Jane Ashford (16 page)

“And who has shown a lamentable levity over this latest outrage? Without, I may add, making the least push to stop it?”

Euphie smiled ruefully. “I have, I suppose.”

“You have indeed. And so, I think it only right that you take charge of the problem. You do not expect
me
to walk the animals, I suppose?”

“Oh, no. But there must be some better way to teach them…”

“I am open to suggestion,” answered the countess equably.

Euphie frowned. “Well, we might… uh…”

“Precisely. You will take them out together tomorrow without fail. I will speak to Jenkins.” Lady Fanshawe turned to leave the room, but at the door she paused. “It will do you good, my dear,” she added, grinning wickedly. “I daresay you will get twice the exercise you normally take. And you know you have complained that there is no room to really walk in London.” With this, she was gone.

Euphie stood shaking her head and laughing a little. She bent to scoop Nero up off the floor, determined to shut him in her bedroom for the rest of this evening at least. “What a nuisance you are,” she told him severely. “I begin to wish I had chosen some other kitten. Can you not be a little more sensible and sedate?”

The white kitten looked up at her, his blue eyes gleaming. “Rrrowww,” he replied.

Euphie laughed again. “Yes, that is exactly what Aggie used to say to me, isn’t it? Well, we must do our best. I hope you will
try
not to tease Pug on our walk.” And she started up the stairs to her room.

The following day, after luncheon, Lady Fanshawe sent Euphie to find Jenkins and the device he had been asked to procure. When they returned, she inspected the new lead curiously. “This will do nicely,” she said. “Admirable, Jenkins. Did you make it yourself?”

“Thank you, ma’am, but no. Actually, one of the stable-boys contrived it. He is very clever with his hands.”

“Splendid.” The countess handed the little sewn leather straps to Euphie. “Out you go, my dear. A nice long walk, now, mind.”

Grimacing, the girl took the double lead. “If I don’t return, you may search the prisons,” she answered. “I am certain Pug and Nero will do something monstrous, and I shall be clapped in gaol for it.”

Lady Fanshawe laughed. “Nonsense, my dear. I’m sure you’ll have a wonderful, invigorating time.” With this, she turned and started up the stairs for her afternoon rest. Euphie remained where she was, staring distastefully at the lead.

After a moment, Jenkins gave a discreet cough. “I should be happy to help you, Miss Hartington, if you would like.”

“Help me? You don’t mean you will take them out, Jenkins?”

The large butler looked appalled. “Oh, no, miss. I meant I will help you get the animals in, ah, harness, as it were.”

“Oh.” Euphie’s momentary hope faded. “Yes, all right. I suppose we should do Pug first. He is used to a lead, at least. Nero will hate it!”

The dog was duly fetched and fastened in without protest. Indeed, he seemed happy to see the lead; he enjoyed his sedate outdoor walks very much. The new straps hanging at his side annoyed him a bit, but he seemed prepared to be magnanimous and ignore them.

“All right,” sighed Euphie, “you keep Pug here, Jenkins, and I will go get Nero.”

“Yes, miss.”

The kitten was in her room, and he frisked up happily when she appeared, and even licked her hand when she picked him up and started back downstairs. In the front hall, Jenkins opened the straps next to Pug and held him as Euphie attempted to buckle them around the cat. Pug was not at all pleased to see Nero, but Jenkins kept a hand over his eyes during the operation, so that he did little but wriggle and growl softly.

When an extremely reluctant Nero was fastened up, Euphie stood and took the other end of the lead from Jenkins. “There,” she said, “let Pug go.”

The butler did so, standing and stepping back. Pug shook his head, his long dragging ears flopping, and stood up straighter in preparation for going out. Then, gradually, he became aware of Nero, practically pressed against his side.

Pug’s already bulging brown eyes threatened to leave their sockets. His hair stood on end, and he himself seemed to rise on his toes in his complete outrage. A menacing growl began in his throat, only slightly tempered by memories of his last encounter with Nero, and he bared his teeth and slowly turned his head in the kitten’s direction.

Nero, fully occupied with trying to chew through, or wriggle out of, the hated straps, ignored him. Euphie moaned. “What a fool I shall look, dragging these two through the streets. Jenkins, what am I to do?”

“Perhaps, miss, they will become accustomed to one another as you walk,” replied the butler doubtfully. “That is her ladyship’s idea, isn’t it?”

“So she says. But I think she is just punishing me for laughing at her.” Suddenly she had an idea. “Jenkins, couldn’t one of the footmen take them out? He needn’t go far.”

Thinking uneasily of the difficulty of keeping good footmen, Jenkins said, “I don’t think so, miss. Her ladyship was quite firm. And the animals will be more comfortable with you, knowing you as they do.”

