An Affair of Honor (20 page)

Nell had no doubt that much of the blame for their difficulties rested in the disparity between their ages. No doubt Rory compared him to her father, from whom she was unused to encountering any restraint, and consequently she resented Huntley’s efforts to curb her more outrageous starts. Major Talcott, on the other hand, was several years younger than Huntley. The fact that Rory responded when he chose to lay a hand to the rein was, Nell told herself, merely an indication that she tended to respond more positively to reproval from gentlemen nearer her in age.

N
ELL’S THEORIES SUFFERED SOMETHING
of a setback the following morning when she entered the breakfast parlor to discover her brother and her niece engaged in a spirited and uncomplimentary exchange of personalities, while her mother watched them, her vinaigrette poised but forgotten as she tried to make head or tail of their debate.

“What in the world is all this row!” Nell demanded when there was a pause long enough to allow her to make herself heard. All three persons at the table looked up at her in astonishment. Lady Agnes found her tongue first.

“Do you know that Aurora was so foolish as to attempt to walk along the sea wall by the esplanade yesterday, Nell dear? Really, I cannot think you were wise to permit such a thing.”

“Nell did not permit it, Mama,” Kit said indignantly. “Nor did I. ’Tis merely that this uncivil baggage here seems to think she can do as she damned—”

“Kit! Your language! And at my breakfast table, too. You must not, dear boy. My nerves!” The vinaigrette was put instantly to use.

“My apologies, Mama. Nell, will you please explain the matter to her, and tell this—this. …”

“That is quite enough, Kit,” Nell said, firmly stifling a chuckle. “Mama, there is nothing to explain. Rory did a foolish thing, and the matter has already been discussed. There is no need to pull caps over it any more. As for you, Kit, I wonder that you will have introduced such a topic to Mama’s breakfast table, for the incident certainly brings little credit to you.” He looked away, and she went on more gently, “I hope you remember that Lord Huntley wishes to speak with you this morning. It would be as well for you, I think, if you do not keep him waiting.”

“What! Does he expect me to call upon him at his house?” Kit tugged at his neckcloth, a good deal taken aback by the suggestion.

“I think he would have more respect for you if you were to go to him rather than wait for him to come to you. You would not wish him to think you poor spirited.”

He mulled over her words silently, but she knew he had taken her point when he looked up with a slight grimace. “I daresay you are in the right of it, Nell, but I doubt I shall much enjoy the visit.”

“I hope he gives you pepper,” Rory said rudely, spilling a liberal spoonful of sugar into her coffee.

“That will be enough out of you, miss, or you’ll see who gets pepper,” Kit promised, rounding on her in a flash. “I told you what would come of your silly experiments, but would you listen to me? Oh, no. Said you could dashed well take care of yourself and didn’t need an uncle not yet dry behind the ears to tell you how to behave. If I had ten minutes with you in private, my girl, your own shell-like ears would ring sorely for those words. And that’s God’s own truth of the matter, believe me.”

Rory flared up in immediate indignation, but any retort of hers was stifled at birth by her grandmother’s vaguely wondering why it was that no one ever troubled to explain matters to her.

“For if the rest of you comprehend this conversation,” she said peevishly, “I can tell you that it is more than I do. I’ve not had the slightest notion what is what since I came into this room, Nell, and discovered these two in the midst of an argument that sounded much like the sort of brangle you and Kit were used to engage in when he was still in the nursery. Your papa was used to become very much displeased by such behavior, and I confess ’tis prodigiously uncomfortable.”

“Well, I’m sorry if we distressed you, Grandmama,” Rory said with a sigh, shooting an oblique glance at her uncle. “There is nothing to it, of course, except for Kit’s suffering from one of his distempered freaks and wishing to take his feelings out on someone else. I was the only one here when he came down, you know, so it fell to me to be his victim. I promise you,” she added kindly, “I shan’t regard it, and I hope you will not be grieved over his lack of good manners. It comes of being a gentleman, I expect. I have noticed before that even the best of them behave much as they please in their own homes, without the slightest regard for anyone else’s comfort.”

