Love Then Begins (19 page)

“Madam.” Mr Darcy’s voice was tightly controlled. “The mummers of Lambton wear masks.”

“I am aware of that, Mr Darcy.” Mrs Darcy’s voice was equally measured.

“
Only
masks.”

“What?” Elizabeth’s eyes bulged. “Why that’s—no!” Then she leaned back in her chair and moved her piece of pie around her plate. “Well, I’ll ask them to . . . put on some clothes or something.”

“Madam. The mummers of Lambton are known far and wide for their performance of indecent verses on marriage—and the Doctor’s part is restorative not solely through his
medicinal
powers.”

“You mean Mr Derek . . . ?”

At this there was a strangled noise and the sudden and strange commotion where his lordship was still concentrating very intently on the food on his plate and that said plate was shoved around violently and a glass of wine toppled. The moment after that, his wife directed a warning look towards him followed by a jerking motion and he bowed over his displaced plate, hitting his shoulder on the table, causing it to rock as he put his hand under the table to rub his shin and loudly protest, “Ooww!”

“What?” asked Mrs Darcy.

“Elizabeth,” her cousin said, “perhaps you should . . . well, you could . . . maybe if someone talked to them . . . ”

But Elizabeth Darcy, Mistress of Pemberley, pulled up her handkerchief from her lap, pressed it over her mouth for a very long time and would not meet anyone’s eyes.

“You could have asked me,” her husband said.

At that, Mrs Darcy stood up and walked out of the room. Her husband watched her go, sent his friend a dangerous look and excused himself as well. Holly looked after them worriedly and then moved to her husband. He was sitting on his chair, shaking with unreleased laughter and pressing his fist against his mouth to contain himself.

“Lambton mummers on the Pemberley lawn,” he managed in a contorted voice. “Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear . . . ”

And then he burst out laughing. As he did so it was Holly’s turn to stand up and give her husband a narrow eyed stare.

“Brute,” she said and walked away.

But Lord Baugham sat in his chair shaking his head and laughing quietly until Mr Reynolds came in and in the presence of only one worried footman asked if there was anything he could do.

“Dessert then, my lord?”

At that Lord Baugham burst out laughing again and Mr Reynolds withdrew to assume another strategy in such highly upsetting circumstances.

D
ARCY WAS NOT IN THE
library but at first that did not bother his lordship. The wine was good, the fire was warm, the chairs were comfortable and there was plenty to occupy his mind in the peace and quiet. He stretched his legs and thought about the break-up of their happy little dinner party. That in turn made him remember the cause for his unbridled mirth and—he could now confess—his quite incomprehensible behaviour.

Well, he amended, not so incomprehensible. His reaction to Mrs Darcy’s incredulity concerning the nature of the mummers who traditionally invaded markets and houses in the north around Christmas—and apparently at Candlemas as well—was based on his own personal experience when visiting Lambton as well as his memories of his first times witnessing the same tradition around Cumbermere and Appleby as a boy.

Baugham shook his head as he remembered what those plays had done to him and his imagination as a young boy. He had never thought of them as shocking, even though his mother had never liked them. He never told her about his efforts to sneak out of the house without her knowledge, catching them performing and walking the lanes, singing their songs, striking up their little plays whenever there was a penny to be earned. Much of what they portrayed had been nonsense to him then, much of it he had learned to laugh at without understanding why. But yes, there was an element of the carnivalesque, the revelling, the almost medieval boisterous irreverence that had both appealed to him and made him curious.

Carnival, of course, was a dying art form. Slowly the civilizing elements of society were pushing out the bawdy and brash, the irreverent and the satirical, compelling the mummers to clean up their act or die out. From what Mrs Darcy said, this was already the case in Hertfordshire. But here in Derbyshire . . . well, it was still a different story.

Suddenly he had no desire to sit alone in Darcy’s splendid library and think of carnival celebrations dying and becoming inappropriate. After a few paces to test his resolution he walked out of the door and headed upstairs. He had unfinished business in more earthier temples of knowledge than the library.

Walking down the corridor he quickly slipped into his own room. He was not very surprised not to find any trace of her there so he threw off his coat, unbuttoned his waistcoat and tugged at his necktie before moving over to his wife’s rooms.

When she was not there either he was annoyed. Where on earth could she be? She was not on some foolish errand of diplomacy, was she? She was not walking around the house in an effort to avoid him? Had she not confess she had gotten lost just a few hours ago? What would that same bewildering house do to her now that it was dark and quiet?

Taking a peek out of her door again, he saw her walking slowly down the hall towards him. She looked thoughtful and was winding her shawl between her hands, staring at her feet before her. Then she paused and half turned to look behind her.

Baugham sighed and Holly looked up.

“Is that you?”

Baugham rolled his eyes at her, which most probably, she could not make out but the impatience of his voice was unmistakable.

“Of course it is! Where have you been?”

He could see her stop maulling the shawl and raise her hands to rest on her hips in a defiant gesture.

“I was talking to Elizabeth. Your hostess. Whom you mortally offended.”

Baugham let out a disbelieving puff. “Nonsense! Darcy managed that feat perfectly well without my help. I was just . . . reacting.”

“You were
laughing!”
She spoke the word as if it left a bad taste in her mouth.

“It was funny,” he grew defensive, stepping out into the hall and took a few steps toward her.

“It was
not
funny, it was a terrible misunderstanding and your disgraceful behaviour didn’t help the situation one bit!”

“Is that so? I’m afraid if Mrs Darcy is going to be inviting the Lambton mummers to her grand events, she will have to get used to behaviours much worse than mine!”

