The Sergeant Major's Daughter (12 page)

Lord Stayne took Jamie from Felicity’s arms and strode swiftly to the door.

“Tomorrow,” he said firmly.

Outside, his eyes met Felicity’s. He swung the boy high onto his shoulder.

“Abominable wretch! Putting us all to the blush in that way.”

“I didn’t do anything!” Jamie objected. “I don’t want to go back to bed.”

“You’ll do as you’re told, young man,” ordered his un
cle,
setting him down in the nursery doorway. “Be
good for Miss Vale and perhaps I will come up later and teach you to play chess.”

“Will you?” Jamie demanded eagerly. “Promise?”

“We shall see.”

The small boy eyed them both consideringly. “Uncle Max—why do you call cousin F’licity ‘Miss Vale’ all the time? Don’t you like her?”

The Earl’s brows came together and Felicity felt ready to sink.

“Jamie!”

“Well—Mamma calls you F’licity, and so does Uncle Perry.”

“That is quite different,” she argued, wishing desperately that Jamie might suddenly be struck dumb.

“I don’t see why!” the small voice continued with
u
nwavering tenacity. “Uncle Max has known you much longer than Uncle Perry, and besides...”

“Jamie—that will do!” Her face now scarlet, Felicity grasped his shoulders and prope
l
led him into his room without further ado.

To her dismay, the Earl followed; catching his eye she was thrown into further confusion by the derisive enjoyment lurking therein.

“What Miss Vale is no doubt shy of pointing out, my revolting nephew,” he said smoothly, “is that the nature of our
...
er, relationship, being more professional than social, precludes any such intimacy—indeed, it would sit ill with the local schoolmistress to be thus familiarly addressed by her employer and patron. There,” he turned to Felicity, “have I explained the matter to your satisfaction, ma’am?”

“No, you have not, my lord!” she cried, to
rn
between laughter and outrage. “What a nonsense! As though I would ever entertain such pretentious and
...
idiotish notions!” He was so obviously gratified by her reaction that she was moved to add loftily, “I am sure your lordship is quite at liberty to address me howsoever you choose!”

The Earl, seeing Jamie’s air of puzzlement, put out a hand to ruffle the dark curls.

“There’s a handsome offer, my lad,” he said with a grin. Turning to Felicity his manner became gently mocking. “Thank you, Miss Vale—I may just take you up on it sometime!”

9

March seemed bent on proving itself both turbulent and destructive. As the gales gathered momentum, Felicity was not sorry that the school was closed, though she expected the doctor’s permission to reopen any day. Most of the children were fully recovered and there had been no new cases for two weeks.

She found herself owning to a twinge of guilt that she had so much enjoyed her time at home—for she now thought of Cheynings as home. The weather had kept everyone in a great deal more than usual and had served to draw them all closer together as a family. Even Lord Stayne had maintained an unusually sanguine disposition, prompting Amaryllis to remark that she could not remember his ever being so consistently good-humored for so long. Jamie was once more fighting fit and consigned to the care of his tutor.

With so much time at their disposal, the sewing had gone forward steadily. Amaryllis sat up in bed one mo
rn
ing, drinking chocolate and admiring the colorful and diaphanous accumulation of finery. The door opened to admit Felicity, dressed for riding.

“Goodness! You are never going out?”

Felicity grinned. “Oh pooh! It would take more than a bit of wind to frighten me off
...
and the worst does seem to be over. I don’t believe I’ve ever been so long confined indoors in my life! I cannot bear it a moment longer!”

“Yes, but only consider the blessings of such weather. The Lipscombes have not called for two whole weeks!” Felicity laid her riding hat and whip on the end of the bed and perched beside them, glancing curiously at her cousin.

“You really don’t mind, do you? I thought you and Lucinda such good friends?”

“And now you think me very fickle.” Amaryllis pouted. “Well, I am fickle, dear Fliss. I daresay you would like to think I have changed, but I haven’t. I never liked Lucinda that much, only there was very little choice of company when I first came here, and we were thrown together by cause of Mrs. Lipscombe’s determination that Lucinda should marry Maxim.”

Felicity knew a curious pang. “And will she, do you suppose?”

“Oh yes, I should think so,” was the careless reply. “Max doesn’t really care for women, you know, so Lucinda will do as well as the next; she looks well enough and is very biddable when it suits her. She will make Max an adequate wife.”

Amaryllis smiled a little maliciously. “Only Mamma is having more trouble than she imagined bringing him up to scratch! She expected her connection with the Wellesleys would weigh with him more than it has.”

Felicity longed to protest that Lucinda would bore Stayne silly within a month, but the words choked her.
Instead she jumped up, set her hat very firmly on her head, snatched up her whip, and almost ran from the room, leaving Amaryllis to wonder what had brought the snapping lights into her cousin’s eyes.

