Springtime Pleasures (14 page)

“Alive?” he asked and was embarrassed when the word emerged as a horrified squawk.

Now
she threw him a look as if she took him for a lunatic.

“Of course not!” she said with emphasis. “It was very much dead. After all, it might have been a danger to the younger girls. Some of them are as young as ten or eleven, you must know.” A dreamy expression came over her face, and she lightly smacked her lips. “Cook prepared the most
tasty
pot roast, I remember. She even sacrificed some of the good port she keeps stored in a secret place.”

“She keeps the port in a
safe deposit
?”

A peal of laughter greeted his disbelieving exclamation. “Lud, no! What good would that do?” Her green eyes sparkled merrily, distracting him enough that he nearly would have missed her next sentence. “Even the little ones would have picked the locks of any coffer in a trice! No, no, she
hid
the port, naturally.”

Griff gaped at her. No, he told himself, he couldn’t have heard that correctly.

“There was an unfortunate incident some years ago,” Miss Stanton added apologetically, catching sight of his face. “
Very
distressing for poor Miss Pinkerton. So Cook has kept the port and all other potent spirits hidden ever since. But for the boar it came out, of course. Miss Pinkerton simply
loves
game, you see.”

Griff didn’t, but he didn’t have the heart to tell her so. Instead, he simply gave a non-committal grunt and watched while she expertly handled the reins, giving the pair of chestnuts head when a long stretch of empty road lay before them. She was, he slowly came to realise, a most excellent whip.
So what the deuce did she need me for in the first place?
he wondered. True, he had given her a few tips and hints, but no more than that.

Beside him, Miss Stanton prattled on, “Therefore it is most fortunate that Miss Pinkerton came to a mutually satisfying arrangement with Old Squire Nettles, who is plagued most
dreadfully
by rheumatism, poor man.” She shook her head. Sadness flickered over her face as she obviously remembered the distant country squire. Griff was strangely moved by this expression of sympathy. He wished he could take her hand and press it gently—yet this would be highly improper, of course, and wouldn’t do at all. Still, his first impression of her had been right: for all her odd ways, Miss Stanton was as good as gold.

Yet her very next words smashed all and any lingering feelings of benevolence to smithereens: “So he has agreed to the Academy shooting his birds for him—which is most generous of him, is it not?” Miss Stanton clicked her tongue at the horses, apparently oblivious to the stiffening of his body. “And he only takes a third of the bag besides!” she added. “It is different when it’s hares—Old Squire Nettles positively
dislikes
anything rabbity on account of a nightmare he had as a boy. He dreamt of a fluffy white rabbit biting a company of knights to death. Miss Pinkerton has often used this as an example of how things we learn at a young age can still influence us in later life. It
is
most curious, is it not?”

Never mind the bloodthirsty fluffy white rabbit!
Griff thought with what he correctly interpreted as mounting hysteria, for without his noticing, the world had apparently gone topsy-turvy. “Miss Stanton,” he said in strangled tones. “Do you mean to tell me that you
shoot game
?” There mere thought was
preposterous
! That’s what it was! Inconceivable, really.

“We were not
poaching
,” she retorted quickly in what he assumed was meant as a reassuring tone. “Miss Pinkerton would never condone her charges doing something so criminal! Truly, she wouldn’t!” She glanced at him, her bottle-green eyes imploring him to believe her.

Griff thought of her earlier comment about little girls and lock-picking, and, grimacing, wondered how exactly the absent Miss Pinkerton would define criminal behaviour.

Miss Stanton obviously misinterpreted his expression and her own changed to one of dismay. “Oh dear,” she said, resignation dulling her voice. “I have done it again, haven’t I? I have committed another
faux pas
.” She slowed down the horses so she could risk a longer look at him without driving them into the ditch. “How dreadful is it this time?”

Her tone was so gloomy and the whole situation so very nonsensical that despite himself Griff couldn’t help a smile. “Rather dreadful, I am afraid.”

“Oh dear.” She hung her head. “You must think me a veritable mushroom. But—” She quickly glanced up. “I
am
most obliged to you for making be aware of my shortcomings. This is much better than listening to Aunt Dolmore listing them all. Now
that
is a most horrible and discouraging situation: having somebody who seemingly keeps account of all your sins and flaws. It makes one feel so very small, being lectured about one’s misbehaviours.” She sighed.

