Amanda Scott (44 page)

Lady Cadogan, though she had been knitting steadily throughout their journey, had no need to look at her work and was watching the busy street as they passed along it. Without turning her head, she said casually, “The higher land commands the best views of the river and adjacent countryside, I believe.”

Lady Lyford said, “We have not come this distance to bother about the view, Wynnefreda.” Looking out and about as the carriage came to a gentle halt beside the narrow flagway, she added, “There is a superior-looking gentleman yonder whom I have not seen before. I wonder if he is married. No, no, Wynnefreda, do not sneer. One must always be on the lookout if one is to succeed in one’s endeavors. But come, we have arrived.”

Lady Cadogan stowed her knitting in the voluminous bag she carried with her for the purpose, while the footman opened the door and let down the steps, holding out his hand to assist Pamela. The others followed, with the countess descending last. She banged her silver-tipped ebony cane on the cobbles, much, Gwenyth thought, as though to shake from it the dust of their journey. Then, moving without its assistance and with the briskness that always surprised those who knew her true age, the little old lady led the way up the flagway the few yards to Madame Mathilde’s establishment, and her companions soon found themselves comfortably seated upon velvet chairs exclaiming over styles, patterns, fabrics, and furbelows.

Gwenyth had not intended to make any purchases for herself, for her own woman in London was already at work on a number of rigs for the Jubilee celebration and the Little Season; however, she found herself unable to resist a Grecian frock of fine French cambric with a border of shaded purple embroidery. Its fall long sleeves with their turned-up cuffs of lace, fastened with gold studs, were a particular novelty that pleased her very much.

The two older ladies also ordered gowns, Lady Lyford ordering several cut from colorful, rich materials and demanding that they all be edged with yards of lace. “I look well in lace,” she said simply when Lady Cadogan mentioned the fact that lace was still ruinously expensive because of the duty that had to be paid. “Moreover,” the old lady added with an oblique glance at her dressmaker, “I daresay Mathilde has methods of coping with that problem. Gentlemen like a lady to wear lace.”

Gwenyth noticed that the countess did not insist upon lace to trim Pamela’s outfits, but when the number of these was totted up at the end, she winced, deciding that it would be as well to be far from Molesford when the earl received the bills.

When they had finished their shopping, Lady Lyford commanded her coachman to drive them to Goring, and as soon as he pulled his horses to a stop in the center of the bridge to pay their toll, she shouted to her footman to open the door. “Get down, gels. I make no doubt you’ll want to see the wondrous view.”

Fortunately there was no traffic at the moment, and the toll keeper made no effort to move them along, so both Gwenyth and Pamela descended obediently, and Gwenyth saw at once why so many artists inhabited the two villages. The main lock and weir were just above them on the Goring side, but because the river branched below into two arms around a tree-shrouded island, there were actually two weirs and corresponding backwaters, the latter alive with waterfowl, including a number of the ubiquitous white swans for which the Thames was famous.

“’Tis so beautiful,” Pamela said. “The river branches are so much narrower below the bridge that it makes all those shady recesses and streams look like brooks in an enchanted forest.”

The Goring lock was opened just then to allow the passage of a loaded barge, and the spewing water poured beneath the bridge in a tumble of white water, fighting, dancing, surging beneath their feet with a roar of noise that startled them both.

“Good gracious!” Gwenyth exclaimed, watching as one quiet backwater after another turned to roiling foam before their very eyes. Water birds, including the graceful swans, instantly took wing before the flash, their raucous cries barely audible over the roar of the water. Moments later, the barge passed below them, narrowly missing the bridge pilings on either side of it as it slipped between them. One of the bargemen, Gwenyth noted, was so tall he had to duck to avoid hitting his head on the bridge.

The nearness of the barge and the awesome power of the water made it seem for a moment or two as though the bridge would be swept away with them on it, but within a minute or two the river had returned to normal. Gwenyth drew a long, steadying breath and turned to look back at the lock as it was swung back into place. Sighting a string of laden pack mules moving onto the bridge from the Berkshire side, she realized that their driver would wish to cross to the other side in order to continue his journey, for the Berkshire-side towpath ended at the bridge, so she touched Pamela’s arm, and they returned to the carriage.

