A young boy, a new stable hand Bill had hired, ran to take May’s reins. She leaped from Cassie’s back and gave her mare a pat on her flanks.
“I’ll be taking her out again in about an hour. See that she is curried and has a good breakfast. But not too much.” May smiled at the boy, trying to remember his name. “Zachary! That is your name, is it not?”
“Aye, milady,” the child said, his blue eyes huge at the thought that the grand lady of the house would remember his name.
She smiled down at him and tousled his hair, extraordinarily pleased with the day and everything in her life.
“You look like a cat whot’s found the key to the creamery,” Bill said as young Zach led Cassie away.
Bill had known her since she was a child, and she never could hide anything from him. “Who could not be joyous on such a glorious day,” she cried, waving her hands to indicate the brilliant blue sky and freshening breeze outside the gloomy depths of the stable. She tossed back her hair and breathed deeply, inhaling the scent of horse and leather and the curiously comforting smell of manure.
The old man narrowed his eyes. “Peaks and valleys,” he said enigmatically. “Peaks and valleys. See you don’t slide right down inta th’ depths, missy.”
“Gloomy old codger,” she threw over her shoulder as she exited the stable. Her breeches had stirred not a bit of comment, she noted, among the men mucking out stalls and pitching fresh straw in for bedding. Bill must have issued a stern warning to his men after he caught sight of her that morning. She could always depend on Bill. He might not always approve of everything she did, but he was loyal and steadfast.
She entered through the kitchen door, a habit her mother had found appalling in her daughter. But Mother did not live here anymore. For the first time May really took that in. Mother did not live here anymore. She, May van Hoffen, was the lady of the house and could do whatever she wanted.
What she wanted was a biscuit. She snatched one from the tray as a kitchen helper took it from the modern oven, and bit into it, rolling her eyes at the exquisite fragrance and flakiness of the treat. “Mrs. Connors, you are a genius!” she mumbled around a mouthful of biscuit. The woman, who stood at the low pastry table rolling out pie dough, looked pleased. She was a good twenty years younger than her husband, and as befit any good cook was rotund, with pink cheeks and creamy skin. She ruled the kitchen while her husband ruled the stable, and together they were the heart of Lark House.
“Go on wit you, missy,” she laughed. She took the tray from the kitchen maid and set it near one of the windows—they were half below ground so the windows looked out over grass—to cool.
May laughed and finished the biscuit as she traveled the long hallway from the kitchen to the large dining room and then through to the breakfast room. She entered from the rearmost door, just as Dodo Delafont came in from the grand hall.
“How you sparkle with good health, my dear,” Dodo said, gazing at her affectionately. She had cast one questioning glance at the breeches and tumbled hair, but had not said a word, nor even looked censorious. An elderly spinster she might be, but no one could accuse her of being prim and proper. May suspected that it had taken strength of will and a certain amount of independence to remain unmarried as a girl, when she must have been a handsome woman in her youth, and very well dowered.
Smiling, May accepted her cool peck on the cheek and realized that there would be no escaping. She would have to breakfast with the older lady or invite suspicions. They always had breakfast together, but this morning May was anxious to gather what she needed to return to Etienne.
“I feel healthy,” May said. “And happy, and alive! I suppose I should clean up and do something about my hair, but I am famished. Do you mind?”
Dodo smiled at her and shook her head. “My dear, this is your home. I am your guest, remember?”
“I will not presume upon that to the point of rudeness,” May said.
Two tall, sturdy footmen entered bearing trays, supervised by the Lark House butler, Stainer, who carried the coffee pot.
“We will serve ourselves,” May said, with one raised eyebrow at Dodo. The older lady nodded, her bearing ineffably regal. She looked like a duchess, May had always thought, her white hair piled high on her head, her height emphasized by her rigid bearing and extreme thinness. She had the dark snapping eyes of all the Delafonts, and a tart manner when she was displeased or didn’t like someone.
But May had known only kindness from her since spring, when the woman had accompanied a frightened and meek May down to Kent, after the ordeal with the captain. They chatted through breakfast as they ate biscuits and eggs, ham and chutney, talking about the news from Surrey that Dodo had received in her latest letter.
“Emily has been ordered to take complete bed rest, as you know, and she is not pleased. My nephew will have his hands full keeping her to her promise,” Dodo said with a chuckle. She stirred cream into her coffee and laid her spoon aside.
May laughed with her. “No, Emily will not like being confined to bed.”
Emily Delafont was seven months into a difficult pregnancy. Her doctor suspected she might bear twins; she had become anemic and subject to dizzy spells. Emily and her husband, Baxter, had recently reanimated a marriage they both had thought was dead, and the result was she was to bear their child, or children, sometime in December. Dodo, Baxter’s aunt, had been Emily’s companion through her separation from her husband, and May suspected she felt a little lost now that the couple were so very much back together.