Abruptly Griff sobered as he thought of the lectures his father delighted in giving him. “Oh yes, ” he said feelingly. “I know exactly what you mean.”

He caught her giving him another sidelong glance. Yet this one he could not interpret.

“I cannot believe that you have any such great flaws,” she said earnestly, righting her spectacles. “On the occasions we chanced to meet, you have always behaved beautifully and with perfect propriety.”

“Except for today,” he tried to lighten the mood, feeling distinctly uncomfortable with the turn the conversation had taken and with what he had revealed to her.

“What utter twaddle!” she said impatiently. “You know as well as I that I positively
forced
you to accompany me on this drive. No, you mustn’t—”

He shook his head. “Miss Stanton,” he began, then stopped, unsure of how to go on. But she had been so disarmingly frank with him, so very trusting, that he felt he could not give her anything but the truth in return, even if the truth made his stomach churn. “You have talked to my sister,” he finally said. “So you must be aware that I am responsible for the accident that… that…” A sudden obstruction lodged in his throat. He coughed, shame and embarrassment making his insides twist and his cheeks burn. “I am responsible for the accident that ruined her life,” he forced out, feeling as if he might be sick any minute.

To his surprise, Miss Stanton’s reply was a most unladylike snort. “What a bam!”

His eyebrows rose. “I beg your pardon?”

Miss Stanton tossed her head, a sudden fierce light gleaming in her eyes. “I said, ‘What a bam!’” Her tone had changed from one of dismay and now her voice rang with conviction. With an impatient movement, she reined the horses in and brought them to a halt, so she could fully focus on him. “As far as I understand the matter, you did not even drive the vehicle—in fact, you were nowhere even
near
the phaeton at the time when the accident occurred. So how anybody could be so caperwitted as to hold you responsible for it is truly beyond me!”

Griff felt strangely hurt by her words. What did
she
know of the matter! What did she know of the burden of guilt he had carried for so long now! “Nevertheless,” he said stiffly, “it was
my
phaeton and—”

“Oh.” The spectacles flashed. “So it is one of
those
.” She shook her head in what he thought a pitying manner. “I
am
aware, of course, that sometimes gentlemen get the most birdwitted schemes into their heads and then there is no dislodging them.” She threw him an unfathomable glance. “The schemes, I mean.”

Griff felt irritation tighten his shoulders. “Miss Stanton—”

“It is just like Jamie Moore, who was so determined that he would be able to get the wild boar which was wreaking havoc on the village at that time. Not quite as bad as the Bestial Boar—I have mentioned him before, haven’t I?—but bad enough.”

“I fail to see what—” Griff growled, yet he could have spared himself the exertion for his companion blithely continued as if he not spoken at all.

“According to
witnesses
, he sprouted something about manly honour or some such thing and dashed off in the most idiotish fashion. I daresay he would have been trampled to a pulp if we hadn’t found him hanging bleeding from that tree like a veritable rag doll.” She snorted. “He couldn’t even climb a tree, would you believe it?”

A giant fist squeezed Griff’s insides, and a burst of white-hot anger replaced the irritation. Here he was, spilling his guts like a fool, and she repaid him by prattling on about one of her silly stories? “I have to say that I find all this talk about wild boars most unladylike. Indeed, it distinctly starts to bore me,” he ground out. He would
not
be lectured by an unpolished chit.

However, if he had believed to make Miss Stanton cower from his displeasure, he was sadly mistaken. She turned these intense bottle-green eyes on him and, cocking her head to the side, looked at him as if he were a… a… specimen subject to scientific examination!

A moment later a sad little smile flickered across her face. “Don’t you see?” she said. “Jamie Moore thought it would besmirch his manly honour to let mere
females
hunt down the boar. He had no experience hunting boars, but still he thought he could do it better than we. He was mistaken, as he learnt to his cost. And
your
manly honour dictates you should feel responsible for the accident that killed your brother and injured your sister. And yet, here we sit, in the highest high-perch phaeton in London, and we have not crashed nor met with any other accident, even though I have never driven such a thing before. But you steered me so beautifully that I felt not a moment’s alarm, though this vehicle is a most ticklish thing indeed.” She searched his eyes. “Don’t you see?” Delicate pink colour stained her cheeks.