“Will they indeed?” snapped Euphie. Then she sighed. “Oh, very well, I may as well get it over.” She pulled a little on the lead. Nero hissed and dug his claws into the hall carpet. Pug, in response, jerked his shoulders convulsively, nearly pulling the kitten off his feet.

Reluctantly Euphie smiled. “It is so ridiculous,” she said, and urged the animals toward the door.

Once outside, things were a little better. Pug, though still angry, was happy to be out. And Nero was fascinated by his first sight of the city streets. Thus they forgot for a while to fight with one another, and Euphie tried to set such a pace as would discourage them from beginning again.

They walked briskly across the square toward a small park where Euphie often went. One or two people glanced at them and smiled, but Euphie was so relieved to have peace that she didn’t care. They reached the park without further mishap and entered a fenced enclosure, where Pug was always allowed to run for a while. Today, cunningly, Euphie released him alone, letting him dash about as much as he pleased before she replaced his lead and let Nero go. The kitten also enjoyed his unaccustomed freedom. He explored the fence, the grass, and the flowerbeds with gusto. Finally, when Euphie judged that he had had enough, she caught him again and put back the straps. Nero liked them less than before, if anything.

At this point, Euphie’s habit was to continue her walk in a circuit around the house, giving herself some exercise as well. But the idea of another twenty minutes in the streets did not appeal today, and she turned back toward home as soon as they left the park.

Pug and Nero seemed docile. Euphie even began to hope that they
were
becoming accustomed to one another by the time they entered Berkeley Square once more. True, Pug still tended to twitch his left shoulder at intervals, in an effort to knock Nero off his feet. And Nero continued to make feints at Pug’s long trailing ear. But all in all, Euphie began to think they would get home safely.

They were only fifty yards from the house when the disaster occurred. Nero made a final, more serious lunge at the ear, catching it between his teeth and biting down. Pug, enraged and in pain, yelped and struggled to turn his head and get his own teeth around the offender. He failed, but his abrupt jerk on the lead pulled it from Euphie’s less vigilant grasp, and the two animals went tumbling forward onto the pavement in a growling, hissing ball.

At the same moment, a high-perch phaeton turned the corner into the square and bore down on Lady Fanshawe’s house, heading straight for the spot where Pug and Nero grappled.

“Oh, no,” gasped Euphie. She waved to try to stop the vehicle and moved into the street, but it swept up before she could do anything. The highbred team took instant exception to the battling pair on the cobbles, threw up their heads, and began to back and rear. In an instant, all was chaos.

“Oh, dear,” moaned Euphie. She had a momentary craven wish to run and hide, but she pushed it away resolutely and turned to watch certain disaster.

She didn’t see it. With consummate skill, the driver of the phaeton hauled back on the reins, bringing the horses to a dancing, snorting stop just inches from Pug and Nero, who had by now ceased fighting in the face of this greater peril. “Go to their heads!” the driver shouted to his groom, and the servant hastened to do so. In the space of a minute, all was quiet again.

The driver then looked down at Euphie, standing at the edge of the pavement with one hand to her mouth, and said, “Are those
your
animals?” in a tone that made her shiver.

Wishing she were anywhere else, she gazed up at him. And what she saw was not calculated to put her more at ease. The driver of the very fashionable phaeton was a large man, with the body of an athlete and the bored mouth and eyes of a Corinthian. His hair was black, his eyes blue, and everything about him fairly shouted elegance and disdain. Euphie had never seen anyone like him, but she knew instinctively that he must be of the haut ton. She swallowed, started to speak, then changed her mind. Finally she managed a cowardly, “No, they belong to
my employer.”

“Your
employer
?” he asked, sounding bored.

“Yes, Lady Fanshawe. We were just going in. And I… I am sorry they frightened your horses. They were fighting, you see, and they pulled away from me.”

“Lady Fanshawe?” echoed the man in puzzled accents. He started to say something else, but Pug and Nero chose this moment to renew their combat, and he turned instead to look at them. His eyebrows went up. “Do you have a cat and a dog harnessed together?” he added, astonished.

“Well, uh, yes. That is, Lady Fanshawe thought…” Suddenly the task of explaining how this came to be to the magnificent stranger was too much. Euphie hurried forward, scooped up Pug and Nero with no concern for their comfort, and almost ran into the house. Inside, she did not pause but fled directly to the kitchen, there to lecture the dog and cat for several minutes on their manifold sins.

Her feelings somewhat relieved by this outburst, she went up to her room to leave her bonnet and shawl, then started back downstairs to the drawing room. Lady Fanshawe should have finished her rest by this time, and Euphie intended to tell her that she would never take Pug and Nero out walking together again.

