Grace Gibson (10 page)

He paused and put his hands up to his eyes in a gesture she took for overriding anger. After a moment of terrible quiet, he began to laugh.

“Never tell me you have quarrelled with Mr. Neville, Mary,” he said knowingly.

“Well I could not help it!” she cried defensively. “He imposed himself upon me while I was quite alone, you know, and he warned me against you and said my reputation in being associated with you was forever tarnished. And he said it was a
known speculation,
which is the stupidest thing I have ever heard said, that you were being hunted by the law and that my Papa should never let you stay here.”

“And you defended me, Rabbit?”

Here she hesitated. “No, not precisely. But I did not like all that he was saying, and by this time I had suspected he was not quite the person we thought him, and I believe I would rather have my reputation permanently soiled by an infamous rake than merely sullied by the likes of an oily-tongued person such as he! But he said I was to persuade my father to forbid you and Lord Eversham to come to Greenly Manor, and he was so insinuating…”

“Ah. Therein his mistake.”

“Well, I was insulted. And I told him I would not listen to him suggest my father must be led around by the nose.”

He looked at her in blank admiration. “You sent him packing, did you, my girl?”

“I am afraid I did. But it was no triumph, I assure you, because as I said, he now waits to collect his money with interest. Will is a high-tempered boy who will end it all in a duel or something horrible!”

“Thereby your broken heart?”

She could not stem the tears that filled into her eyes at the gentleness of his tone. He handed her his handkerchief, and she struggled for a moment before she sobbed openly.

“Mary, I can tolerate a few ladylike tears, but I despise common weeping. Be done with this and come to your senses. I need to compose a plan, and you will do me the honour of being quiet.”

She wiped her eyes and surreptitiously blew her nose before handing his handkerchief back to him. He looked at the damp, crumpled linen with a jaundiced eye, and admonished her to keep it.

“You mean to help us, sir?” Mary asked in disbelief.

His expression was grim. “I am bound in honour. Oscar Neville surely followed me here, and therefore his mischief is mine to fix.”

“But I do not understand. Why ever would he follow you here? Are you suggesting he ingratiated himself with my brother to achieve a purpose?”

“Of a certainly he did. You should want to know that the person I have ‘all but killed’ is his brother Richard.”

She started. “He is coming after you out of revenge?”

“Undoubtedly, but not out of any filial feeling. Richard Neville is a hated man. I am sure he will live for a hundred years on that head alone, for those that are truly deserving of an early end rarely die young. But he, Oscar and I have a long history of enmity. He is plucking Will to spite and provoke me.”

“Plucking?”

“As in a pigeon. It is the common word in certain circles for a young man of means, with no experience of the world, who is desperate to show he is game as a town buck.”

“I’m afraid my pigeon is about to drown himself in a river near Newcastle.” She dabbed her eyes again.

“My experience of pigeons is that they are very dramatic and talk of throwing themselves off of bridges, but they never do. Trust me, I have lost money wagering on this very question. Now, I will restore Will Fanley to Greenly Manor, and we will then set out to pluck Mr. Neville for a change. What say you to that, Rabbit?”

Mary Fanley, who had always had the weight of responsibility thrust on her young shoulders, sat in disbelief. For once in her life she would not have to solve a problem by herself. In fact, judging by the way Lord Robert prowled around the room and ruminated darkly for close to half an hour, she began to suspect she would have very little to contribute to his germinating solution.

She watched him fondly. He was so very tall and so striking in his polished top boots and buckskins, so much more a man than the men she knew. She felt that if he were to ever stop calling her “Rabbit” she might die of depression. Her faith in him was deepening by the moment. She sat by the fire with her feet propped up, every bit the damsel in her muslin, curls and ribbons, and fell into a complacent haze of complete reliance on her rescuing knight.

Eventually, the Marquis of Denley showed signs of reaching a resolution. He stepped over to the window. Resting his weight on his arms, he stared out into the drizzle of rain that had begun to fall. “I will have to sell Caesar,” he said grimly.

Mary started and rose to her feet. “No, you cannot sell him!”

He turned and gave her a half smile of regret. “I need capital, Mary, and the house of Devonshire is very poor.”

“Of course you are, if you have been very loose, but surely, there is no occasion to sell Caesar.”

