Impetuous

by Candace Camp

  Cassandra, on the other hand, was well content with the arrangement. Sir Philip’s carriage was both roomier and more luxurious than her aunt’s, as well as being much better sprung. Of course, there had been the little problem of Hart’s bit of travel sickness at the beginning, but once they had stopped and let him relieve himself of his breakfast by the side of the road, he felt much better, and they were able to continue in relative peace.

  Sir Philip rode beside his carriage, and with the curtains rolled up both inside and out, it was possible to talk to him through the open window—not to carry on a full conversation, of course, for it was too noisy, but she could exchange a remark now and then or ask a question. Cassandra also noticed that it gave her a wonderful opportunity to look at him unobserved.

  He sat his horse superbly, back straight, his strong thighs easily controlling the spirited animal he rode. He rode hatless, and his hair glinted black in the sunlight like a crow’s wing. The breeze tousled his hair, giving it a faintly unkempt look that Cassandra found appealing. She studied the firm jut of his jaw, the strength of his mouth and chin. And she wondered, all over again, how much, if any, of what Aunt Ardis had said was true.

  She watched idly as the familiar landscape of the Cotswolds passed by. They stopped to rest the horses at an inn in Chipping Norton. As soon as they jumped out of the carriage, Hart and Crispin began to pepper Sir Philip with questions about his carriage and the horses, a beautifully matched set of four that even Cassandra, no connoisseur of horseflesh, could tell were remarkable.

  Philip, laughing, suggested that they ask the coachman himself. “Will!” he shouted in the direction of his driver, who was overseeing the hostlers unhitching the horses. “I have a couple of would-be coachmen here. Why don’t you and Tommy take them in hand?”

  “Of course, sir,” the coachman answered affably, nodding to his assistant Tommy to take his place supervising the inn’s hostlers and walking over to where Sir Philip stood with the boys. “Mayhap you’d like to climb up and see what the view is like from where I sit.”

  “Would I!” Crispin cried, while Hart was rendered speechless by such bounty.

  “Could I, too?” Olivia asked.

  The coachman turned toward her, surprised, but Philip with a smile said, “Of course, Miss Olivia—that is, if it is all right with your sister.”

  Cassandra nodded, smiling, pleased that he had not denied the pleasure to her sister. Olivia grinned and began to clamber up after the boys.

  “Olivia swings back and forth between wanting to put her hair up and wear long skirts and dazzle every man in sight and wanting to climb trees with her brothers,” Cassandra told him, amused, watching her siblings. “Thank you for letting her. I know many would think it an unfit thing for a girl, but Papa and I always believed in not restricting activities to certain sexes. Papa said it was stifling to the mind and weakening to the will.”

  “It is obvious that your father applied his principles to you, as well.”

  “Thank you. I will take that as a compliment.”

  “It was meant as such.” Sir Philip grinned down at her, admiring the way the sunlight turned Cassandra’s serious gray eyes almost silver.

  “Olivia!” A shocked cry burst from their aunt as Ardis crossed the yard toward them. “Get down from there at once. Cassandra! What are you thinking, letting her scramble around like a hoyden? It’s disgraceful!”

  “It’s all right, Aunt Ardis,” Cassandra replied easily as Olivia ignored her aunt’s command. “Sir Philip gave Olivia and the boys permission. His coachman is looking after them.”

  “But Olivia!” Aunt Ardis came to a stop beside them, looking shocked. “It is bad enough that the Lord of Chesilworth is making a spectacle of himself, but for a girl—”

  “Lord Chesilworth is only twelve years old,” Cassandra reminded her aunt crisply. “One can hardly expect him not to act like a young boy, whatever his title.”

  “A young lady certainly cannot clamber about atop coaches.”

  “I am a very progressive thinker when it comes to children,” Sir Philip interjected, his eyes twinkling. “I don’t believe in stifling young minds, girls or boys.”

