Elisabeth Fairchild (7 page)

“Do you do well enough u-u-up here, Miss Quinby?” he asked.

“Well enough?” she chided. The expression in her huge brown eyes was one of open curiosity, as though in him she found a puzzle that needed solving. “Why, Mr. Ferd, ’twould be churlish in me to complain, for through your kindness I’ve not only a new bonnet to shade my face, a breeze to cool my brow, and fine scenery to entice my eyes, but unless I do mistake, the strains of a Beethoven serenade to please my ears.”

These last few words were uttered with elevated brows, and a mildly challenging tone. “I would not have thought a coachman so musically informed,” she prodded, when he made no immediate effort to satisfy her curiosity.

“I’m glad my whistling does not offend,” he said. “I have met up with some females who do not care for it overmuch.”

“Are you referring to my aunt?” she demanded in the comfortable, joshing manner of an old friend or beloved relative.

His lips curved upward in the irresistible smile. Relieved that there was no time for more, he swung halfway around on his bench again, only to hear Miss Quinby’s voice following him, as he took up the reins.

“I have not decided, Mr. Ferd, if you are a gentleman coach driver, sir, or a coaching gentleman,” she said, as if she saw right through his disguise.

Mr. Hoby, the old coachman, leaned back to quip with a knowing laugh, “’Tis a fine line divides the two, love.”

She laughed suggestively. “A line drawn in coin and birthright, a line that men on either side might wish to straddle.”

It was in the climb past Mt. Harry, where Henry the Third was beaten in the battle of Lewes, in 1264, by the barons who rallied under Simon DeMontfort, that the mail overtook a fellow traveler whose actions so incensed Lord Beauford, that he very nearly abandoned his masquerade.

They encountered a tall, wasp-waisted young smart, seated on the bench of an eye-catching curricle drawn by two sleek liver bays, their tails fashionably docked and their heads rared back with the bearing rein that had so recently come into vogue. The flashy equipage, for all its dash, could not seem to make it over the crest of the steep hill.

Beauford eased the mail past, wheels within hair-raising inches

“Hold them,” he ordered, with all the authority his station afforded him, tossing the reins to their rightful owner. Before the older man could object, he had slipped down the side of the coach and onto the road, where he sprinted back to confront the red-faced driver of the curricle.

“Set the brake man, a-a-and help me off with these confounded b-b-bearing reins,” Beau insisted in a voice that had all of the passengers on the roof turning to see what their coachman was about, to be challenging a gentleman in such a tone. The passengers inside let down the windows with a snap. Even the sleepy fat woman craned her neck to watch.

“Who are you, to be telling me what to do?” the fop challenged, stiff-necked.

Beau lowered his voice. The man’s pride stood between them. “’Tis the damned bearing rein, sir, that’s keeping your team from carrying you easily o-o-over. You must release the a-a-animal’s heads on a hill as steep as this.”

The young man set the brake, as if compelled, but he was not about to back down. “I shall take my lash to you if you lay a hand on my horses, you stuttering imbecile,” he threatened.

Beau froze in front of the team, eyes icy, but before he could tell the man exactly who he was, and just what he thought of such an abuse of horseflesh, a sweet, feminine voice called from the coach.

“Halloo, sir. You are not from London, are you?”

The driver, as distracted as Beau, turned his florid face toward Nell, who leaned out from the coach in a most feminine pose, batting her eyelashes and smiling. Beau, blinked in disbelief. There was something so changed in Nell’s countenance, so simpering and coy, that he hardly recognized her.

Ursula Dunn twisted her head to look up from inside the coach. “Fanella?” Her voice wavered. “You must leave this to the gentlemen, dear.”

Fanella ignored her aunt’s advice. “You are wondering how I knew that, aren’t you?” she chortled.

Beau winced. He had judged her to be above such brown-nosing, and yet she went on salving the fop’s ego with her treacley tone. “I can see that you are well informed in matters of fashion,” she cooed. “Your equipage is comparable to the finest in the City.”