“Do
you
intend to fund this expedition?” he asked with his right brow hitched provokingly.

The implication that she was wholly without means struck a chord with Mary’s native pride. She straightened and lifted her chin, saying with a touch of wounded dignity, “Of course, if you allow it.”

He regarded her indulgently. “We will need
a great deal of money,
Rabbit.”

This announcement seemed to deflate her a little. “Oh,” she said, cast down. “Will this be so very expensive?”

“Very.”

She thought for a moment. “That is too bad. I can manage ten thousand pounds, but more I cannot touch.”

He started and strode in one great step toward her. “Of what are you talking? How can you get a fortune?”

She looked up at him, her brown eyes wide, as if she was in a little trouble. “Well my mother was very rich you know, and she left me a deal of money for my dowry, which was very kind of her since I…” She hesitated and looked downcast. “Well, my prospects of making a
great
match are very dim, sir, if you will know the truth.”

He digested what she told him with his eyes fixated upon her. “Do you mean to tell me your mother was an
heiress?”

“I never heard Papa call her an heiress,” she protested, as if the notion were a little repellent to her. “Her papa was brother to the Earl of Trimble, and he was very rich. I believe he settled a great deal on her, but she always said he was just glad she got an offer because she was not fair or blue-eyed like her sister.”

He stood back and crossed his arms in contemplation. “No doubt Mr. Fanley did not contemplate using a crown of her money.”

“Oh, no. He is very proud you know. He never would spend
her
money on anything, and as to his own, he only uses his capital for his estate, which has, so far, yielded more capital.”

A look of amusement suffused Lord Robert’s face. “I suspect, Rabbit, that makes you very, very rich yourself.”

“Oh, no! I would hate to be thought of as rich. It would be so lowering! Everyone would pander to me and I would become so…so indulged.” And then a thought struck her. “You will not be calling me an
heiress
next, will you sir?”

He chuckled. “No, I will next be calling you Ridiculous.”

She blushed furiously and retreated to her chair.

“Now tell me,” Robert said with renewed purpose, “does young Will not know he has great expectations?”

“Well, how could he when I hardly regard it myself? Yes, the estate is bountiful and I am sure we have a great deal saved in the bank. But economy is such an object for my father, and he would
never
call us rich. Besides, Will is devilishly expensive and leans to extravagance. I suppose we conspired to make him ignorant. But I beg you not to think the worst of him. When I offered to sell my mother’s pearls to get him out of this trouble he would not hear of it! As to my own particular inheritance…”

She fell into confusion. How could she explain she had not heretofore been willing to use it? Indeed, this quandary gave her pause, because she was eager to give up to Lord Robert what she could not bring herself to share with her brother! Her only recourse was to lie, albeit just a little. “…Well, it did not really occur to me until just now when you mentioned we would need
a great deal of money!
I hardly ever think of it. It is a painful reminder of my mother, you know, and besides, it would not serve.” At the end of the uncomfortable speech, she crossed her arms and cast him a defiant look.

“I infer that Will’s pride will not allow his older sister to fix his debts?”

“Oh, and he has been so cross with me for suggesting it!”

He grimaced. “Oh, dear, I suppose I will now have to cosset a manling.”

“That is exactly it. He will not allow me to mother him in the least.”

“You should never have had the mothering of him in the first place, my girl. It can hardly have been helpful. By his age, I had travelled the world, insulted a great many people, lost and gained and lost again. And at fourteen I would have smelled Oscar Neville from a league away.”

She hung her head. “You find us despicably countrified.”

“Oh, unutterably, Rabbit,” he said smiling down at her. He lifted her chin and looked into her eyes, adding, “and I will beg you not to change for me. Now, which mattress in this house must I search to fund our adventure?”

Lord Robert was laughing at Mary Fanley, but she blushed hotly and confessed that there was some money locked in the bureau of her mother’s shuttered boudoir. When they removed to that chamber on pretence of his wanting to see a portrait of Mrs. Fanley in her youth, Mary pulled out her chatelaine’s keys and produced a package wrapped in linen.

This she handed directly over to him without demur, and he took it with a slight hesitation. “You are very trusting, Mary, to give me a piece of your inheritance when I have been exposed as a proper devil.”