  Aunt Ardis looked as if she would like to argue, but with an effort she pressed her lips together and drew herself up a little taller. “Of course, Sir Philip. If it is your wish…” She tried to smile.

  “Shall we go in, ladies?” Sir Philip continued, ushering the women toward the door of the inn. “I am sure that the innkeeper can find you a private room and some refreshments.”

  “That would be lovely. I find traveling so tiring.” Joanna took Sir Philip’s arm, leaning against him as if she had trekked the miles from Dunsleigh on foot rather than in a comfortable carriage.

  Cassandra cast a jaundiced eye on her cousin and said, “You go ahead. I think that I shall walk around a bit first.”

  “An excellent idea,” Sir Philip agreed. “Let me escort Mrs. Moulton and Miss Moulton into the inn to rest, and I shall join you.”

  Cassandra received a dagger glance from her cousin as Sir Philip turned and, deftly extricating his arm from Joanna’s grasp, placed an impersonal, helping hand on one arm of both Joanna and her mother. He guided them into the inn while Cassandra walked idly around the yard. At first she kept an eye on her siblings, but a few moments of watching was enough to convince her that they were in expert hands with the coachman.

  When Sir Philip returned, she had no qualms about leaving them and strolling with him along the broad main street of the quaint market town. She was sure that her aunt would scold her for her boldness, but Cassandra was enjoying herself too much to think about that. What her aunt had said about Sir Philip still niggled at her mind, and she wished that she could find out the truth of it, but she could think of no way to politely ask him about a houseful of illegitimate children, so she pushed that out of her mind, as well.

  “Tell me about your home,” she said instead.

  “Haverly House? It is old and rambling, gray Norfolk stone.”

  “I have never been in Norfolk.”

  “It is more isolated than the Cotswolds. People have gone there for centuries to get away from things. The fens were a great barrier in the past. They say that’s why there are so many churches in East Anglia. The religious moved there for the peace. Of course, now with the fens drained, it is more accessible, but still, very few people pass through it. There is nothing to go to on the other side, you see, just the ocean.”

  “I hate to think what your mother will say, having all of us descend on her.”

  “Mother is rather used to my eccentricities by now. As long as she is not put out, she is as placid as a clam. Since we have an excellent housekeeper, she is rarely put out. I sent my valet on with a message to her and the housekeeper that we were coming. Now Mrs. Benby may ring a peal over my head for giving her so little notice, but Mother will be quite unaffected. My sister, of course, will be in ecstasies at the idea of company.”

  “Your sister?” Cassandra felt a jolt of surprise. “I—I didn’t realize that you had one.”

  “Did you think me incapable of it?” He cast her an amused glance. “Anyone can have brothers and sisters, you know, even rigid and unimaginative sorts like us Nevilles.”

  “I didn’t mean that. I just—I don’t know, you seemed to me to be an only child.”

  He shrugged. “She is much younger than I, fifteen years, so most of my life I was raised alone. I was off at school when she was born, so we were not close in the way of siblings, at least not when she was young.”

  “What is her name?”

  “Georgette.” He smiled down at Cassandra. “You will like her. She is a young lady of great spunk and curiosity.”

  “I am sure I will.” Cassandra hoped that Georgette would like her, although she told herself that there was no
reason for it to matter.

  “Sir!” a young boy called, and they turned to find one of the hostlers pelting down the street after them. “The lady sent me to fetch you.” He bobbed a bow toward them and paused to catch his breath. “She says the young miss must be careful of getting too much sun.”

  “Too much sun!” Cassandra repeated in astonishment and glanced up at the mild June sky.

  “Yes’m. She said to tell you to come back.”

  Cassandra sighed. She knew that her aunt was not concerned about her health but about the amount of time she was keeping Sir Philip away from Joanna’s presence. “Tell them that we will come straight back.”

  Her aunt’s poor temper was evident from the moment they stepped inside the private room where she and Joanna sat, sipping at drinks while Crispin, Hart and Olivia talked, laughed and hopped about in an excess of energy.

