Miss Ryder's Memoirs (6 page)

“Huge,” I said. “They are the largest beasts I’ve seen in many a month. I suppose they’re extraordinarily fast?”

“As the wind,” he agreed. “Miss Amanda will never have had such a drive before, I trust.”

“Oh, you mustn’t hurry them on my account,” she insisted, her face paling.

“They’re impatient unless they’re doing a hearty pace. Don’t worry your head about that.”

I turned my back to him and grinned at her maliciously. “Oh, you’ll have a splendid time. Flying along in that fragile curricle! How lucky you are, my dear sister.’’

She almost stamped her foot with anger at me, but recalled herself in time. “Of course I shall.” And she lifted her round chin so high I thought her pink bonnet would fall off backward.

Sir John handed her into the curricle, and I could see what he meant by its balance. Just Amanda’s weight made it tilt precariously. He positioned himself carefully as he set foot in it himself and gathered up the reins. Positioning himself carefully meant that he placed himself very close to my sister. I have to admit that he looked splendid sitting there, his gauntlets tightly gripping the leather straps, his boots braced against the footboard of the curricle. Those broad shoulders could not help but touch Amanda’s, and his muscular thighs must have done the same, though I couldn’t precisely see.

His artistry in setting the horses to their paces was something I could appreciate, and I suppose it must have been what drew Robert’s notice to him in the first place. Robert is a great admirer of a true whipster. I wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that Sir John was one of those wild blades who had actually driven a mail coach. Rumors of such things reached us even in the country, and the baronet seemed just the sort of fellow who wouldn’t be able to resist that challenge.

When they had disappeared toward the Newmarket Road, I wandered back into the stable, feeling both neglected and disgruntled. Why did everyone assume that Amanda . . . Well, it didn’t really matter to me, so I refused to think about it. When I had made my way to Lofty’s box stall, I stood there running my fingers through her forelock and whispering sweet words in her flickering ears. Before long our groom, Jed, appeared at my side.

“I’m that surprised it weren’t you went with the gentleman,” he said, grinning up with his mouthful of missing teeth. “Weren’t he goin’ off to look at horses at Overview?”

“Yes, and he assures us that he doesn’t need any help in choosing them.”

Jed laughed. “Small wonder, ma’am. Never seen such prime ‘uns as those chestnuts. Groom said he got ‘em near Chelverton goin’ on two years. Must be a breeder good as Hinchly, eh?”

“That’s what I was thinking. But he’d never heard of Hinchly. Probably because the man’s so irascible with strangers. We’re the lucky ones, not having all his horses sent off to London. Do you suppose none of his horses has ever come up at Tattersall’s?”

“Mayhap. Mr. Robert wouldn’t let any of his end up there. Which minds me. That cousin of your’n be riding Thunder again, even one nighttime. Is that all right by you?”

“No, but I won’t stop him.” Another thought had occurred to me and I turned from Lofty to ask him. “Did Sir John ride out early this morning? About dawn? Or perhaps earlier?”

There was a slight hesitation before he answered. “Can’t rightly say, miss. I weren’t in the stables yet. A touch of the stomach. You could ask Cooper. He’d know for sure.”

How strange, I thought. Jed used to spend every waking moment at the stables, stomach upset or not. I’d even seen him more than once with terrible toothache working away at the brasses. But the matter immediately disappeared from my mind when I went in search of Cooper. He’s been in charge of our stables for as long as his wife has been our cook, and he’s almost as attached to us young folks as she is, having put us on our first ponies.

I found him in the large tack room, repairing a saddle that had seen better days. The walls were hung with brasses and terrets, horseshoes and harness. When Cooper looked up I was struck for the first time by how white his hair had become; he was getting old. His eyes were a bit rheumy but his fingers moved as nimbly as ever over the leather. When I asked him my question, he scratched his head.

“Well, now, seems everybody and his brother took an early ride. That Mr. Cummings was out before I came down, and then Sir John showed up before dawn was full broke.” He frowned. “And I ‘da sworn Antelope had been ridden, too, ‘cept who was there to take her out but you?”