“Well, certainly, I have no way to know why you have been so wretchedly bad, if indeed you were, and I cannot say I condone anything I have heard of you. But I have known you to be very scrupulous in your attentions to my father, in your plans for Treehill and in your treatment of me.”

“Scrupulous?” he remarked, with his half smile. “But I think I have not always been well-behaved toward you.”

“Nor I to you. And you have never misled me, even in your open dislike of me. So, it has come to pass that I trust you. Now sir, please tell me how this game will go?”

“First,” he said, cutting open the string on the linen packet and removing a few of the notes in it, “I will return this small sum against the unlikely outcome that I should fail. Do not look at me like that,” he cautioned darkly, “as it makes me feel as if I may. You have said you trust me: now you must believe in me, my girl.”

She searched his face. “But I do believe in you! It…it is just that I also believe that Oscar Neville is an evil person, and I fear what will come of this.”

He clucked at her and led her downstairs. “I will need a pen and paper, and I will need my devil horse saddled up if it can be managed, and I need Jim.” Just as Mary was about to jump into action at his commands, he stayed her and shouted for the young man.

That worthy came with alacrity to hear what His Lordship wanted. He was told to pack a light portmanteau for an overnight stay, to find the groom and tell him to saddle Lucifer, and to tell the cook that he would need a light travelling luncheon and a flask of ale.

“You may fetch pen and paper,” he said to Mary, and she did, following him into the salon and sitting quietly in the window seat while he worked.

The Marquis wrote out a long letter. It took him the better part of an hour to compose it, and once he had scratched and scribbled, he took a new sheet and transcribed it in his energetic and occasionally haphazard hand. He sanded and sealed it, took the draft to the fire and saw it burned to ash, and then he turned to Mary and bade her to have it sent forthwith to Lord Eversham at the Westfork posting house.

“Very well, but what about Will? How will you manage to rescue him, Robert?” This sudden demand once uttered surprised and embarrassed her. “I mean, my Lord! And I would simply like to know your plan — I don’t want to appear to be pressing you…”

He laughed at her. “Oh, call me Robert! After all you, have sat in my lap for several hours, and I suppose you have every right to demand answers from me.”

She would have fled in confusion, had he not then said, “Never tell me you are getting missish now. I cannot become a gentleman overnight you know. Now then, as to my plan for Will, I haven’t got one. Yes, you can stand there and flash those great brown eyes at me in dismay, but there are some things, Mary, that are best left to work themselves out. I will find Will, extricate him from horse betting, discourage him from suicide, and bring him home. Describe him a little if you will?”

“Oh, he is of medium height, with brown hair like mine, but perhaps a little lighter, and a slight cleft in his chin…”

“A very unusual looking person,” his Lordship remarked dryly. “What was he wearing?”

“Oh, I believe he had on his riding boots and a green satin waistcoat.”

“Better,” he said sarcastically. “I suppose I will know him by his empty pockets. Never mind, I will find him. Once here, we will sit down, the three of us, and concoct our plan.”

“You will…you will not humiliate him, will you?”

He shot her a thunderous look. “You are doing it again.”

Amusement sparkled in her eyes. “You mean I am dictating to you just how to go on?”

“Well, you would if I would allow it,” he grumbled. “I believe I know how to get on with the Will Fanleys of the world.”

“Then I will strive to believe in you, Robert.” With sudden shyness, she offered her hand.

He bowed over it and pressed her fingers firmly. “I forbid you to worry, Rabbit,” he said, and then he was gone.

When Mr. Fanley arrived that evening, he was greatly discomposed to find Lord Robert gone again, but Mary cheerfully went about assuring him in the most commonplace of accents that he had got it into his head to join Will in Newmarket.

“But I thought he had some letter-writing to do, If he’d a mind to go out, he should have come with me.”

“He did write a letter, and then he cast around for something to do. You know how these titled people are, Papa. They can be counted on to change their minds at the wink of an eye.”

“That is so devilishly unreliable!” Mr. Fanley cried. “I will certainly discourage him from these impulses in the future. He will never do well at Treehill if he cannot sit still on a rainy afternoon.”

“Well, certainly he will accustom himself to our pace,” she said pacifically, “but I think it was quite an honourable compulsion; his thinking to join Will and make his acquaintance early.”

This did pacify Mr. Fanley, and he went up to his bed that night entirely unconcerned with Lord Robert’s erratic behaviour.