  “Sir Philip!” Hart greeted Cassandra’s companion as an old friend. “It was capital. They let us help them water and feed the horses, and Will Coachman even let me hold the whip!”

  “Did he, now? He must have been impressed with you indeed.”

  “He let us all hold the whip,” Olivia said, giving her younger brother a scornful glance.

  “He said we could take turns riding on the seat with them, if it was all right with you,” Crispin told them eagerly. “Is it, sir? Could we?”

  “Will said that?”

  “Yes.” Olivia nodded vigorously. “He said we asked clever questions, and he had never heard the like of us. That’s good, don’t you think?”

  “Definitely.” Neville’s lips curved up into a smile. “If Will is willing to take you on, it is all right with me.”

  “Who gets to go first?” Hart pursued the subject with his usual tenacity.

  “First?” Sir Philip looked unprepared for this controversy, and he cast a beseeching glance toward Cassandra.

  “Me, silly,” Crispin demanded, giving his twin a shove on the shoulder. “I am Lord Chesilworth.”

  “Hah! You think that gives you the right to do everything first!”

  “I’m the oldest,” Olivia stated. “Besides, if you were gentlemen, you would let a lady go first.”

  “A lady! You?” Hart snorted.

  “A flimsy reason, if you want to be allowed to do the things that the boys are,” Cassandra reminded her. “Hart could make arguments that he should go first because he is the youngest or because, since he will not be receiving the title and lands, he should at least get the compensation of things like riding atop the carriage. My suggestion is that you draw straws to see who will go first.”

  “And a very sensible suggestion it is, too,” Sir Philip said gratefully.

  In the end, it was Hart who got the first chance to ride atop the carriage, followed by Olivia, then Crispin. Crispin put on a look of noblesse oblige, as if he had allowed them to go before him because he was too noble to do otherwise.

  With the children rotating their turns in the high driver’s seat, there was plenty of room within the spacious carriage, and Sir Philip took advantage of it by tying his horse to the back of the carriage and riding inside. Cassandra was sure that her cousin and aunt were furious, but there was nothing they could do about it, riding in a separate carriage.

  It was scarcely as if they shared a private moment, for there were two of Cassandra’s siblings with them the entire time, but at least they were able to chat about whatever took their fancy, cudgeling their brains all over again about the incomplete map, the possible location of the other map and the likelihood of finding the treasure even with both maps.

  The carriage stopped for a late luncheon in Banbury. Cassandra watched with some amusement as Joanna and her mother maneuvered to sit at the table on either side of Sir Philip, excluding her. Joanna proceeded to monopolize him with teasing, girlish chatter, and her mother took up the slack whenever she paused to draw a breath. Cassandra, sitting across the table, watched Sir Philip’s eyes glaze over with boredom and thought with a glee that she was sure was unworthy and not at all ladylike that Joanna was probably doing the worst thing she possibly could to snag Philip Neville’s heart. Cassandra wasn’t about to enlighten her—not that Joanna would have listened to anything a bookish spinster such as Cassandra would have to say.

  As soon as they finished eating, Sir Philip bobbed up, relief all over his face, and announced that they must press on if they hoped to reach their destination by nightfall.

  It turned out that they missed that goal, for they were delayed by a broken wheel on the Moultons’ carriage. Leaving the carriage to be mended and brought on to them, they continued their journey with Joanna and Mrs. Moulton riding in Sir Philip’s carriage. If she could have thought of any way for her to have done it, Cassandra would almost have believed that Aunt Ardis had caused the wheel to break so that they could ride in Sir Philip’s carriage. Their happiness was short-lived, however, for Sir Philip, noting that the carriage would be too crowded if he were to continue to ride in it, with gentlemanly courtesy resumed riding his horse.

  “Coward,” Cassandra murmured as he moved past her on his way out the door, and he flashed her a conspiratorial grin.

