Memoirs of a Hoyden (18 page)

“Yes, all the smugglers and attractive fortune hunters! Why must you men think enlarging an estate the only things that matter?”

“A large estate can be run more efficiently. It’s more prosperous.”

“The Longvilles are prosperous enough. You and Sir Herbert can bend Nel’s ears till the sheep come home, but you won’t find her so biddable as you hope. She has a mind of her own.”

“No, Miss Mathieson, she has a piece of
your
disordered mind, which has no more conception of what is proper than one of those sheep you so frequently deride. She would never have had the gumption to challenge her father without your troublesome assistance. You have already made my life a hell. Isn’t that enough mischief for one day?”

I opened my lips to answer this charge, but before I could get a word in, he ranted on, a fierce light gleaming in his pale eyes. “And furthermore, Kemp let out that it was you who delivered the letter tonight, not Nel.”

“She told me it was only a note explaining why she couldn’t meet him. It seemed preferable to having her slip out again after we’d left. I expect Ronald told you we had already stopped her once.”

“What you should have done was told Sir Herbert. He would have locked her in her room till she came to see reason.”

“No, she would have opened the window and climbed out, if she had her wits about her.” I began to sympathize with Nel. I hadn’t realized how insufferably overbearing and patronizing men could be. But I think what made her behavior in not wanting to marry Harcourt so heinous in the quivering nostrils of Kestrel was that I was involved in it.

“It’s obvious you grew up without the proper guidance of a strict father,” he sneered, “nor with any guidance at all but your own headstrong stubbornness.”

Any slur on my father was not to be borne. “My father, sir, was an officer and a gentleman. Not a bloated, conceited oaf like you and Sir Herbert! I never fully appreciated the vastness of your arrogance till tonight. You haven’t even spoken to Sir Herbert! If you keep your oar out, I believe I can convince him to turn Harcourt off.’’

“Sir Herbert is my friend, and as you have got both oars in the water, you may be sure I shan’t keep my tongue between my teeth.” On that fine mixing of metaphors, he jutted his chin out and glared.

Ronald stood up, ready to appease us both. “It seems you two are at right angles over this. I think—”

“When did you begin doing that?” I demanded.

Having thoroughly offended both gentlemen, I rose like a fury and stomped from the room. At the doorway I turned and leveled a parting shot over my shoulder. “And furthermore, I have offered Nel shelter in London with me if her father doesn’t see reason in this matter. You may tell Sir Herbert so. Come along, Ronald, we must make plans for an early departure tomorrow.’’

“Ronald will be required to give testimony at the trial,” Kestrel called after my fleeing form.

Nuisance! And not a second later it occurred to me that I was more deeply involved than Ronald. Why was I not asked to give testimony? It was because of my sex, of course. The judge wouldn’t take the word of a mere female seriously. Spying and such life-and-death matters were men’s work. And a fine botch they’d all made of it!

I went to my room but left my door ajar, to hear if Sir Herbert was sent for. I meant to get in the first word if he was. It seems they were letting the poor soul have the last decent night’s sleep he’d have for many a long moon. I could almost pity the man, if I weren’t so vexed with him.

Many troubles assailed me as I sat waiting for Ronald to come up and we could discuss the matter. Not least of them was my rash offer to house Nel. I truly didn’t want the ninny cluttering up my apartment. I was in the middle of my lecture tour, too, which meant either dragging her along with me, or hiring a chaperone for her.

I was due to speak at Canterbury tomorrow night, and I had no cash with me to arrange transportation there. My belongings were scattered across the countryside. My trunk of memorabilia now at the inn at Redden, my necklace at the shoemaker’s, my Aurelia manuscript hopefully still unsold at Chatham, and Ronald’s watch at Ashford. I felt a sting of remorse, too, that some of Aurelia’s advice to impressionable young ladies was open to misinterpretation.

And after I had pondered all these nagging trifles, I was left with the more distressing realization that Kestrel thought me as freakish as a bearded lady. That embrace on the cliffside had been born of frustration, not love. He was a conservative gentleman who would marry his next-door neighbor, providing her papa had a large farm touching his. There was no romance in his soul. He would be exactly the wrong husband for me. I didn’t intend to have my activities trammeled by a domineering husband too concerned for what people thought. I couldn’t possibly live under such confining strictures, and worse yet, I wasn’t going to have the opportunity to refuse. It was best to forget him, and get on with my life.

