Elisabeth Fairchild (17 page)

“How kind,” Nell said, well aware what it was her aunt was doing, in carting this young man along with them. She was making good her promise to snare Nell a husband.

Thus began the first encounter with a long line of potential suitors Ursula Dunn thrust upon her attention. So thoroughly were Fanella’s efforts engaged in fending off matrimonial candidates from that day forth, that there was no opportunity for further exploration into the mysterious buyer of Boots.

So diligently direct were her Aunt Urusla’s mehods as she went about her self-assigned task of matchmaker, that Nell lived in fear that she might soon be labeled a fortune-hunter.

Mr. Bledsoe did not suit. Despite the fact that his father had been knighted, and he stood to inherit a goodly-sized country house in Howe, he did not at all suit Nell’s notion of a husband, and so she was quick to tell her aunt.

“He seemed a quiet and pleasant young man to me.” Ursula defended the young man. “I will concede that he was not above the average intelligent, but he spoke quite knowledgeably of crop rotation, and the price of wheat.”

“He had no conversation at all, Auntie,” Nell said simply. “Considering Mr. Bledsoe showed a singular lack of knowledge on all other subjects, we are fortunate that Mr. Ferd was endowed with some information as to the Long Man’s origins. Otherwise we should have left our sightseeing excursion as ignorant as when we set out.”

“Well, I am sure we shall enjoy ourselves far more tomorrow.” “Tomorrow?”

“Did I not tell you? A Lieutenant-Colonel Smythe of the Tenth Hussar, who is far more inclined to conversation than Mr. Bledsoe, has offered to reveal to us the Oriental wallpapers in Brighton Pavilion.”

Nell resigned herself to her aunt’s machinations. Thursday progressed with no more success than Wednesday. Far more verbose than his predecessor, Lieutenant-Colonel Smythe was as inclined to reveal quite inappropriate gossip about the infamous goings-on at the Pavilion, as he was to discuss wallpaper.

On these outings, and again on Saturday in a walk along the high white, chalk cliffs known as the Seven Sisters with a Mr. Salcomb, Nell found herself measuring her companions against the yardstick of none other than her coachman, Mr. Ferd. It was a ridiculous correlation, she knew, and yet how could she entertain the thought of marriage to some fellow, when she could not find it within herself to like him even so much as a coachman?

Aunt Ursula was unperturbed by Nell’s fastidious taste. She reveled in her self-appointed role as matchmaker. Virtually every interesting sight within the surrounding countryside was considered a fair means to achieve the end of allowing her niece to better acquaint herself with connubial possibilities.

All the while, it was Beau who handed Nell in and out of the carriage, and who tooled her aunt and the prospective marriage material safely about the countryside.

“Our Mr. Ferd looks quite unobjectionable in his new livery,” Ursula commented to her niece.

“One might safely say, handsome,” Nell concurred.

Their Mr. Ferd was the only constant in the parade of men. An exemplary coachman, he saw to it that the excursions went smoothly. Never once did he get lost in the largely unmarked country lanes they traversed, and the local landmarks he was kind enough to point out with some informed remark as to their significance. The horses never came up lame, and the carriage, which he kept spotlessly clean, was never out of commission. When picnic baskets were to be put together, or lugged about the countryside, it was Mr. Ferd who saw to it. When refreshments were required along the way, Mr. Ferd seemed to know the most pleasant inn in which to find them. He bespoke rooms for their comfort with aplomb, provided extra coats and hats when the wind blustered, spare walking sticks when the terrain proved difficult, and parasols for the ladies when the sun proved too strong, or clouded skies came on to rain.

And, as the days passed, and every one of them in each others company, if only peripherally, he and Nell developed a communication of sorts, a language of shy smiles, and telling glances. The twseemed to find amusement in the same quirks of personality exhibited among Ursula’s chosen companions, and warm, laughing blue eyes more than once locked on mirth-filled brown.

It was a fleeting contact, this flirting language of their eyes, and as if to broaden their scope, Beau did, on every occasion that was offered him, extend their contact with a slight but speaking pressure on Nell’s hand as he helped her in and out of the curricle. It was always he who seemed to be conveniently available when Nell required assistance in clambering over a rocky spot in the pathway, or in fording a shallow stream. He held her parasol, helped her into her coat and slipped it from her shoulder.