Outside, the worst of the wind had indeed died down, but the trees and bushes were still alive with it and the devastated gardens bore witness to its passing. Several gardeners were hard at work clearing up.

In the stable yard there was an atmosphere. The Earl’s curricle stood waiting; the famous grays, perhaps affected by the wildness in the air, rolled their eyes and strained restively against the combined attentions of two grooms.

Benson was almost absent-minded in his greeting, and young Percy, resplendent in his blue and gold livery, sidled constantly to the archway to stare up the drive—and hardly heard when Felicity spoke.

“Is something wrong, Benson?”

He jumped. “Oh, Miss Vale—’tis you!” He blew his nose noisily. “I don’t rightly know, miss. It’s his lordship—rode out over an hour ago, he did—down to Long Meadow to inspect one of them old elm trees Mr. Becket reckoned ought to come down. He
said
he’d be back within the hour, and I was to ’ave the horses put to.” He buttoned and unbuttoned his coat nervously. “Well, you’ll allow it ain’t like his lordship to keep such prime goers a-standing?”

“No
...
o,” conceded Felicity, “but any number of things might have detained him, you know. Perhaps you should
...
no, wait a minute ... I believe this is him now.”

She had hardly finished speaking when the Earl’s stallion came thundering under the arch, riderless and trailing his rein.

Percy, his eyes ablaze, his nose red with cold, charged after him.

“What did I tell you, Benson? Trouble! I could smell it! We got to get out there right away!”

Felicity’s heart gave a lurch, but she said calmly enough, “Lord Stayne won’t thank you for being over-hasty, you know. Vulcan might have panicked.”

Percy threw her a pitying look. “That’s gammon, miss—and you know it, beggin’ your pardon. That horse wouldn’t never run out on the guv’nor, no matter what ... leastways, not without cause.”

“The lad’s right, miss,” said Benson heavily. “Something must have happened ... there’s blood here on Vulcan’s ear. Saddle me a horse, Dan—on the double, lad, and we’d best have a wagon along, too—just in case
!”

Against her will, Felicity found their fear contagious. “Surely, if you consider the matter urgent, you have a much faster vehicle here, ready and waiting?”

There was a shocked silence throughout the yard. Percy’s mouth dropped open. “Miss! You ain’t never suggestin’
...
?”

Felicity gestured impatiently toward the curricle, where the grays were now stamping and showing the whites of their eyes.

“Well, isn’t it obvious? Benson—you must be quite well able to manage them?”

“Drive his lordship’s cattle, miss?” Benson’s voice was a croak. “You’re never serious, Miss Vale?”

“Of course I’m serious. This is no time for levity.”

“Then I’m sorry, miss,” he said bluntly. “I ain’t precisely squeamish, you understand—but then I ain’t hellbent on committing suicide, neither—and suicide, near as dammit, is what it ’ud amount to if I was to do as you suggest. You wouldn’t know, miss,” he explained kindly, “never having been on the wrong end of his lordship’s tongue, so to speak. Meself—I’d as soon face a line of fire, any day!” A slight shudder shook the sturdy frame.

Felicity found such timidity vaguely irritating. “Oh
really! How can you be thinking of yourself when Lord Stayne might at this very moment be lying unconscious?”

“That’s as may be, Miss Vale, but, if it’s all the same to you, I’ll harness the wagon, for less’n he’s dead, which God forbid, I ain’t chancin’ it! Very perticler, is his lordship! If I was to tool that little lot without his permission—and them fresh as they are—I’d be out of a job quicker’n you could spit, savin’ your presence, miss!”

She was obliged to admit that Benson could not be expected to put his job at risk. If there were only someone else
...

Her glance strayed speculatively toward the waiting curricle and she experienced the sudden thrill of anticipation tinged with fear which always came to her in the face of a challenge
...
Dare she? Oh, but she would dearly love to try! Even as the idea crystalized, she knew she would do it—and the decision was not solely governed by concern for Stayne.

A clamor of protest followed her as she climbed purposefully into the precarious driving seat and gathered up the reins.

“You must all do as you please,” she declared, looking down on a semicircle of distraught faces. “To my mind, this is no time to turn chicken-hearted! Are you coming, Percy?”

“Oh Gawd, miss! Don’t do it!” The young tiger’s face was screwed up in an agony of indecision. “I
... c-can’t ... don’t
...
ask me!
I ain
’
t never been driven by a female afore
!”
The cry seemed wrung from him.

“Please yourself,” snapped Felicity, stiffing her own growing qualms. Somehow, sitting all alone, the ground appeared much farther away. She took a firm grip on the reins and on her fast-evaporating courage. “Right, my lads,” she ordered in business-like fashion. “You may let the horses go.”

