Lady Violet Attends a Wedding, page 9
“I am still angry with St. Sevier.” I had apologized for my part in the whole mishap, but I had yet to hear anything approaching a flag of truce from him.
“Are you really? One would never have guessed. You must tell him saving your life in future will be deemed a gross presumption, and he will indulge himself in that regard at peril to his own wellbeing. He’s a quick study, he’ll take your point.”
I wanted to swat Sebastian with my crop, but I was still too shaky to manage anything but my reins.
“I scolded Papa within an inch of his life for that business about bandaging my eyes. It was not well done of them.”
“But it was well intended.” Sebastian held back a branch for me as we took the path that led to the Ford’s manor house. The rain had apparently been more recent here, for the woods around us still dripped quietly onto wet earth.
“Napoleon would say his conquests were well intended,” I countered. “He was intent on sharing with the world the blessing of French language and culture, or on looting the world of its treasure for the benefit of France.”
Sebastian was silent for a time, and the peace of the woods restored some of my calm. I’d played here by the hour as a girl, but the trees were years older now, years more venerable and sturdy. Sunlight on the wet foliage put a sparkle to the quiet, and riding once again with Sebastian was a pleasure I hadn’t anticipated.
“St. Sevier is not Napoleon,” I muttered. “I know that, but I disliked being a wife, and that is part of my vexation with the earl.” I hadn’t planned to say that.
“You disliked being Freddie Belmaine’s wife. Why?” Sebastian had always been able to follow my leaps. He didn’t accuse me of female flights of illogic, featherbrained fancies, or other failings.
“Because once I married, I had virtually no control over my fate. I had more freedom and more privacy as a girl, for all I was a minor in my father’s keeping. Freddie came and went as he pleased, a benevolent dictator who graciously overlooked my inability to give him children. He upheld his part of that bargain, while I could not produce viable offspring. I was to remain serenely imprisoned in his household while he played with the funds on ’Change, indulged his mistresses, and casually informed me he’d be nipping off to Paris for no reason at all—without me.”
Anything but spending time with me, much less spending time on the activities I enjoyed.
“While you sat in your pretty parlor and fumed.”
And grieved. I’d been grieving since shortly after my wedding night. I saw that now. “I am making melodrama where none exists. My husband loved me.”
The manor house on its stately rise came into view. MacHeath’s Ford was an imposing three-story red brick edifice that was larger than it appeared from the front. Two wings projected directly back from the façade, meaning the façade showed only a third of the house’s size. The interior of its U-shape was a courtyard that flowed into gardens and a park.
My memories of this house were of footsteps echoing in beautiful, gleaming corridors; servants moving silently; and a young Scottish boy sent to England in hopes that “civilization” would rub off on him.
Thank heavens that boot had gone on the other foot.
“Do you bide here?” I asked.
“I do not. Not yet. I want you to consider something, Violet, before your wrath has consequences you’ll regret. St. Sevier served on the Peninsula. I suspect he chose to join Wellington’s army the better to exercise influence on behalf of French family members should they fall into English hands. Anybody with half a wit could see that Wellington would win that campaign, no matter how long it took.”
Napoleon had stormed his way through Europe and even into Russia, while the British had chosen to battle across Spain and over the Pyrenees into the south of France. Many factors contributed to the eventual success of Britain and her allies—the Russian winter prominent among them.
Still, the Peninsular campaign—“the Spanish ulcer,” in Napoleon’s terms—had lasted five long, bloody years, with the Franco-Spanish army often camping within shouting distance of its British enemies.
I drew Aurora to a halt on the front drive. “Are you saying the war was harder on St. Sevier than on the average British soldier?”
“If there are degrees of purgatory,” Sebastian said, dismounting, “I suspect aiding the army that seeks to invade your homeland ranks near the top. In addition to that, St. Sevier was a physician serving as a field surgeon.” Sebastian came around Hannibal and held up his arms to me.