Her lips were wind-chapped, her brass spectacles ugly beyond words, and her bonnet the most unfashionable concoction Griff had ever seen. Yet her eyes were passionately earnest as she met his gaze head-on. He felt something tug at his insides. Something elemental and powerful, something that made the breath in his lungs lock.

“It wasn’t
you
,” she continued. “It was your brother. He must have had no experience driving a high-perch phaeton, but still he thought to best you. He probably drove it in the most idiotish fashion, too. Too fast, too hard on the poor horses.”

She touched his arm then, a curiously gentling gesture as if he were one of the horses she was talking about, driven too hard. “Only in contrast to Jamie Moore, when your brother learnt he was mistaken, it was not merely to his cost, but to your sister’s as well.” Through the thick fabric of his coat he could feel her fingers tighten around his arm. “And to your cost, too, I believe,” she added softly.

Chapter 8

in which a kidnapping has curious effects

on all parties concerned & our heroine

tries to find out what a courtesan is

For Griff, the journey back to London passed in a daze. Miss Stanton must have driven expertly and carefully, for no mishap befell them. She let him off in front of the Albany, bade him a cheerful good day as if she hadn’t turned him inside out, and, clicking her tongue to the chestnuts, drove briskly off. He had a bath to wash off the dust of the road, but even that was not sufficient to restore his equilibrium, and thus the evening found him at his club, in company of a decanter of brandy.

“Lud! Your face is blacker than a thundercloud!” A heavy hand fell on his shoulder. “No wonder all our acquaintances huddle in yonder corner, scared stiff by my lord’s wrathful expression.”

Griff cast his cousin a baleful glance. But unfazed, Boo sank into the chair next to his.

“One hears the most astonishing things about Town these days,” he continued cheerfully. “Take Sammy Whitstock, for example. He says he’s been fleeced at cards, the evening before last, by a young chit, barely out of the schoolroom. He has forgotten her name, but from his description—’unbecomingly tall’ were his words, I believe—it sounds like Izzie’s new friend. And do you know what she has won? Not just a nice amount of money, but also and most importantly the use of his phaeton for a day. Interesting choice of a forfeit, is it not?”

“Boo—”

“And then there’s Holdsworth, whom I met at Rundell & Bridge’s only this afternoon—”

Griff snorted. “More snuff boxes, coz?” he muttered into his glass.

“Well, no. Holdsworth snatched it up, the dastardly rascal. The most exquisite piece, I tell you. Black lacquer, and when you opened it, there was a deucedly fine miniature inside the lid.” A dreamy expression entered Boo’s eyes. “Finely drawn. Lovely, buxom little madam—in the altogether, you understand—and a satyr chap—”

“I
do
understand,” Griff cut in drily.

Boo sighed. “Five minutes earlier—
five
minutes!—and it would have been mine. But as it is, Holdsworth, the lucky dog, now has it.” He shook his head.

Griff took a deep gulp of his brandy. “And naturally, Rundell & Bridge’s didn’t have any other amatorian pieces,” he said mockingly, feeling the sudden need to quarrel with somebody. However, he should have known that very little ever did disturb his cousin’s sunny disposition.

“Nah,” Boo said. “A dashingly sad collection they had this time. A bad copy of a Rowlandson and something in the manner of
le joyeux accident
. Very common. Not at all the thing. How I envy Holdsworth! I’m positively green with it!” The next moment though, he shook off his melancholia over a lost piece of
ars erotica
, and his voice turned brisk once more. “In any way, Holdsworth swore he saw you this afternoon on the box seat of a high-perched phaeton, which bore a distinct resemblance to Sammy Whitstock’s. And he said that you were in the company of a bespectacled young lady.”

Griff grimaced. London gossip, it would seem, moved faster than he had thought. “If he says so.” He gave a nonchalant shrug. “Then I suppose I must have indeed shared a box seat with Miss Stanton this afternoon.

Boo’s shaggy blond brows rose. “
Alone
?”

At his cousin’s scandalised expression, Griff couldn’t help laughing. “There is no need to worry on
that
account! The lady in question described in graphic detail what she would do to me if I tried anything ‘funny.’” And when Boo continued to look sceptical: “She was
armed
, Boo.”