The driver, high color fading, lifted both his chin and his hat. “How did you know then, that I came not from London?” There was something as wincingly honeyed in his manner, as in that of the young lady.

A heated disgust rose in Beau’s chest. He had believed Miss Quinby above such coyness. To find his judgment of her flawed, trebled the disgust with which he listened to her fawn on another man.

Nell dipped her attractive head to one side. Her teasing way melted the anger from the fop’s expression, while increasing the rate at which Brampton’s offended bosom rose and fell. “I knew it instantly, when you refused to listen to our coachman. In London, amongst all the young men who aspire to be whip-hands, there is none whose advice is held in higher esteem than that of a four-in-hand coachman.”

Beau blinked in amazement. It would appear she meant to champion his cause, in a rather roundabout fashion.

She went on talking, with the look about her of a cat that has just swallowed a canary, the bird never ceasing to sing. “There are any number of dashing young noblemen who vie, who do in factay good money, for a seat beside such a coachman as ours.”

She looked directly at Beau as she spoke, and there was a dawning recognition in the look, as if she realized that he was in fact, an example of what she described. Her smile made them co-conspirators. “There is no substitute for the advice of an expert, you know. I am quite sure our Mr. Ferd is in the right of it in advising you to release your horse’s heads. Will you not give him the benefit of the doubt?”

“I cannot disappoint a lady,” the driver said, with a cloying exhibition of teeth and gums. The smile faded. Eyes narrowed, he glared down at Beau, who still stood in the way of his team, arms akimbo. “Take them down, man, as the lady says.” The fop flapped a hand, as if the Duke of Heste were no more than his personal lackey.

A vein worked in Beau ’s temple. He felt like grinding his teeth. How difficult to stand in the shoes of a coachman. And yet, he had gotten what he wanted, so he reined in his tongue and loosed the first horse’s head.

“There,” he heard Nell say with satisfaction to the cretin he would have gladly harnessed into the bearing rein and driven up the hill. “You can see, already the poor animal breathes easier.”

The poor animal was blowing like a steam engine. How could she remain so civil? And yet, as she went on, he realized she too had gotten what she wanted, and now the silly fop sat and listened with a vapid grin while she lectured him.

“Fashion and nature are sometimes at direct odds, sir. It is up to an intelligent person like yourself, to determine which is which. I realize that it is all the rage to dock tails and raise a horse’s head, but ask any true horseman, and he will tell you that you have cut years off the working life of any animal along with his tail in removing the fly swatter God so judiciously allotted him. The bearing rein is an instrument of torture. It will ruin the wind of even the soundest animal, by forcing an unnatural carriage. I have heard that the Earl of Portland and the Duke of Heste, both horsemen of repute, will have nothing to do with bearing reins.”

Dumbfounded to discover that Miss Quinby was informed of his pet peeve in equestrian fashion, the Duke of Heste stood back from the freed team, and regarded the young lady with renewed respect.

“Give them a chirrup, sir.” He took his hat obsequiously between his hands. “See if they don’t walk on a-a-a bit easier without the nasty choker.”

The driver, with a look of haughty contempt for the hatless Duke, bade his team walk on, and was clearly surprised to find that his flashy bays could now easily transport his vehicle over the crest of the hill.

Beau returned to the post coach.

“You’ve a way with animals, miss," the only other female passenger who rode the roof was saying to Fanella.

“And men,” he murmured wryly.

Nell smiled self-consciously. “Horses have a way with me. As for men . . .” she watched him climb the side of the coach. “My sister has a way with them.” She threw back her head, and smiling archly, batted her eyelashes in example. “I have learned to mimic her talent when the occasion suits me.”

“Ah, so we’ve a pretender on board then, have we?” Hoby chuckled, with a sly wink and an equally sly nudge to Beauford’s ribs. “The Duke of Heste would have been proud to see the clever way in which you managed to take down those poor blowing prad’s heads. Wouldn’t he, lad?” Again, his elbow found purchase in Beau’s ribs.