It was a pretty good life. After the war, I’d go to the Continent and research another serious book. There was a world of history and legend in Greece, for instance. I hadn’t begun to scratch the surface of Greece. How thrilling to dip into the classics, and go to see with my own eye where civilization was born.

This was the thought I took to bed with me an hour later, when still Ronald had not come up, nor Sir Herbert gone down. It was very hard to concentrate on Greece when my heart lay heavy in my chest. I had really thought Kestrel was coming to care for me. When had I decided I loved him? Was this love, this gnawing ache inside, and not the rapturous flights of ecstasy so generously bestowed on Aurelia? If so, I wanted no part of it. Whatever joy it might bring, it was too dearly bought.

Chapter Twelve

It was necessary to resort to an old trick learned from Ishmael Aga, chief of the Delibash tribes, to achieve any sleep at all that night. He suffered from insomnia, and to court Lethe, he used to mentally design arabesques, intricate interlacing swirled patterns used as decoration on everything in the East. After an hour, my imagination had filled the ceiling above me with these complex knots, but my mind was as unsettled as ever.

As a result of my bad night, I overslept the next morning. When I finally awoke, I was very thoroughly disgruntled and more tired than when I went to bed. I was ready to take on Sir Herbert and Lord Kestrel and anyone else who looked at me aslant. I went storming downstairs to do battle with the world, and found only Ronald in the breakfast room, huddling over a cup of coffee.

“Where is everyone?” I demanded.

He gave me a disparaging look. “There’s no point mounting your high horse, Marion. Everything’s been taken care of. Nick and Sir Herbert have gone to Hythe to speak to the lord-lieutenant and explain away Nel’s innocent involvement. Nick talked Sir Herbert out of mentioning that you actually delivered the letter.”

“Kind of him! When was all this arranged, and why was I not invited to be present?”

“Nick didn’t want you here, rubbing Sir Herbert the wrong way. We settled most of it last night after you were asleep.”

“It may interest you to know I did not sleep last night. I was awake forever, and didn’t hear Sir Herbert come downstairs.’’

“We didn’t send for Longville till after one in the morning. Nick and I thrashed out what had best be done first. We had him come down the servants’ stairs so as not to disturb you.”

“To prevent my having an opportunity to make him see reason, you mean. That weasel! Next you will tell me they’ve already married Nel off to Alfred Harcourt.”

“No, Nel’s future was all tied up this morning. She took breakfast with us. She isn’t going to marry Harcourt. She’s going to visit her cousin in Bath. A letter’s already been sent to the cousin to come and fetch her.’’

“We’ll see about that! Packing her off to some ogre to trim her into line. I offered Nel shelter with me, and I mean to see she gets it!”

“She is delighted to be going to her cousin. It seems Mrs. Fitzroy is a great favorite of hers. She has a son— not terribly well to grass, but what Nick called ‘a bright lad.’ He’s very keen on raising sheep,” Ronald added, with a knowing look. “Sir Herbert is going to resign his commission with the government and come home to tend his farm. I expect within a few months, he’ll have a son-in-law to assist him.”

“At least they aren’t making her marry Harcourt.”

“We have Nick to thank for that. He explained his views to Sir Herbert with a generous strength. The words ‘bloated, conceited oaf’ were used at one point. I think you went a bit too far there, my girl. Outdid yourself. Sir Herbert didn’t take kindly to it, but Nel cleverly went into a fit of bawling and defended her papa, which did a world of good. Blamed her rash behavior on some novel she’d been reading. Sir Herbert was determined to push the match forward at first, but between Nel’s tears and Nick’s tongue-lashing, he was talked out of it.”

“I’m surprised to hear Kestrel changed his opinion.”

“So was I, to tell the truth. Last night after you left he went into a fine rant, practically vowing that he’d see Nel married to Alfred if it killed him. It sounded like spite to me—and he has no reason to spite Nel.” His sapient look wasn’t needed to tell me the object of this tender emotion. “By this morning he had calmed down and actually urged Sir Herbert to be lenient with the girl. A marriage without love would only lead to strife, he said.”