Antelope is my mother’s favorite. Mr. Cummings, my Cousin Bret, rides Thunder, though no one really considers him a good-enough rider to be up on the magnificent mount. Robert would have taken the horse to town if we hadn’t all known London was no place for such a restless animal. Thunder needed to be ridden regularly, and hard, in order to keep him in good shape and spirits. I wondered if Sir John would offer to take him over for the duration of his stay. It would be a treat to see Sir John up on that powerful beast.

“Well, I certainly didn’t ride Antelope. I don’t go out riding in the middle of the night.” But he’d made me wonder. “Why did you think she’d been ridden?”

“Oh, she’d been rubbed down, and all, but I know that little mare. She had the look of hard ride under her belt, if you take my meaning.”

I did. “Didn’t Jed say whether he’d rubbed her down?”

“He don’t answer questions like that, miss. Not for me nor nobody.”

“But why? What has he to hide, for heaven’s sake?”

“Begging your pardon, miss, but I wouldn’t know. He’s a law unto himself that one, and your ma won’t hear of him being dismissed.”

“Well, I should think not,” I replied, indignant. “He’s the best groom we’ve ever had. But I can’t imagine why he wouldn’t answer some simple questions."

“Mayhap they ain’t so simple,” the old man muttered, patting the saddle with a kind of finality.

Seeing that I wasn’t going to get any more out of him, I took myself off. There was entirely too much mystery suddenly cluttering up the place. Hastings is, usually, just an ordinary and uncomplicated spot, comfortable and rather dull, actually. For some reason, the prospect of a mystery didn’t excite me as it might have. I could smell trouble. And trouble wasn’t what we needed right then, since Robert was heir apparent to an earldom.

My father was the younger son of a younger son of a not-very-prolific family. By the unassuming way he lived, no one would have guessed he might become an earl during his lifetime. He was more interested in his books and crops than in the lineage of his family or the privileges the aristocracy could claim.

But Papa died before his great-uncle, which left Robert in line for the earldom.

The earl, Lord Stonebridge, is more than eighty years old and could pop off at any time. He’s a very high stickler and would have produced an heir if he could. It galls him that not one of his three wives managed to provide a living heir. There were a few sickly babies, I believe, but none of them survived.

Lord Stonebridge likes to treat Robert as if he were some sort of medieval retainer, insisting that Robert drop everything and hurry off to Stonebridge Castle at the slightest hint from his highness. Stonebridge says Robert has a lot to learn before he’ll be ready to accept the mantle of his aristocratic heritage. Robert laughs at this, of course. He can be whatever kind of person he wishes, whether he’s a lord or not.

Anyhow, it wouldn’t do to have something untoward happen at Hastings, because Lord Stonebridge has spies in the very gateposts. When one of our horses went missing for a few days, he heard about it and wrote to tell Mama that she was not handling matters properly. He said he knew just the man Robert should appoint to oversee the stables. Instead, I accepted the responsibility myself, and no one has had any cause to complain.

We would not pay Lord Stonebridge the slightest notice, except that he has a habit of writing letters to the newspapers, which almost always see fit to print what he has to say. Not because of the wisdom of the letters, I’m convinced, but because these letters invariably prove a great embarrassment to someone. Quite often us. No one at Hastings will forget the day the
Morning Post
arrived with a letter by the earl deriding the state of the countryside when a family in Cambridgeshire could mismanage their stables so badly that their horses simply strayed off for a day or two. It made us the laughingstock of the neighborhood.

So I’d rather things remained placid here until the old fellow meets his Maker, and his three previous wives.

I ran into Cousin Bret on my way back to the house. He hadn’t made it down to breakfast—he seldom does before ten—and he’d obviously just heard that Amanda was off with Sir John for the day.

“How could your mother let her go off with a virtual stranger?” he demanded on seeing me. “We don’t know the first thing about the fellow and he seems a bit of a loose screw to me. You won’t credit it, but Hughes and I discovered him that first day hanging about the pond, as if he owned the place. Wouldn’t even present his letter to us.”

There’s nothing I hate more than to be in agreement with Cousin Bret, so I pretended that I wasn’t. “If he’s a friend of Robert’s, I’m sure he’s perfectly harmless.”

“Hah. You haven’t the slightest idea what your brother gets up to in London.”

“Do you?”