The stable boys threw a last frightened glance at Benson, but he was busy bellowing for his own horse and merely shrugged, knowing himself beaten, so they let go—and with the sweet smell of freedom in their nostrils, the leaders sprang forward.

In the last split second Percy leaped for his perch, where he hung on, petrified, alternately shouting advice and wailing that they would be hurled into the first ditch and “killed sure!”

Felicity scarcely heard him. She suddenly found herself facing several very pressing hazards all at the same time—not the least of which was the unpleasant prospect of having her arms wrenched from their sockets as she struggled to contain the grays’ headlong progress, while resisting the very natural temptation to drag back so hard on the rein as to damage their delicate mouths.

Even her worry about Stayne paled before the enormity of what she was doing, yet a tiny
corner
of her brain was responding to the memory of skills painstakingly learned on the dusty streets of Lisbon years back; instinct sent the thong of the whip whistling forward to flick the leaders and instinct prompted her to exert just the correct amount of pressure to execute the sharp right
hand turn which would take them down toward Long Meadow.

But for the most part, reality had ceased to have any meaning; these rhythmic, straining bodies compounded of muscle and sinew, beautiful and exhilarating though they were to behold, were not horses at all; they were flying emissaries—self-willed, misbegotten winged messengers of Satan bent upon destruction. And if they didn’t annihilate her, then at the end of it the Earl most certainly would!

As though endorsing these gloomy presentiments, Percy’s voice quavered behind her. “He’ll massacre us, for sure! A female driving the Guvnor’s grays
...
and me a party to it! Oh, oh ... I’ll never hold me head up again!”

“For heaven’s sake, hold your tongue, boy!” snapped Felicity.

Bare branches clawed, hedgerow and thicket flashed by, and Percy’s voice rose again.

“
There he is, miss! Oh, and mercy on us, isn’t he on his own two feet? Not even half killed!
Nothing can save us now
!
” With which fateful pronouncement he subsided into petrified silence.

Felicity, mastering an overwhelming attack of nerves on seeing that ominously still, upright figure awaiting them, brought the team to a commendable halt. Percy scrambled down without a word and ran to the horses’ heads.

The ensuing silence stretched to deafening proportions. Felicity sat, her hands gripped in her lap; now that the excitement was over, she couldn’t stop them shaking. The realization that the Earl was not after all prostrate afforded her little relief; quite illogically, she had almost rather they had found him mortally injured. At least, she thought resentfully, that would have provided some justification for her actions.

Unable to stave off the moment any longer, she raised her gaze from contemplation of her hands and encountered so blistering a shaft of fury from those black eyes that she instinctively recoiled.

“
What in thunder
do you suppose you are about?”

Although he stood erect, she saw that he supported himself against a tree. Behind him a rotten branch had been to
rn
violently from the massive trunk and hung by a shred of bark, creaking mou
r
nfully as the wind moved it.

Blood was oozing gently from a gash on the Earl’s temple and he was very white about the mouth, but whether from his injury or sheer temper Felicity wasn’t sure.

She was out of the curricle in an instant and at his side. “Oh indeed, you
are
hurt!”

His arm stiffened under her clasp.

“I—
am—awaiting—your explanation, madam.” Each word seemed bitten off. “You do have—an explanation?”

“Yes, of course. Vulcan came back, you see
...
” she began inadequately.
“I
...
that is, we thought you must have
... had an accident.”

The excuses rang lamely, even in her own ears. The sound of horses provided a momentary distraction. Benson came galloping into view, followed by one of the grooms driving a light wagonette. The Earl’s frigid glance lifted to take in this latest contingent of the rescue party.

“I
see. Your corporate concern
is ...
touching!”

Again Felicity noticed the staccato speech. She looked at him closely. The scar on his cheek showed tight and puckered against his extreme pallor and his mouth was compressed in a thin line, but again, whether this was due to the gash on his head or anger, she couldn’t tell. She noticed that he still held to the tree.

Benson dismounted and came across, exchanging a hurried but expressive glance with Felicity.

“My lord—are you all right?”

“No, Benson—
I
am not
all right
.”

Benson looked closer. “Aye—well, that’s a nasty looking cut and no mistake. We’d best get you home, m’lord, and one of my lads can go for Dr. Belvedere.”

He looked unhappily from the curricle to the wagonette, seemingly at a loss. His lordship, however, was curtly decisive.

“Don’t talk like a fool, man!
I
need no doctor—and
I
need no help. Take
that ...
conveyance
away.
I
shall have plenty to say to you later.”

“You must not blame Benson for what has happened,” said Felicity quickly. “He did try to dis
s
uade me.”

The Earl might not have heard. Master and servant looked steadily at one another, then Benson moved heavily back to his horse.

“Aye, well—you’ll do as you please, I suppose,” he mumbled.

“I will. And you may take Percy with you. He is at present skulking behind my grays.”