“Well then, some good came of my hysterics.” I went to the sideboard and filled my plate. My temper was beginning to calm down as I considered Ronald’s news. It was actually a relief to know Nel wouldn’t be battened on me, so long as she wasn’t being made to have Harcourt. Kestrel was apparently calming down, too. I was interested to hear if he might have said anything about me, but didn’t quite care to enquire directly. I went at it by indirection instead.

“Did Sir Herbert say when he would be back?” I didn’t suppose for a minute that he would return without Kestrel.

“No, but I should think he’d be here by noon.”

That didn’t leave me much time to gather my belongings up from around the countryside and get to Canterbury in time for the lecture. “That late?” Possibly Kestrel would return earlier.

“We don’t have to wait for them. I told Sir Herbert about your lecture this evening, and he offered the loan of a carriage and team to take care of our errands. It was kind of him, but I suspect the truth is, he just wanted to get you out of the house. Nel was quoting your advice freely. ‘Miss Mathieson said’ came out in every other sentence. Sir Herbert particularly ordered Nel not to leave her room till we were gone, and requested that you not go to her. I gave him my word, Marion,” he added, and looked at me hopefully.

I was rapidly losing interest in Sir Herbert and his daughter. “Then it seems I shall just have to steal Nel’s gown, and not have the pleasure of saying good-bye to them or Kestrel,” I said, and peered to see if Ronald had anything to say about Nick.

“You can leave a note, and return Nel’s gown later,” he suggested. “Pity you have to be seen in public in it, with those red slippers.”

“Why should I bother with a note? If rude dismissal is the order of the day, I shan’t put myself to the trouble. And I’ll give this gown to the first servant girl I meet. What will happen to Bernard Kemp and his band of merry men?”

“Nothing will happen to the Gentlemen, except they’ll require a new leader. No one’s pursuing their involvement. In fact, they weren’t involved in the spying, only smuggling, and that’s considered an honorable profession here on the coast. Kemp will be prosecuted for the traitor he is.”

“All’s well that ends well then, as Mr. Shakespeare said.” The ending was not quite what I could wish, but it was the end of our adventure all the same. “You might as well go and see to the carriage, Ronald, as you’ve finished breakfast. We shall be leaving in approximately half an hour. This gammon is delicious,” I added blandly. Actually, it might have been tanned leather for all the heed I paid to it.

As soon as Ronald left, I pushed my plate away, hardly touched, and sat sipping coffee. When a servant came to see if I wanted anything, I started from a fit of the dismals to enquire ever so offhandedly whether Lord Kestrel had left me a message. He had not. “What time did he and Sir Herbert leave this morning?” I enquired.

“An hour ago, ma’am. Would you like to leave a message for them?”

The whole staff knew I had been hinted away. This being the case, I would sooner ride a tiger than try to cajole Kestrel with a polite note. I answered testily, “No, I would not. This coffee is very bitter and quite cold.”

“Shall I make a fresh pot, ma’am?”

“I haven’t time to wait for that. I shall be leaving almost immediately.” I rose while she still stood there with her mouth open, and marched to my room.

If the ninny thought she would receive a pourboire when I left, she was very much mistaken. I took no formal leave of anyone, but just threw on my bonnet and pelisse to wait belowstairs for the carriage. Ronald soon joined me. He didn’t look any too perky either.

“You’re regretting that you’ll have to return here for the trial, I expect?” I said, giving his arm a sympathetic pat.

“Nick said it won’t be for a couple of weeks. I shan’t mind that. What’s troubling me is that I don’t like setting out on a trip without any money,” he said. “I should have bitten Sir Herbert’s ear for some blunt before he left.”

“I’m glad you mentioned it. We’ll stop at Hythe and see if something can be arranged.’’

“It would be better to wait till we get to Canterbury. No one knows you in Hythe—they might be reluctant to forward you funds. In Canterbury you’ll be known because of the lecture.”

“That would make eminent sense if we were going directly to Canterbury, but we’re not. We’re going to Redden to pick up my trunk for the lecture and to Chatham to look for my Aurelia notes, and to Ashford to give that mawworm a piece of our minds for selling us an ornamental pistol and to get your watch back. We can do it all and still be in time for the lecture if we get an early start.”