  They arrived after dark at a stately manor house not far from Northampton, the home of Sir Philip’s aunt and uncle, Lord and Lady Philby. Lady Philby was a woman of great rectitude and snobbery, and so boring about it that even Aunt Ardis could barely hide her yawns. His Lordship, on the other hand, was a benign, avuncular sort who managed through the course of the evening to pinch the bottoms of all three of the young women present. It was a great relief when it was late enough that they could excuse themselves, citing travel weariness, and bolt for their rooms.

  Sir Philip, escorting them, bowed over Cassandra’s hand in front of the room she would share with her sister and said, with a wink, “Every family tree has a few branches they would like to lop off, wouldn’t you say?”

  Cassandra, even tired as she was, had to laugh.

  * * *

  THE TOWER OF Ely Cathedral thrust heavenward in the distance, commanding the attention of all who saw it. Built on a knoll, it dominated the flat land around it. Cassandra, her head stuck shamelessly out the window to get a better view, let out a long, heartfelt sigh.

  “Ohh…” She breathed. “It is even more awe-inspiring than I had imagined.”

  Eyes sparkling, she turned to Sir Philip. It was the afternoon of the third day of their journey, but whatever tiredness she had felt from their travel had been swept away by the sight of the cathedral, bathed in the glow of the afternoon sun.

  “The best time to see it is in the autumn at twilight. Then, rising up out of the mists, the dying sun touching it with gold, it looks…well, as it must have looked hundreds of years ago, a sanctuary for the hunted.”

  “Eely,” Crispin drew out the word, making a face. He was hanging out the window across from Cassandra, with Olivia right behind him, maneuvering to see. He turned to Olivia and made a snaky movement with his hand. “Better watch out, Livvy, or the eels’ll get you.”

  “Not anymore,” Sir Philip commented with a smile. “But you are right, Crispin, the name did come from the word eels. Ely used to be an island rising up out of the fens all around, and the eels in the water were the staple of the local people’s diet.”

  “It’s where Hereward the Wake hid out for years, fighting the Normans,” Cassandra told her brothers.

  “Yes, until some of the monks got tired of hiding him and showed the conquerors the way in through the fens,” Philip added.

  “Can we go inside?” Olivia asked.

  “It is reputed to be beautiful,” Cassandra commented.

  “It is. And I promise that one day soon we will make a trip here. It isn’t too far from Haverly House. But today I think we should continue.”

  “Yes, you are
probably right,” Cassandra agreed.

  Crispin nodded. The excitement of their journey had worn off somewhat over the past couple of days, even for the boys.

  After they passed through the small cathedral town, Cassandra continued to gaze out the window, fascinated by the new landscape. “It is so unusual here. So flat. And what is that odd, long mound over there on the left? It seems to have been running on for miles.”

  “It has. It is a river.”

  “What?”

  “The banks of the rivers are higher than the land around them. You see, this all used to be marshland, but when they drained the marshes in the seventeenth century, it left the land much lower than the banks of the rivers. They had to build up the banks of the rivers to keep them from overflowing.”

  “But why did they drain them?” Crispin asked, disappointed. “I would have liked to see the swamps.”

  “So you shall. There is still a fen left on our lands. The Neville of that time—the father of Sir Edric, the one who was affianced to your Margaret—did not approve of draining the fens. When the Earl of Bedford brought Vermuyden in to drain the land, my ancestor held out. Of course, eventually he died, and his son, the much despised would-be groom, hired another Dutchman to drain our lands, too. Out of respect for his father, however, he did leave a small portion of the fens intact. I shall take you there while you are at Haverly House.”

  “But why?” asked Crispin. “I don’t understand why they wanted to get rid of the fens.”

  “Economics, dear boy. As your sister will tell you, we Nevilles have an eye toward money. The land left when the marshes were drained is very rich, black, arable soil. Instead of acres and acres of unproductive fens, we now have acres and acres of farmland, all leased or sold and making profits.”

  “I wish I could have seen it the way it used to look.”