Percy showed a red, aggrieved face. “Doin’ me job, I am, Guv—looking after your
bl
eedin’ horses!”

“Thank you, Percy, but I believe we may dispense with your help.” The Earl’s tone was cuttingly sarcastic. “You have helped enough for one day! The grays will not bolt, I think.”

The sorry cavalcade departed, leaving Felicity alone with Lord Stayne—he, thin-lipped and obviously exercising the tightest control—she, disheveled and flying bright flags of color in her cheeks.

Neither seemed willing to break the silence. In the end, nervousness made Felicity plunge flippantly: “I suppose you have sent them all away so that you may quarrel with me undisturbed!”

Even as the words tumbled out, she would have given anything to bite them back. Without quite meeting his eye, she rushed on, floundering in acute mortification: “I didn’t mean
...
that is, I’m truly
...
sorry, my lord. My behavior
must ...
seem unpardonable..
.”

“
Unpardonable
!
” He gave the word a savage emphasis. “Yes, madam—I would certainly say unpardonable. I believe I shall be a long time forgiving you for this day’s work!”

His total rejection of her clumsily worded apology rankled; her first instinct was to meet fire with fire, but a niggling awareness of the enormity of her crime obliged her to attempt conciliation.

“Oh come, my lord,” she urged, “was it so
very
bad? No real harm has been done, after all.”

“No harm, you say! No harm that a young woman employed by me in a position of some responsibility disports herself like a mindless hoyden before my servants!” His raking glance was contemptuous. “If you could but see yourself at this moment, madam, you might think otherwise.”

Felicity was stung; for the first time she became aware that her hair had been to
rn
from its pins by the wind and was spilling down her back in a most unruly fashion. With angry, resentful tears locking her throat, she gathered it with impatient fingers and crammed it under her hat in a gesture of defiance.

The Earl watched with an air of grim vindication. “However—deplorable though I consider your want of decorum—it is in the matter of my horses that I find you to be most glaringly at fault! To have commandeered my curricle as you did, against all advice, can only be termed a flagrant act of vandalism.”

“Oh, but
I...”

“Be silent, madam! I must be thankful, I suppose, that you have not succeeded in maiming my grays beyond recall. As it is, thanks to your desire to emulate Letty Lade, I shall be surprised if I do not find their mouths sawn to pieces!”

“How dare you!” This time Felicity was too angry to be silenced. “How dare you be so tyrannical and
...
pompous! Yes, pompous! Do you imagine for one moment that I would attempt to drive your wretched horses if I didn’t think myself competent? You have not troubled to check their condition!” She was well launched into the attack now and past caring about the consequences.

“Take a good look at them, my lord. Do they seem badly winded—or in any way discomforted? Look well, and if you can find so much as a strained fetlock or a bruised mouth, then I will endure your
s
trictures! Furthermore, even if you did, which you won’t, it would not excuse your base ingratitude, which I find a poor recompense for what was a sincere, if impetuous, concern for your well-being!”

It was a long and, toward the end, somewhat involved speech. By the end she was so far convinced of the hopelessness of expecting or receiving any quarter that, for good measure, she added a final
inflamm
atory thrust.

“And if you think so much of your precious grays, my lord, you ought not to keep them standing about in the cold when you might as easily rip up my character at home!”

She supposed that rage had finally deprived the Earl of speech until his hand slowly loosed its hold on the tree and he took a step forward, muttering thickly, “Yes, of
course ...
you are right...”

And then, under her horrified gaze, he began to sway alarmingly, his face the color of parchment.

“Oh glory!” Felicity’s anger evaporated instantly. She flew to his side and for the first time in her life thanked a
j
merciful providence that had built her on such generous lines; she eased a strong young shoulder beneath his oxter and clasped his arm around her neck.

“There now, dear sir—hang on. For pity’s sake, don’t you dare swoon on me!”

A feeble laugh shook him. “No chance!” he muttered.

He was almost dead weight, but Felicity managed to struggle as far as the tree, where he leaned back with eyes closed.

She eyed him in growing alarm, wishing fervently that he had not been so precipitate in dispatching Benson.

“Brandy, my lord? Do you have brandy?”

He seemed to sigh.
“Left ...
hand pocket.”

She found the flask and watched him drink. After a few moments he opened his eyes. “That’s better ... I shall do, presently.”

His color was indeed improving a little. She asked diffidently: “Do you feel strong enough to walk to your curricle, my lord? I think the sooner you are home, the better.”

“Don’t fuss, Miss Vale.”

“No, sir.”

A few more minutes passed; to Felicity it seemed an eternity until he said abruptly, “Give me your arm, now.
We will go.”

He climbed into the waiting curricle and sank back with a sigh. Felicity followed quickly, reaching for the reins.

Stayne gathered himself with an effort. “Thank you, Miss Vale. I will drive.”