Lady Agnes nodded in vague agreement, but Kit looked as if he might well explode. Laughing, Nell recommended that he put a sock in it. “For you will never make poor Mama believe it was anyone else’s doing now, Kit. You have been piqued, repiqued, and capotted, I fear. And a good loser, according to words I’ve heard you quote myself, knows when to cut his losses and leave the table. Do you intend to ride this morning, Rory?”

Kit glared but subsided into his chair, and Rory broke into a cheerful smile, promptly acknowledging that she did indeed mean to ride and that it was for that very purpose that she had donned her riding habit before coming down to table.

“I see that you did,” Nell replied, looking over the little she could see of what appeared to be a dashing riding dress. It was stylishly cut from deep blue kerseymere, with two rows of tiny gold buttons down the front. Around her lovely throat, Rory had twisted a lace-trimmed neckcloth in a fashion similar to one of the men’s simpler styles. Her lovely hair had been combed smoothly away from a center part and was confined in a blue-net snood at the nape of her neck. Tiny sapphire earbobs glinted amidst her golden sidecurls, and a matching pin nestled in the folds of her neckcloth. “You look charmingly,” Nell said. “But you ought to have sent me word that you wished to ride today. Now, you must wait while I change, whereas if you had warned me, I might have been prepared, you know.”

“Oh, you needn’t feel obliged to go with me, Aunt Nell,” Rory said hastily. “I have my own mare and my groom, you know. I shall be perfectly all right by myself.”

“Nonsense,” Kit put in before Nell could speak. “Chit like you’s got no business jauntering about town by herself, with or without a groom. Better with, of course,” he amended, “but devilish improper either way. You wait for Nell.”

“He’s right, my dear,” Nell said quickly when the storm warnings flashed in Rory’s eyes. “You really cannot ride about Brighton alone. It would be most improper.”

“Well, but I didn’t mean to trot down the Steyne or anything like that,” Rory protested. “I thought I might just ride toward Kemp Town and then maybe along the beach or up along the Downs.”

“The Downs! Well, of all the crackbrained, totty-headed—”

“Kit, hush,” Nell ordered, stifling her amusement at Rory’s determinedly casual attitude. “There is no reason that she should not ride on the Downs. There are a number of very good trails, and I should be most happy to go with her. But you must not go alone, Rory. He’s in the right of it there. It would not only be improper, but it could also be dangerous. You have heard us mention the military encampment, I’m sure. There are a good many common soldiers attached to it who cannot be trusted to behave as we would wish. And there are others, too.”

“What sort of others?”

“Smugglers, for one,” Kit answered her. “And footpads, and all manner of the scaff and raff. Not desirable company for a delicately nurtured female, I promise you.”

“Stuff,” Rory retorted. “I should like above all things to meet a real smuggler and discover how he goes about his business. But surely that could not happen so near the military encampment.”

“Bless you, child, even the military get their rum as cheaply as they can. Aye, and cloth, lace, and whatever else appeals. They are scarcely more saintly than the rest of us, after all.”

“But I thought it was the duty of the military to assist in the apprehension of smugglers,” Rory protested.

“That’s the job of the preventative officers, just like it is in Kent,” Kit retorted. “The military don’t meddle unless they’re called upon to do so, and then only with half a heart, since they think the import duties as ridiculous as we think them.”

Nell applied herself to her breakfast, lending only half an ear to the conversation that followed. Kit and Rory seemed to be more in charity with each other, and Lady Agnes had laid aside her vinaigrette. She wondered if Rory had hoped to meet her major. It was fairly clear that she had had some such plan in mind, but Nell would see to it now that, even if they rode to the Downs, they would ride nowhere near the encampment of the Tenth Hussars, so a chance meeting was unlikely. Perhaps the morning would pass without any unfortunate incidents.

Kit seemed in good spirits when he excused himself from the table, and she found herself hoping Huntley wouldn’t be too hard on him. It sounded very much to her as if her brother had simply found it impossible to curb Rory’s behavior and had received no support from either his friends or the so-called adults present. A glance at Rory now showed her to be in some sort of brown study, so Nell turned her attention to Lady Agnes.

“That’s a very fetching cap, Mama. Is it a new one?”

“It is,” her ladyship replied, smoothing the article in question. It was indeed becoming to her, being all creamy lace and blue ribbons that very nearly matched her eyes. Her morning gown was also blue, with a deep flounce and knots of green ribbons round the scalloped edges of the hem. It was cut high to the throat and long to the wrist with edgings of the creamy lace everywhere.

