take hold!”
Audacia reached out, but it seemed her body responded in slow motion. Desperation gripped her as the branch appeared to draw away as she forced her hand towards it. After an eternity of a few seconds she managed to wrap first one hand, then the other around the stout branch held out to her across the ice.
Roland pulled on the branch and though the ice at first broke under the figure’s weight, it finally held within arm’s distance of him. Grabbing the wrist of the near frozen victim, he pulled the boy free and dragged him to the river’s edge.
The earl saw that the lad’s skin was tinged with blue as he lay upon the snow-covered ground, the white cover melted by the water dripping from his soaked clothing. In one smooth motion, Greydon removed his many-caped coat and wrapped it about the shivering figure. “Is there a cottage, any building, near here?” he asked as he fastened the large coat about the prone figure.
Nodding her head, Audacia managed, “To-to-the-east,” between chattering teeth. A violent tremor shook her. “Watch—for—for—the—”
“The smoke,” Greydon finished for her. With easy movements he swept the thoroughly chilled figure into his arms and approached his mount. “Could you manage to stay in the saddle?” he asked looking down at the pale, bluish face.
Closed eyes and faint breath answered his question.
“Now what, my man?” Greydon asked himself as he looked from the unconscious figure in his arms to his mount. Thinking back to his army days in Portugal and on the Continent, he shifted the boy to one arm as if he were a sack of cabbages. Holding his burden thus, he stepped into the saddle. With the lad laid facedown across his thighs, Greydon urged his steed to the east.
A short distance ahead he spied a trail of smoke in the sky. His mount prodded to a faster pace, he reached the gamekeeper’s small cottage in moments. A quick vault backward from his mount landed him on his feet. Stepping to the horse’s side he snatched the lad from the saddle. With a hard kick to the cottage’s door he announced his presence.
Upon opening the door, the startled gamekeeper’s wife gaped at the tall gentleman as he strode past her to the fireplace without invitation. A boy of nine came from one corner of the cottage and peered over Greydon’s shoulder as he unfastened the coat from the figure he laid before the fire.
“Get me blankets,” the earl snapped at Mrs. Stollard, who was still standing at the door. “Can’t you see this lad is soaked to the skin and near frozen? It’ll be his death if we don’t get him dried and warmed.”
“But we’ve only those on our bed,” she protested.
“Get them.” Returning his attention to the unconscious figure, Lord Greydon untied the bindings of the purple cap from beneath the softly rounded chin and was surprised to find a mass of coal-black hair beneath it.
“Pull the boots off,” he ordered the young boy as he grabbed hold of the wet flannel shirt to tear it off. There was a sound of rending cloth and then Roland’s eyes widened as his gaze rested upon a woman’s chemise. An odd flicker passed through him “By all the bloody—”
Mrs. Stollard came to his side at this instant with the blankets. Looking down, she drew her breath in sharply.
“What’s the matte’, mum?” the young lad asked.
“Nothin’, Ned,” she answered draping the blankets quickly across the prone figure. “Ye fetch yerself over to Sir Aderly’s. Tell his man to bring their carriage right away.”
“They won’t be believin’ me, mum,” he protested.
“Ye tell them I said an accident has happened and they should hurry,” she insisted.
“But they’ve no boy stayin’ with them.”
“If you don’t want yer backside warmed ye’ll see to it,” his mother snapped angrily.
“Do you know where this Aderly lives?” Roland asked the boy.
“Aye, milord, I do,” Ned answered, cocking his head questioningly.
“Get your coat and do as your mother has told you. Here.” The earl put a half crown in the lad’s hand. “Hurry now.”
“I’ll run all the way, milord,” the boy answered excitedly.
“Tell them to bring warm wrappings, and warming pans,” Mrs. Stollard threw in as the lad grabbed his ragged coat from the wall.
“Aye, mum,” the boy answered, already shrugging into his coat. Halting at the door he looked to the finely dressed gentleman.
“Run as fast as you can,” the earl commanded.
With a nod the lad bolted out of the door and down the lane leading from the cottage.
“Let me help get those wet clothes off her,” Greydon told the gamekeeper’s wife, going down on one knee at Audacia’s side.
“Would you have her freeze to death?” he responded to the woman’s steely-eyed stare and moved to the young woman’s feet. He removed the boots from one foot, then the other.
“I don’t know how Miss Audacia got in the hands o’ the likes o’ ye,” Mrs. Stollard said as she tugged the clinging wet flannel from Audacia’s arms, “but ye can put aside yer notions, no matter what they be.”
“Unfasten those buttons,” he commanded her, ignoring what she had said and pointing to the breeches.
The startled woman took excep
tion. “Milord!”
“Your attitude is understandable but absolutely absurd, I assure you,” he told her, reaching to undo the buttons. A sharp slap to his hand made him withdraw it.
Huffily Mrs. Stollard undid the breeches’ fastenings.
“Thank you,” Greydon quipped and pulled one of the blankets over the wet breeches. “If you take hold of this and I the breeches, we can remove them without damage to this lady’s ‘sensibilities,’” he noted sarcastically.
Roland soon learned it required more than a gentle tug to divest the prone figure of her wet, clinging, lower covering. “This young miss needs to be advised to stay away from the pantry or make suitable adjustments in her garments,” he noted exasperatedly.
“Milord, they are wet,” clucked Mrs. Stollard, her eyes scolding him for broaching so indelicate a subject.
“Do you have a nightdress we—I mean you,” he altered his choice of words to forestall the scold, ”can put on her?”
“If ye’ll be steppin’ outside I do,” she returned, rubbing Audacia’s hands. “The poor thing is near froze.”
“Enough of this squabbling,” Greydon snorted walking around to Audacia’s head. “Fetch the nightdress. Two can get it on her much faster than one. Stop your scowling. I’ve seen unclothed women.”
“Fancy that,” the older woman scoffed. “A braggart no less,” she snorted angrily, refusing to let go of the blanket that covered Audacia.
“I didn’t mean this particular one,” he returned with infuriated seriousness. “What use have I for a breech-sporting twig. I prefer my ladies to be—women.”
Audacia stirred and moaned.
“Your defence of her honour is noted but she’ll have no use for it if she does not live.” He pulled a silver flask from his jacket. Opening it, he set it to Audacia’s lips and poured some of the dark liquid inside it into her mouth, then pinched her nose shut, forcing her to swallow.
Mrs. Stollard, having yielded to the truth of his argument fetched her nightdress, a heavy coarse linen billow of cloth, but paused as she returned to the young woman’s side.