I unhooked my knee from the horn and gathered my skirts, then slid down into Sebastian’s embrace. I stole an extra moment there, my hands resting on his arms, because I was in want of fortification.
Perhaps this was why I sought to hide in my London town house. Venturing forth meant bumping into uncomfortable truths and precious memories.
“St. Sevier is a doctor,” I said. “How is the lot of a noncombatant more difficult than that of the men going into battle?”
Sebastian stepped back and gathered up the reins of both horses. “Was it easy knowing Felix was facing death on the Spanish plain?”
“No.” I’d read the casualty lists more fervently than I’d ever attended to Holy Scripture, and no matter how many names of friends, neighbors, and acquaintances I saw on those infernal pages, I rejoiced every time I reached the bottom, for Felix had been spared.
As had Sebastian.
“Consider,” Sebastian said, leading the horses away from the drive, “that your task is not to fight, but to patch up the wounded, to comfort the dying, though you have no laudanum to speak of. You haven’t enough time for the work you must do, you haven’t competent help. Your English counterparts are poorly trained, arrogant butchers by comparison.
“They know to slash and burn,” he went on, “and they don’t bother washing their hands or disinfecting wounds by what means they have. You are suspected of traitorous motives at every turn, and you do not dare share your more enlightened training with those Englishmen, for they will suspect you even in that, when your patients, on the whole, fare better than theirs. All the while, you see the defeat of your homeland coming closer and the soldiers you can save sent straight back to the fighting, only to be slain in the next battle.”
Sebastian sketched this scenario as he slipped off the horses’ bridles and saddles and turned both mounts out into a small overgrown paddock with a loafing shed at one end. Hannibal commenced grazing immediately. Aurora trotted around for a moment, then joined Hannibal at grass.
“Did St. Sevier tell you this willingly?” I asked.
“Of course not. Give the man some credit. Felix and I got to comparing notes, and when I came upon St. Sevier in the library of a late evening, I broke out the whisky. Frenchmen and their delicate palates are no match for the water of life.”
I’d sampled the water of life and had promptly longed for death. Fire in a bottle would have gone down more easily.
“Have you a key to the house?” I asked.
He flourished an old-fashioned iron key. “You are a widow,” he said, taking me by the hand and marching off toward the house. “Memories of your marriage, regrets, vexations, and more rise up out of nowhere to ambush you. The loss weighs on your heart. You think you have finished your mourning, but you never entirely complete that process. St. Sevier inhabits the same sort of wilderness.”
“And you don’t?” Felix certainly seemed to have bounced home from the war in great good spirits, ready to turn his cavalry experience into a profitable venture.
“For the British, the war was simple: Defeat the Corsican, or die trying. For a French émigré attached to the English army, there could be no joy in such a victory and no joy in the Corsican’s continued plundering. When St. Sevier sewed up some English lancer or dragoon, he might have been saving the soldier responsible for the death of a brother or cousin. That has to wear on a man.”
We thumped up the front steps onto a terrace swept clean, though one without flowers, ferns, or any softening hint of domesticity.
“You are saying St. Sevier is not as consummately self-possessed as he seems.”
“None of us is, save perhaps Wellington. That man gives no more thought to enemy fire than Hannibal does to a passing shower.”
Speaking of which, clouds were gathering overhead, and the air had cooled. I had the sense Sebastian was reluctant to go into the house, so I took the key from him and put it to the lock.
“Come along. I have no fondness whatsoever for passing showers.”
I was, however, fond of Sebastian. He was a good man to speak up for St. Sevier, and the least I could do in return was accompany him as he faced a few regrets and memories of his own. We poked around the house for the better part of an hour, while the passing shower turned to a downpour, then back to drizzle, then once again to sunshine.
“We’d best dash home while the rain holds off,” I suggested as Sebastian fiddled with the flue of the chimney in the music chamber. I stood near a window across the room, unwilling to be doused with ash should the chimney be in want of cleaning.
“A moment,” Sebastian said, pulling on a riding glove.