“What do you do this morning, ma’am?” Nell asked.

“Why, as to that, I cannot say,” was the reply. “Yesterday ought to have been vastly fatiguing to one of my delicate constitution, you know. But the oddest thing is that I feel fresh as a nosegay this morning. Sir Henry suggested he might like to take a stroll along the Steyne, and I tell you, Nell, if I feel as well in an hour as I do now, I just might join him. And I didn’t even get my full night’s rest, mind you.”

“Dear me. Were you out raking all night, too, Mama?”

Lady Agnes chuckled. “Nothing so energetic as that, my dear. But Sir Henry found himself without a feather to fly with, I’m afraid.”

“Without—Never say you were gaming ma’am, for I shouldn’t credit it!” Even Rory seemed to have come out of her brown study and was gazing curiously at her grandmother. “He never took you to a gaming house.”

“Of course not,” returned her ladyship with a twinkle. “We gambled right here. And I trounced him, as Kit would say.”

“Silver loo?”

“No, cribbage.”

“Cribbage for money, ma’am. I have never known you to do that before.”

“No, but you must admit, my dear, ’tis sadly flat to march one’s counters about for no purpose, when one might be profiting greatly by their activities.”

“Or taking an unhealthy loss, ma’am. It does not seem at all like you to risk your blunt on the gaming table.”

“But I nearly always win at cribbage,” her ladyship pointed out. “At least when I play with Sir Henry. So there is very little risk, you know. And we play for only shilling points, so I shall not lose the house or even one of the carriages if I am rolled up.”

“Rolled up? Mama, such language,” Nell teased. Lady Agnes only smiled placidly, however, so she took her leave and went to change. Less than fifteen minutes later she was ready. Her riding habit of twilled cotton was not nearly so dashing as that of her niece, but its russet hues became her well, and Nell knew Rory’s look of admiration when she joined her in the entry hall was unfeigned. The younger girl had donned gloves of soft kid and a dashing little hat with an ostrich plume, and, like Nell, carried her riding whip. She explained that she had already ordered the horses brought ’round.

They were waiting, held steady by Nell’s own groom and a link boy. Nell looked at Rory. “I thought you said your groom would attend you.”

“Oh, he will meet us later,” was the casual response. “I daresay yours will serve us both for now. May we ride straight to the Downs?”

Wondering what she was up to now, Nell thought it prudent to keep a still tongue and merely nodded. She let Peter help her into the saddle, gathered her reins, and waited patiently until he had performed the same services for her niece and had mounted himself. Then she signaled him to fall behind, and they turned toward Edward Street. It was easily half an hour’s ride before they had left the town behind them and were able to enjoy a canter on the Downs. But the panoramic view back over Brighton to the sea was such that even Rory expressed her pleasure.

Nell breathed deeply of the crisp fresh air and gave her horse its head, letting it out for a full gallop, her skirts flying. Rory was not slow to follow her, and for some fifteen minutes they rode furiously. Then, reluctantly, Nell drew rein. Rory rode up directly behind her, breathing hard.

“Oh, Aunt Nell, I haven’t done that in such a long time. It felt wonderful!”

“Yes, it did, didn’t it?” Nell grinned. “One may do that sort of thing up here, but only when one is quite unobserved. The ladies of Brighton, and even some of the gentlemen, have a tendency to deplore such hoydenish behavior.”

“Oh, I know. Mama was forever pinching at me about riding like a Diana. It was all very well for hunting, she said, though we scarcely ever joined in a hunt. Papa does occasionally, but he says it is no place for young ladies, especially since I wasn’t even out and so couldn’t go to any house parties. But Mama says in London one may never ride so, only sedately in Rotten Row at specified hours of the day. I am so glad she sent me to Brighton instead, though I was furious with her at the time, of course.”

“You wanted to go to London?”

“Well, of course I did. Doesn’t everyone?”

“I suppose. I went, you know. But I was rather shy and didn’t know many people, you see. I enjoyed the summer here, where I knew everyone, much more.”

“Did you know Huntley in London or here?”

“Both. He came here with the prince, but I had first made his acquaintance in London. We became excellent friends, for he was very kind to me.”