“Quite so,” Beau agreed, before he was further bruised. “Do you pretend to be your sister very often, Miss Quinby?”

She smiled provocatively. “Do you not, now and again, pretend to be something or someone you are not, Mr. Beau Ferd?”

Beauford grinned despite another prod in the ribs, and turned away from the equally probing wisdom of her look. “There is something most invigorating a-a-about a masquerade,” he admitted.

Chapter Five

A thousand years of history had left their mark on Lewes, where the mail made its last change of horses. The town was beautiful, Nell decided. Everything was beautiful to her now, seen through the rosy glow of satisfaction felt as a result of having eased the pain and suffering of two dumb creatures who could not speak for themselves. And this man, this wonderful, thoughtful, heroic young man upon whose shoulders the sun beat down before her very eyes-- Mr. Ferd was especially beautiful to her in this moment-- so beautiful, in fact, she had to stop looking at him and concentrate instead on the town of Lewes, else her eyes begin to water with the shine of him.

The town was situated in a hilly spot, streets jumbled higglety-pigglety. The Downs rose up behind the town, the River Ouse ran through it, and while the coastline was not yet to be seen, its effect on the local architecture was evident. The distinctive wood and plaster houses, tile-hung from eaves to head-height, were protected against the evils of coastal weather. Lewes had a prosperous, well-to-do look about it. Shops lined the road. New building was in progress, but the past was not to be denied. The ruin of a Norman castle might be explored had one time.

The mail allowed no such time. There was a schedule to keep. The change of horses stood waiting. And yet, Nell was not surprised when her beautiful Mr. Ferd took advantage of the few minutes it took to make that change, to turn completely about in his seat so that he might ask her, with a piercing, blue-eyed look, “How do you know so much a-a-about horses, Miss Quinby?”

She shrugged. “I suppose it is on account of my love, sir, for a carthorse named Boots.”

“Boots?”

“Yes. He was the largest and most beautiful honey-brown creature I have ever encountered, with an unforgettable face; the face of a creature both mythic and bewitching to a child of five. It was divided, you see, unevenly down the middle by a wide white blaze, that ran like a great splash of milk onto one cheek. Add to this the intrigue of Boots’s amazing eyes. One was large and liquid and as brown as a cup of hot chocolate drop, while the other, in its field of white, was pale sky blue. The country folk feared him for this inequity in coloring, but there was no need for fear. I fell in love with him at first glance. A sweeter, more gentle creature never walked the earth.”

It was odd, Nell thought, how well she got along with this stranger. She felt as if she might talk to him about anything and have him understand. Such accord was sweet and rare and as comfortable as old —well—boots.

“And because of Boots your father then educated you in equestrian ways?”

“Me, and all of my sisters, for even Aurora could not be afraid of Boots. I wish father might have lived to see how well Cat rides now. She’s the only one among us you might qualify as neck-or-nothing.”

“She was quite d-d-deft in the handling of your dogcart.”

Nell smiled. “I shall write to tell her you have said so. She would find such praise, from a coachman’s lipslattering in the extreme.”

The horses were ready. Mr. Ferd chirruped to them, and the coach got under way once more. “A-A-And what became of Boots?” he asked without turning, as the coach made its way into the narrow street.

Nell frowned. How changed was her life become. “I am sorry to say Boots was sold along with all of the rest of the stable, when my father passed away this last November.” Her voice thickened with emotion.

He was silent a moment. “I am sorry to r-remind you of your father’s passing. My own father died r-r-recently.” He spoke gingerly, as if the words did not belong in his mouth. “Such a loss tends to turn life upside down, does it not?”

Nell tried to smile. “I had it all mapped out in my mind, down what road my life would travel. With father’s death, it is as if all the territories on that map had their boundaries redrawn.” She blinked quickly, holding back tears. “The road is strange to me now.”