Beyond the window, the world was once again a wet, sparkling jungle. The lawn had been scythed at some point weeks ago, while the paddocks stretching from the stables resembled uncut hayfields. Hannibal grazed contentedly, while Aurora was once again trotting about, head up, tail wringing. Sebastian’s words came back to me, about the horses being better sentries than the soldiers.
“Sebastian?”
“A moment, damn it.”
“Sebastian, somebody is out there.”
Chapter Six
MacHeath’s Ford was a functional estate, with home farm, home wood, tenancies, and the like, but Sebastian had told me on our rambles that he’d closed up the manor itself five years ago. Nobody should have been skulking around the unused stable.
“Boys truant from their studies,” Sebastian said, joining me at the window. “A deer stirring between showers. Escaped sheep.”
His suggestions made sense, but I was still uneasy. Aurora would not much remark any of those intruders. “Let’s go. We’ve toured everything but the guest wing, and we can come back another time.”
I headed for the stairs, Sebastian beside me.
“The place feels so much smaller now,” he said. “As a boy, the ceilings soared over me, the corridors were miles long, the marquess’s rare letters were royal decrees, and my tutors gods.”
“You eluded your gods often enough.” And thank heavens he had.
“They found my company as trying as I did theirs. I see that now.”
We reached the front door, our footsteps unusually loud in the vacant house. “Will you return here, my lord?”
“I’m not sure.” He bowed me through the front door into the sunshine and brisk midday air. “I’m told the neighbors are a tribulation. Something has your mare in a taking.”
Aurora cantered around the small, overgrown paddock, not in a panic, but not calm either.
“Hannibal doesn’t seem alarmed.” I was uneasy, for all the gelding grazed placidly on.
“The mare does the worrying for him,” Sebastian said. “Army mounts were almost always geldings, but we kept a few mares in the herd for precisely this reason. They are aware of more than grass, water, and the next nap.”
I thought I heard a door close, but that might have been my imagination. “Have you any staff on the premises?”
“I have not. The home farm is occupied, and that family acts as caretaker here. All this property requires is the occasional scything of the grounds or trimming of the hedges.”
Aurora stamped to a halt and whinnied shrilly. Another horse replied from the direction of the woods.
“We have company,” Sebastian said, his steps becoming quieter. “I will saddle the horses as if that’s of no moment, but be ready to find cover, Violet.”
“I can help—”
“Be ready,” he said again, a note of command in his voice. “Poachers have doubtless delighted in my absence these past five years. My part of the woods is overgrown, game likely abounds. Poachers go armed to their trade, and the penalties if I catch them are severe.”
The penalties could include death—for snaring a hare to feed one’s children, the same hare that could devastate a kitchen garden with impunity.
“Where can I find safety?” I asked, taking up the bridles and untangling the reins.
Hannibal came to the gate like the well-trained veteran he was, and Aurora followed him.
“The mill,” Sebastian said, taking Hannibal’s bridle from me and slipping the bit into the gelding’s mouth. “I have not threshed grain there since your father built a horse-powered mill in the village. We keep it unlocked for the groundsmen to take their nooning. Place is built like a fortress. If need be, get yourself upstairs and bolt the door. It’s safer than the manor house.”
The mill was downstream, closer to the bridge. The building itself was made of thick fieldstone, the beams enormous. A small castle, in other words, which suggested Sebastian was more than a trifle uneasy.
“I refuse to run from a rabbit,” I said, looping the reins around Aurora’s neck and fastening her bridle buckles.
“Rabbits don’t ride horses, Violet.” Sebastian’s gelding wore both saddle and bridle, and Aurora was soon saddled as well. “Up you go,” Sebastian said, but as he cupped his hands to toss me aboard, Aurora took a step to the side and whinnied again.
“Stand, horse,” I muttered.
“Don’t wait for me,” Sebastian said, heaving me into the saddle. “Get home as quickly as you can.”
“But the bridge—”
“Go, Violet.”