“No, but I’m sure he’s no angel there. And this one,” said he, giving his head a thrust in the direction of the departed curricle, “I’m sure I’ve heard his name and that his reputation is that of a rake and a gambler. Your mother shouldn’t have allowed a delicate young thing like Amanda to rush off with him, and only his groom in attendance. His groom, you will note. Not one of Hastings’ grooms. Not that there aren’t those at Hastings who would be less than useless, either.”

I knew he wanted me to ask which, but I refused to give him the satisfaction. “They’ve only gone to Overview Stables, and to have a picnic on their return. No harm will come to Amanda.”

“How can you possibly know that?” he sneered. “She’s the most trusting creature. And so easily influenced.”

He said this with approbation, and I nearly laughed at him. Amanda, trusting! Not a bit of it. And she’s about as impressionable as a major in the Horse Guards. Except where Sir John was concerned. And he wasn’t going to make any headway with her. Amanda has her principles. She would allow him no liberties until they had stood together before a man of the cloth. What was I thinking! She was not going to marry Sir John. Not if I had anything to say to it!

“Amanda has more sense than you credit her with,” I said.

His sneer deepened until his nostrils flared. “You are so naive, Cousin Catherine.”

He turned away from me and stalked off, which was perfectly all right with me.

* * * *

Sir John and my sister didn’t return for hours. I sat in the arbor, waiting for them. Not that I intended to spy on them; I was waiting for the return of the picnic basket. I had learned at our cold nuncheon that Mrs. Cooper sent the last of her raspberry tarts for their picnic. No one makes better raspberry tarts than Mrs. Cooper, and I’d been anticipating another since they disappeared from the dining room the previous evening.

What could be keeping them all that time? It would have taken Sir John no more than a few hours to drive and learn the history of every horse at Overview Stables.

So their picnic, near the river, under a stand of larch trees—as I learned later—had lasted for several hours as well. And what had they done during all that time? Surely no more than talked to each other. Perhaps Amanda had flirted with him a little, lying on the ground on the rug I’d seen peeking out from under the curricle’s seat. She would have blinked up at him and smiled, her loveliest, shyest smile. Several of the neighborhood boys were captivated by that smile.

And what would he have done, that rake in gentleman’s clothing? He would have regarded her with those expressive eyes, all admiration and appreciation of her beauty. Certainly not of her wit! She would have told him about how she spent her days, netting purses and helping Mama plan the menus and overseeing the church’s charitable activities. She might have told him about how remarkable her old horse Daisy was. If Sir John had seen it, he would know just how deplorable the old nag had become, but he would be wise enough not to mention it. Amanda would also, no doubt, tell a few tales about me. She can no more resist telling tales about me than I can resist taunting her.

Anyhow. They arrived home all smiles, and with everything in the picnic basket totally devoured. Not even a few polite crumbs to assure Mrs. Cooper that there had been more than enough for them to eat. Sir John alone could not be blamed, for although Amanda’s appetite wasn’t all that hearty, she adored cream buns and the aforementioned raspberry tarts.

They stopped to speak with me on their way into the house. Amanda’s eyes widened with surprise. “What in heaven’s name are you doing here?” she asked. “I expected you to be out on Lofty pounding through the countryside on such a day.”

That was just to prove to him, no doubt, that I’m the greatest hoyden in nature and would scarcely be caught dead swinging on the lattice seat in the arbor like an ordinary girl. “I was waiting to see if you brought back any raspberry tarts,” I replied.

“Nary a one,” Sir John assured me cheerfully. “I think I must have eaten three of them myself, and your sister . . ."

"Yes, yes, I believe we did finish all of them.” She gave him a coy, scolding look as she spoke. “I’ll not be called to task for eating a few raspberry tarts.”

‘‘No one would dare call you to task for anything," he assured her. Really, it was quite sickening, the sweet looks they gave each other. What the devil had gotten into Amanda, anyhow? Couldn’t she see what he was? Why, if she knew about him at the pond, or how he’d spoken to me that very morning, she would blush deep as a beet and likely never speak to him again. Our vicar had convinced her that the righteous never associate with the devil, lest they become infected with evil. He has a way with words, our vicar.

Amanda waved her fingers at us and continued on toward the house, but Sir John sat down across from me on the other swing. When she was out of sight, he said, “She’s the most agreeable young woman I’ve met in years. So unspoiled!”