In Goring there was little of interest to be seen other than the ancient church near the river, with its square gray tower and round-headed windows. As the carriage passed it, Lady Lyford explained that the church dated from the days of Henry II and Thomas à Becket.

Pamela sighed audibly.

“Yes,” agreed the countess at once, “fusty stuff. But I thought you would like to look across from here. If you look downriver a bit to that point just before the bend—”

“Why, what a lovely house!” Pamela exclaimed.

Gwenyth, too, caught her breath in pleasure, for half-hidden in the foliage was a magnificent manor house ringed by beeches, elms, oaks, and chestnuts. Colorful flower gardens spilled from the symmetrical entrance nearly all the way to the riverbank.

Lady Lyford nodded, folding her hands neatly on the head of her cane. “It does present a tolerable appearance from here,” she said. “Not so grand as the abbey, of course, but tolerable.”

Lady Cadogan chuckled, her needles clicking rapidly. “One mustn’t mention that the abbey, having been added to over a pair of centuries, looks like it was put together by guess and by happenstance, while Newton Park looks as though it was planned from start to finish, as indeed it was. I think it a most beautiful place.”

“Newton Park?” Gwenyth raised her eyebrows. “Sir Spenser Newton’s home?”

“The same,” her aunt replied.

“Well,” said Pamela, eyeing the manor house enviously, “I think it is a very beautiful house. He must be proud of it.”

Lady Lyford shot her a sharp look. “You needn’t think you’ll ever live there, gel. He ain’t a marryin’ man, Sir Spenser ain’t. He’s avoided the parson’s mousetrap these fifty years and more, and I can tell you it has been set for him by sharper wits than yours. He ain’t about to be snared by a sugar-candy morsel like you.”

Pamela’s mouth dropped open. “Goodness, ma’am, I shouldn’t think so for a moment. I am persuaded that he is the finest of gentlemen, but he’s old enough to be my grandpapa, is he not?”

“Fiddle faddle!” snapped the countess.

A long silence fell, lasting until the carriage had crossed the bridge again to the other side, when Lady Cadogan broke it by commenting upon the difference in foliage from one side to the other, with vast fields of osier on the one side and thick forests on the other. With this harmless topic to encourage them, they soon passed on to a discussion of the superiority of Berkshire over Oxfordshire, and the rest of the journey passed without incident. Nonetheless, Gwenyth was glad to return and to leave the others behind when she went to her bedchamber to change out of her carriage gown.

Annie was in the room when she entered, in the process of selecting Gwenyth’s dress for dinner. “Wasn’t certain this one had been pressed proper, m’lady,” she said, holding up a pale blue muslin trimmed with a border of floral embroidery.

Gwenyth chuckled. “Why don’t you just admit you don’t trust the Molesford servants to do their jobs properly and have done with it, Annie? Do you honestly think his lordship is the sort of man who would accept less than perfection from his people?”

“As far as he knows what perfection is,” Annie replied vaguely, her mind still occupied with her search for nonexistent wrinkles. She did not notice her mistress’s silence.

After a long moment Gwenyth said quietly, “Do you question his lordship’s qualifications, Annie?”

There was another silence, and the air grew heavy between them. Annie’s cheeks flushed with dark color. She stood a little straighter and looked at her mistress, instantly chastened. “I spoke out of turn, m’lady. I beg your pardon.”

“As well you might,” Gwenyth said sternly. But her curiosity proved too great to allow her to drop the matter. “What did you mean by such a statement?”

“Please, Miss Gwenyth,” Annie said, reverting to the way she had addressed Gwenyth in her childhood, “I’ve said I was sorry.”

“Tell me.”

“He ain’t lived in England, that’s all,” Annie said with a hasty, dismissing gesture. “God knows where, but some heathen place, not civilized. How would he know?”

“He visited in India for a time, I believe, with his uncle, but Henry Hawtrey is a gentleman born, Annie.”

“In trade,” Annie said, looking down her nose.

“Perhaps, but he is an earl’s son, all the same. And Lyford went to Winchester and to Oxford. He knows his position, Annie. This household lacks for nothing.”