I waited, because we were both being ridiculous. We were on Sebastian’s land, barely a stone’s throw from the Earl of Derwent’s family seat, not lost in the Cantabrian Mountains with armed enemy patrols in pursuit.
“I won’t leave you alone,” I said, “and besides, on a damp day, anybody skulking about in the woods will leave both tracks and a trail through the bracken. They are better off remaining hidden if their purposes are untoward.”
“St. Sevier is right,” Sebastian said, grabbing a handful of wet mane and swinging onto his horse. “Any man who marries you is risking his sanity. You are more stubborn than a fishwife’s mule.”
“What a lovely comparison, though you must admit my scent is more agreeable than the mule’s.”
He urged his gelding forward, and Aurora fell in behind. The recent downpour made the ground more slippery, and every branch showered us with droplets at the slightest stirring of a breeze.
Ahead of me, Sebastian came to a halt on the trail. “Show yourself.”
Had I been a French bunny rabbit, that tone of voice would have sent me pelting for the Antipodes.
“Show yourself now,” Sebastian growled.
I could not ride up beside him—the trail was too narrow—and besides, he was being protective. A lady interfered with a Scotsman being protective at the risk of endless recrimination. Both Aurora and Hannibal were watching the forest to our right, in which direction the river lay.
A horseman emerged from the woods on a fine gray. No poacher had ever sported such a perfectly canted high-crowned beaver hat, gleaming boots, or exquisitely tailored riding jacket.
“Mr. Engle,” I said. “You might have made yourself known.”
He tipped his hat. “I do beg your pardon, though I fear what I have done is made myself lost. Might I join you on the ride back to the Hall?”
“Of course,” I replied, feeling more than a little foolish.
Mr. Engle apparently felt more than a little foolish, too, and regaled us with a story about boyhood friends who’d tricked him into digging for treasure where their father had decided to replant a sizable tree. I managed the bridge easily enough, because Sebastian saw to it that Aurora traversed the planks behind Hannibal and in front of Mr. Engle’s mount. By the time we returned to the stables, we were a sodden, genial trio.
I left Sebastian and Mr. Engle comparing notes in the stable about the best conformation for a steeplechase prospect while I went up to my room to change. At some other time—when I was warm and dry—I would ask Sebastian how the topic of marriage to me had come up with St. Sevier.
Or perhaps—I was weary of my banishment from St. Sevier’s good graces—I would ask Monsieur myself.
Lucy helped me change into an afternoon dress—long sleeves, high neck—and swaddled me in two shawls before marching off with my damp riding habit in her arms. I built up the fire in the sitting room, thinking to invite Heloise and Annamarie to join Miss Engle and me for a pot of tea.
I found Helly and Anna in the music room rehearsing a song about a weaver and a fair young maid that sounded anything but appropriate for two unmarried ladies.
“We’re hoping Lord Dunkeld will sing the bass and Monsieur St. Sevier the tenor,” Annamarie said.
“Monsieur is more of a baritone. The best tenor in the family is Ellersby.”
“Ellersby will never sing such a lively tune.” Heloise played a minor arpeggio at a funeral tempo. “He’s too ser-i-ous.”
“Which is why you chose this piece, no doubt. I’ve ordered a pot of tea in my sitting room, and I was hoping you two would join me.”
“Tea!” Heloise said, closing the cover over the keys. “I am perishing for want of a hot cup of tea. Come, Anna. You are perishing too.”
Anna rose from the piano bench. “I am perishing from boredom. I thought we were supposed to plan a wedding. Poor Miss Engle must be expiring from anticipation.”
“That ought to be Felix’s lot,” I said. “Come along, and we’ll collect Miss Engle. One can plan some aspects of a ceremony without having an exact date.”
Heloise was the first out the door. “Such as?”
“What, if anything, to wear on your wedding night.”
My cousins had clearly not been expecting that suggestion from me, for they both went off into peals of merriment. We were in fine spirits as we stopped by the library, then the conservatory, then the gallery, the stillroom, the various parlors…