With a greatly affronted look, Holly swept her shawl around her and strode to her door. “There is no behaviour worse than yours. And you supposedly a
gentleman
and all!”

In a few steps he was almost beside her, so she changed her dignified gait into a hasty tip toeing motion and quickly slipped inside to her room, closing the door behind her.

“Oh, really, Holly!” she heard him say on the other side. Almost as an afterthought to that she looked down at the key in the door and then quickly turned it. The second after that she could hear the door knob rattling in vain. Suddenly she felt her heart beating and she did not need the shawl for protection against the cold anymore.

“Oh really!” her husband said again on the other side of the door. “What on earth do you think you will achieve with this?”

“A point!” she said, slightly louder than she might have needed to since they were, after all, only separated by four inches.

“What point?” The question came as a hiss.

Holly swallowed and caught her breath. “There’s no use talking about it with you.”

“What? That’s insane! Holly, what are you talking about?”

She put her head a little closer to the door. “You were rude!” she said. “And unfeeling. Do you know how hard Elizabeth has worked at trying to fill the shoes of Mistress of Pemberley? Do you have any idea how much she has had to struggle with that? You are all the same, you ‘to the manor born’ types! You prance around, all filled up with how great and important you and your family are and expect everyone to implicitly rise to your level and then all you can do in your unfeeling, unsympathetic arrogance when they fall short is to make either a joke or a scandal out of it! And if you think you will get away with anything like it at Cumbermere you are sorely mistaken!”

“Well, there will be no mummers on my lawn; that is very certain.”

Holly gasped and jumped at the voice coming from inside the room. In the open door between their two rooms stood her husband with a grin on his face. “And I very rarely prance.”

“Oh!” she said “Oh! Oh! You!”

“Yes, me. Be careful when locking doors, madam! Inconsistencies may give the wrong impression.”

Holly threw her shawl on the bed and gave him an angry look. “I don’t give a fig for what impression you get, sir. I am angry with you, that much should be perfectly clear! You are a perfect disgrace.”

Baugham spread out his hands in a frustrated gesture. “I didn’t do anything!”

“Oh, yes you did!”

“I didn’t!”

“Yes, you did! Those mummers are a disaster! And tomorrow they will build the tent and prepare the food and heat the wine and build the bonfires and Elizabeth is devastated! Did you have to add insult to injury like that, you big oaf!”

“What? It was all a joke! A harmless joke! They will get over it. Have you ever seen the mumming, Holly? It’s just . . . a bit of fun!”

“Hah!” Holly put her hands on her hips and gave him an evil look. “Fun? Fun?! Oh, I have seen mummers at Clanough, my lord, and I’m not sure my mother doesn’t regret her liberality on that score today still.”

Baugham threw his hands in the air. “The Clanough mummers! The depravers of innocence and corrupters of youth!” And then he gave a big snort.

“Well, you’ve never seen them, have you?” Holly answered triumphantly. “I’m sure Mrs McLaughlan never lets them within ten yards of the house!”

Baugham rolled his eyes.

“As well she shouldn’t!” Holly added.

Her husband cocked his head to the side and gave her a mischievous look, which she tried to ignore by fiddling with her dress and picking out the ribbons in her hair. “Why is that then?”

“They’re no better than they ought to be,” Holly muttered.

At that Baugham laughed. “Of all the prissiest, prudish, missish—”

Holly turned around. “Well, they are!”

But Baugham’s grin had not diminished. “So, what are they?”

Holly turned back, suddenly conscious of her cheeks burning again. “I’m not saying. I’m not telling you.”

Baugham took a step closer to her. “Is there a Doctor?”

She looked over her shoulder. “No,” she mumbled. “No, Doctor. A Knight,” she added more defiantly.

“Oooh!” he said mockingly. “A Knight!”

“With a very long . . . spear.” She had no idea why she said it except remembering that was her own first bewildered impression.

Before she knew it, her husband had come to stand before her.

“And a dragon?” he asked.

Holly shook her head. “No St. George. But there was a maiden.” She swallowed. “Several actually.”

She felt the mockery in his eyes die away without his gaze leaving her face.

“Sir Gawain,” Holly went on carefully as her husband’s eyes travelled downwards, settling on her hand clasping the locket hanging around her neck.

“A very gallant knight, I hear,” he said quietly.

“Not so much so in that mummers’ play.”

“Really?”

“No. He was . . . forward.”

“With his . . . spear?”

Holly swallowed but could not quite keep her mouth from twitching. She bit her lip. “Well, he came to a very . . . sticky end at the hands of those maidens.”

At that, her husband burst out laughing. “I can imagine!”

Looking up at him, Holly raised an eyebrow. “I don’t think you can really, since you never saw it.”

In that moment he reached out and very slowly put his arms around her. Carefully, hesitantly, Holly thought and so she made no objections.

“I’m sure it was all quite educational. For knights and maidens alike.”

With her hand now tracing the folds of his shirt front, Holly simply smiled. But it did not last long before Baugham bowed over her and closed her lips with his.

“Stuff dinner,” he muttered. “We should never have gone down. My Maledisant,” he whispered against her cheek, his hand moving over her breast. “My Bienpensant...”

“Who are they?” Not that she cared at that moment.

“She. The bane of Sir Breunor’s existence,” his lordship whispered against her throat, softly working to find the knots and strings of her stays and petticoats. “His partner on his mission, his taunter and abuser, his champion and his damosel turned wife, lover, partner, conscience and mistress of his Castle at Pendragon . . . ”

“Oh, she . . . ” Holly said as his lips met her bare skin and goose pimples travelled up her arms and back.