Annie pressed her lips together tightly, thus informing her mistress that she had a good deal more to say, but Gwenyth did not encourage her. Indeed, she wondered why, in the face of the countess’s disapproval and Annie’s—which certainly came from gossiping with the Molesford servants—she was so quick to defend the earl. She didn’t doubt his capabilities, or even his ability to defend himself, for that matter, but she could scarcely say he was like any other nobleman she knew. He didn’t even dress like a London gentleman, his casual attitude toward dress going beyond that of even the most determined Corinthian. Even Tallyn, for all his casual ways, dressed with much more of an eye to what was due his position than did the Earl of Lyford. And Lyford’s attitude toward money was unusual too. Tallyn might balk at spending the unnecessary penny on what he considered to be unimportant details, but he never stinted himself or even his sister, despite certain complaints she had made from time to time. Her appearance, after all, reflected on him.

Thinking of Lyford put her in mind of something else. “I want my riding habit, Annie, but with the heavier cotton shirt, please, not the cambric.”

Annie, in full possession of herself again, regarded her suspiciously. “It be too hot for that heavy shirt.”

Gwenyth grinned at her. “But if I get it wet, it will not show so much, and I am not by any means certain that I shall find a private place for what I have in mind.”

Annie sniffed. “Swimming! You’re going swimming. I know you, Miss Gwenyth, and it won’t do. Why, ’tis broad daylight outside, and that riverbank’s just bound t’ be teeming with anglers and mule drivers and heaven knows what else!”

“The mule drivers are on the public towpath, clear across the river, and if I see an angler in the vicinity, I shan’t disrobe, but Lyford told me there is a place where I can swim, and I mean to find it. I shall take Miss Pamela with me, and you may come along as well, if you like, to keep a lookout and to protect my virtue.”

“What, ride a horse? Me?”

Gwenyth laughed. “Don’t put on airs with me, Annie Gray. I know you ride well enough when you wish to do so.”

“Well, I don’t wish to do so. Perhaps you might walk.”

“I prefer to ride, but you needn’t come. Pamela will, and we can swim turn by turn if she wishes to do so.”

But Pamela had no wish to swim. Indeed, as she told Gwenyth when she was asked, she thought swimming was a masculine sport and not one in which ladies ought to engage. “Besides,” she added with a shrug, “I don’t know how.”

“I can teach you, if you like,” Gwenyth said, “but right now I need someone to accompany me. I promised Lyford I’d not go alone.”

Pamela agreed willingly and went up to change into her habit. Once she was ready, Gwenyth led her through the courtyard to the stables. If Pamela wondered why she had not ordered their mounts brought around to the front instead, she said nothing.

Gwenyth had hoped to find Lyford there, for she had not seen him all day, but disappointedly he was not. Though he had pointed out the swimming place when they passed it the day before, she was not by any means certain she would remember which of several streams it had been. It was a simple enough thing to ask the stablemaster, however, and not until he told her that several of the grooms would know the spot did she realize it had never occurred to her to doubt that Lyford had kept his promise.

“I’ll send one of the lads along ter show ye, m’lady,” the man said. “Bright young fella, Ned be, and not one who would think ter disturb yer privacy. He’ll keep a sharp lookout on the river, so as to warn ye if the locks be opened.”

She nodded, agreeing at once, for neither she nor Pamela was experienced enough yet to know when a warning was necessary, and she remembered with some trepidation the force of the water pouring beneath the Streatley bridge. While they waited for their horses, she looked around the stable, not really realizing what she was looking for until she espied young Joey Ferguson cleaning out one of the stalls. He looked up just then and grinned at her, looking none the worse for whatever confrontation he had had with his father.

“You have a new job, I see,” she said.

He grinned. “Aye, mum, though me dad ain’t best pleased.”

“He didn’t want you to work here?”

“He means me ter be a scufflehunter,” Joey said, stopping his work to lean on his rake.

“Ah, yes, one of the men who tow the barges,” Gwenyth said, puffing off her knowledge. “You’re a bit small for that, I should think.”

“I’ll grow,” he said indignantly. “Ben Forbes—that’s ’is lordship’s stablemaster—’e lets me curry the ’orses already, and I mean ter get ’im ter let me saddle ’em up and put traces on the carriage ’orses next. But ’e says I’ve got ter learn ter polish tack first,” he added with a disconsolate air. “I like doing the ’orses best.”

“Here, Joey,” snapped the stablemaster from behind Gwenyth, “what’re you about there, lad? Get back to yer work.”