Nell, in turn, made a point of speaking to him whenever fate allowed. She offered no more than simple exchanges; a daily greeting, a question about the weather, a comment on the horses or the roads, but none of it was absolutely necessary, and there was something compelling, both in the timbre of her voice, and in the focus of her eyes, that spoke volumes.

This strange, almost wordless exchange was, Nell knew, entirely inappropriate behavior. Yet she could not refrain from communicating with the one person who best understand how violated her sensibilities were, by such a wholesale marketing of her future. She began to wish, most fervently that her aunt would tire of this husband hunt.

Lord Beauford was not at all surprised that Ursula Dunn had contracted the headache. His own ears were ringing with memory of the incessant chatter from the recently widowed Mr. Wentworth, who had insisted on bringing his half-deaf mother with them on the long road to Lewes, and into whose ear horn he had been forced to shout each remark repeatedly before it was understood. Ursula, who had to the astonishment of both her niece and her driver, found it within herself to label Mr. Wentworth, “an agreeable prospect if only he might be separated from his mother,” tottered down out of the curricle when she had done so, with both plump hands pressed to her forehead.

“I am in need of a little lie down, in a darkened room, Fanella,” she said rather breathlessly, “with a dram of hartshorn and water, and a vinegar compress. My head is splitting.”

Beau thought Nell looked as pulled as her aunt, but she made no move to leave the curricle. “Do you mind if I run to the shops for some furbelows I require for my masquerade costume, auntie?”

Ursula shook her head, and then seemed to regret mightily having allowed herself such violent movement. She flapped a limp hand. “Go on, dear, and no need to hurry back on my account. I shall enjoy having the house all to myself for awhile.”

Thus, for the first time since his employ, it was just the two of them in the carriage, he and Nell, and though the space between them seemed immense, and there was no hope for conversation as they clattered into town, a strange expectancy clutched Beau’s chest. Something important was about to transpire.

Nothing untoward happened as they drove sedately in to the shops, and Nell purchased the necessary trimmings for her costume. Neither was there anything unusual in her request that they return by way of the Marine Parade, for it was by far the most picturesque road to take, but Beau was a little alarmed, when, having caught sight of Captain Stiles among a group of blue-coated young men, she leaned forward to say, “You will stop the carriage, please, should we happen to receive the slightest encouragement from Captain Stiles. I am still waiting to hear what he may have found out concerning the fate of poor old Boots.”

As Beau knew all too well what had become of Boots, he could not be disappointed when they rattled past the Captain without receiving so much a a nod.

Fanella’s disappointment was palpable.

“Oh, bother!” she sighed, and so defeated did she sound, that Beau dared turn to face her, with a hint of contrition softening his tone, for he felt in part responsible for the lowering of her spirits, “Have you the head-ache as well, Miss Quinby?”

She nodded weakly, as though with such an admission, all the strength had gone out of her. “It would seem I am in need of hartshorn and water as much as my poor aunt.”

“You have endured a very wearing day,” he observed.

“Days,” she replied, and for a long, telling moment her eyes met his. Something in their depths would seem to acknowledge his understanding of her situation. Blushing, she dropped eye contact. “Best take me home, Mr. Ferd.”

With little desire for this rare opportunity to be alone with her to end so tamely, Beau said, “I know of a place so beautiful to behold, that it must soothe even the most troublesome headache. Shall I take you there and tell you what little I have discovered with regard to your old horse?”

She hesitated a moment. “Is it far?”

“Not far.”

“I should like to see such a place, does it exist,” she agreed. “I had no idea you had learned something more with regard to Boots.”

He turned the horses northeast, along the very road they had passed over twice that same day, the road that went across the downs, through Falmer to Lewes. He took the horses as far as the top of the first great foothill, and reined them in. They were long shy of Falmer, in a desolate, tree-barren landscape, with nothing but rolling green hills on either side.

“This is the same road we took this afternoon,” Nell said with a hint of alarm. “Do you find this isolated spot beautiful? I do not.”

He turned to look quite keenly into her dark eyes. There was a hint of fear there. Beau did not like her to be afraid, either of him or his intentions.