In the drawing room doorway she paused at the sound of voices within. Who could be here? The countess had had no callers since she arrived. As Euphie hesitated, Lady Fanshawe noticed her and called, “Come in, my dear. I understand you have already met Giles.”

Euphie stepped farther into the room and saw with amazement that the contemptuous gentleman from the phaeton was now sitting opposite the countess, sipping a glass of Madeira.

“This, as you have already heard, is my new companion, Giles,” continued Lady Fanshawe. “Miss Hartington. Euphie, this is my son, Giles Fanshawe. I’ve mentioned him to you.”

“Y-yes,” stammered Euphie. “G-good day.”

“Come in and sit down, dear. Giles took it into his head to visit us today, and we must be suitably grateful for the condescension.”

“Spare me, Mother,” murmured the man.

“Why should I?” She turned to Euphie. “I understand you had a small contretemps outside the door.”

The girl flushed. “Yes, Pug and Nero—”

“Giles told me. What dreadful animals they are, to be sure.”

“Your cat is called Nero?” asked Fanshawe, amused.

“Yes, er, Mr., ah…”

“Actually, he’s an earl,” laughed the countess. “I suppose you must call him Lord Fanshawe. Or perhaps simply Westdeane. How ridiculous.”

Her son smiled sardonically.

“My aunt named him Nero,” finished Euphie uncomfortably.

“How very odd.”

“Well, she was odd,” put in Lady Fanshawe.

“Yes, and I don’t think she had the least idea what the real Nero was like. She can’t have, because my sister Thalia told me that he was not at all the thing, and Aunt wouldn’t have cared for that.”

The gentleman smiled with real amusement for the first time.

“Sit down, Euphie,” repeated Lady Fanshawe. “Giles isn’t going to bite you.”

Flushing, the girl slid into an armchair.

“Your name is original also,” said the earl. “Did your aunt name you as well?”

Euphie’s flush deepened. He spoke to her as if she were some curious alien creature, mildly interesting but no more. “No,” she replied shortly, “my father did.”

“Her full name is Euphrosyne,” added the earl’s mother.

“Ah, a classical gentleman, I see.” Lord Fanshawe’s sardonic smile reappeared. “But you are very young to be a companion, are you not? You look scarce out of the schoolroom.”

Not unnaturally, this remark made Euphie’s chin come up. “I think that is for your mother to say,” she answered, rather spoiling the effect by adding, “I am seventeen.”

“So old?”

“Now, Giles, don’t be odious,” said the countess. “I know it is your usual manner, but do try. And tell me what you want.”

Real amusement lit Lord Fanshawe’s eyes again, and they twinkled charmingly. “You are hard, Mother. May I not come for a visit without wanting something?”

“May? Oh, of course you
may
. But you never do. Out with it.”

He laughed at her. Euphie thought that he looked quite a different person when he really smiled. “It is a rather ticklish family matter, Mother,” he answered.

Euphie rose at once, turning toward the door.

“Nonsense,” said her ladyship. “Sit down, Euphie. Giles doesn’t know about any family matters I would not have you hear.”

“Do I not?”

“Well, perhaps you do. But I am sure you have not come to talk to me about
those
.”

The earl laughed again. “Actually, I wanted to speak to you about Dora. She has gone beyond the line this time.”

“Dora?” Lady Fanshawe looked amazed. “But whatever has she done? She has always been the most conventional creature.” In an aside to Euphie, she added, “Dora is my elder daughter, dear.”

“She is driving me to distraction with her continual schemes to provide me with a bride,” replied her son.

Her ladyship’s perplexity vanished. “Oh, a bride. Well, that’s all right, then. I
could
not imagine Dora committing the least indiscretion.” She turned to Euphie again. “She was the most docile child, quite unlike Jane and Giles.”

“It may be more likely, Mother. But it is excessively annoying,” said the earl, torn between laughter and exasperation.

“Is it, dear? But of course there is a simple solution.”

“And what is that?”

“Why, you need only marry, Giles, and then Dora, and all the mamas would leave you at peace. You know we have all begged you to for years.”

Euphie, embarrassed at this frank family discussion, made another move to leave, but the countess waved her back.

“I shall marry in my own time, Mother, and I wish you will tell Dora so, and to stop throwing silly chits fresh from the schoolroom at my head.”

“Does she, dear? Dora always was a bit foolish. Your taste has never run in that direction.”

Lord Fanshawe heaved a sigh, and then laughed ruefully. “I might have known that you wouldn’t help me.”

His mother turned to look at him, eyebrows raised. “But of course I will help you, Giles. I shall write to Dora at once.” She smiled. “Shall I summon her for a scold? I haven’t seen her in weeks.”

“Whatever you please, Mother.”

“What do you think, Euphie? Would a note be best, or a talk?”

“I… I don’t know, Lady Fanshawe.”