“It is a familiar road of no particular beauty, that we shall soon see transformed by a different light.” His voice remined calm, and impersonal, as non-threatening as he could manage. With great skill and a minimum of backing, he turned the horses full circle, until the carriage faced back the way they had come. It was clear, when he had accomplished this feat, why he brought her here.

From such a vantage point, at this time of day, the sky stretched from horizon to horizon in a magnificent pale wash of azure, the clouds faintly tinted with coral and mauve, the sun a newly minted guinea, burnished to an eye-watering shine.

They faced the sun-gilded crest of hill that led gently down to Brighton. The town, caught in the strangely mellow light of the sinking sun, seemed touched by Midas’s hand, while the Channel stretched beyond, like a sheet of hammered pewter.

“Strange how something so simple as light can transform an ordinary place into the extraordinary.” Nell sank back against the cushions with a sigh.

Beau could feel her every movement in his hips and thighs as the carriage swayed upon its springs.

“You are very kind, Mr. Ferd,” she said softly. “To bring me here. The remarkable can lurk right under our noses, if we do but open our eyes in the right moment to see it.”

“Indeed.” He turned to look at her. “I could not a-a-agree with you more, Miss Quinby.” Very properly, he turned his back to her again, and let silence and darkness creep around them.

“Do you mean to keep me in suspense, Mr. Ferwith regard to Boots?” Her voice, concerned in its anticipation, carried softly to him.

“No, I um—“ Beau knew this was the perfect opportunity to tell her who he was. He had waited for days for just such a moment. And now that moment was come, the words he had rehearsed in his head were all flown, and he hated to spoil the happy perfection of the view. He did not, could not, turn to look at her. “I have---um, discovered the horse’s whereabouts.”

The springs creaked as she sat up, voice alive with excitement. “Have you really? Tell me then, tell me all.”

Beau squinted at the beautiful sky. This was no way to get into heaven. “You will be pleased I think, to hear that Boots is become the property of a family with three children who are learning to ride.”

Nell’s voice was low and breathless. “You are certain?”

He closed his eyes on the view. Why should the truth prove so difficult? “Yes,” he said earnestly, and though he longed to turn and read her reaction, he resisted the impulse. “I have it on good authority.”

She made a happy noise somewhere between a sigh and a laugh. “I feel a great weight has been lifted from me.” Her voice lilted with pleasure, colored by relief, and as if the sky were touched by the sound, the widening bands of rose and gold and turquoise blue intensified in hue. The shadows lengthened. Indigo settled in the low-lying areas.

Nell said nothing as the sun slipped into the clouds. She made no sound at all, and Beau, battling with his conscience, was equally tongue-tied. The last warm spark of the sun’s brightness hovered on the brink of quenching in the sea before he turned, ready at last to reveal himself.

He swallowed the words before they could slip his lips.

She was crying. Pale face lifted to the sky, lips parted, eyes huge, dark and unearthly bright as, awash in tears, they reflected the dying sun’s aura. Moisture glistened on the dark fan of her eyelashes, moisture wet the sweet curve of both cheeks. She wept openly, silently, unashamedly, and with such an expression of contentment, that he knew that each precious drop was an expression, not of pain, or disappointment, but of an overflowing joy, an overwhelming appreciation of the beauty she witnessed, and the relief she felt in the fate of her old horse.

She did not look at him.

Much moved, and feeling very strongly that he intruded on something private, Beau turned his back on both Nell, and the truth, once again.

A chill stirred the air, as the sun left nothing but afterglow in the sky. Nell sniffed, and leaned forward to whisper, as if speech of any greater volume might shatter the delicate spell. “That was sublime!”

Beau was pleased she should say so, but no words she might have chosen at that time could possibly compete with the speaking vision he had witnessed of her aspect, wet with tears.

“A-A-Are you chilled?” he asked gently, heart heavy with deception. “I’ve this greatcoat, if you are.”

She smiled, and dabbed her eyes with a damp handkerchief.

“Sounds lovely.”

Checking the brake, he climbed down, his every movement rocking her through the bouncing of the springs as much as she had rocked him, through the unsettling display of tears. Leaping nimbly onto the precarious perch of the step, his weight giving the carriage and Fanella good cause to lean drunkenly in his direction, he swung his secondhand coat behind her. She ducked her head to accommodate its weight and length. For a moment, as he enfolded her shoulders in it, and her head rose t a more natural position, it felt as if he embraced her.