And so May, even though she had begun to long for some solitude—no matter how self-sufficient Dodo was, May still felt compelled to ensure that she was not bored to flinders at Lark House—she could not find it in her heart to even hint that Dodo might like to return to Surrey, and her nephew and niece-in-law.
It was going to be even more difficult now with Etienne lying wounded in the folly. He needed her and she wanted to be with him, to care for him. She stopped to consider for a moment how odd it was that she would feel so nurturing toward the man, when she had thought she had no skill or care for nursing, but her mind returned to her dilemma. What could she do? She cast a guilty glance at the older woman sipping coffee and thought about Etienne, down in the folly, wounded and hungry and thirsty. He was so pale and weak; without proper care he might still die!
“I am thinking,” May blurted, “of going out again after breakfast for a very long ride. I have not been over my whole property since coming back to Lark House.”
“I thought you already had a rather long ride this morning,” Dodo said.
“I did, but I am afraid it only whetted my appetite. In truth I . . . I am quite the hoyden, you see,” she stammered, flushing and indicating her breeches and tossing her hair.
Dodo smiled warmly. She placed one of her long, aristocratic hands over May’s on the oak table and patted it. “Nonsense, my dear. I have never met a more ladylike young woman. As for the . . . er, the breeches, I have often thought that the reason I never enjoyed riding is the silly way we women are forced to ride. I commend you on your good sense.” She gazed at her assessingly. “And the hair is strangely becoming. It softens you.”
Sighing with relief that she was not to be read the riot act for her attire, May said, “I think I will take a picnic lunch with me, as it may take a while to explore all my childhood haunts. I will be riding for hours.” She needed to set up her disappearance, as she had no idea how long it would take to make sure Etienne was all right, and to make him comfortable. She felt horribly guilty leaving Dodo to her own devices, but the pull of Etienne, her joy at finding him alive, her desire to spend as much time with him as she could, was overpowering.
“Will you take a groom with you, my dear?” Dodo asked.
“I don’t know yet. I don’t plan to leave my own land, you know,” she said.
“So you are feeling . . . safer now?”
Breathing out a deeply held breath, May finally understood what
her elderly friend was saying. She was asking if May had finally gotten over her dread of being alone, and her irrational fear of Captain Dempster. “Yes, I feel completely safe.” She gazed into the woman’s dark eyes. “Thank you for your concern over the last months. I know it took me a long time to come out of that awful darkness I was shrouded in, but your patience and aid have been invaluable to me.”
“Enough of that,” Dodo said lightly, skirting, as always, any expression of feeling. “If you are going to be gone for most of the day, I shall put my head together with cook and we shall see what to do about the apple harvest on your lower orchards. The fall festival coming up will be a good time to use some of the harvest, and the vicar was hinting that some of cook’s pies would make most wonderful prizes for the penny toss.”
“That would be good,” May said absently, her mind already turning to supplies for Etienne. She knew in her heart that Dodo had assumed many of the “Lady of the Manor” duties that she should be taking care of, but she had not been able to muster much interest in anything except for the school for the village children, and that she only undertook on the general principal that children must be educated for their own, their family’s, and the country’s good. Perhaps she had been self-indulgent this summer, but autumn was soon arriving, and she would pull herself together and start taking care of her people. The school was not to begin until after the harvest festival; she would then devote herself more to her duties. By then Etienne would be well. She would make him well!
She jumped from her chair. “I will apologize for eating and running off, but I am eager to get started. I know I should not have dined in these breeches, but no sense changing when I am off again!”
She strode from the room, Dodo gliding behind her, into the great hall. Stainer entered from the opposite direction at the same moment.
“My ladies, the reverend Mr. Dougherty and Mrs. Naunce are here. Are you in?”
But the reverend, a good-looking, solid man in his mid-thirties, strode into the room followed by his faded sister, Mrs. Isabel Naunce, before May could deny them. She took in a deep shaky breath of annoyance, as the reverend spotted her, his eyes lighting up with admiration.
“Lady May! And Lady Dianne, of course.” He bowed over Dodo’s hand, and then took May’s. He looked her up and down, his eyes lingering hotly on her breeches-clad legs and wild riot of curls. “My lady,” he said, bowing low and kissing her bare hand, leaving a trace of moisture. “You look radiant!”
May was suddenly aware, as she had not been all morning, how improperly clad she was. She touched her hair self-consciously. She caught Mrs. Naunce’s scandalized glance at her tight breeches; the woman’s face was the color of one of her best apples! There was no way out of it. Unless she was willing to be hopelessly rude, she must entertain her guests. But she was not going to sit in her parlor wearing breeches while the reverend eyed her!
“I will return momentarily, if you could see to our guests’ comfort?” She glanced at Dodo.
“Certainly, my dear. Run along.”
“I am here to discuss the fall festival . . .”
His voice died out as she raced up the stairs at a very unladylike gallop, after one look over her shoulder halfway up. She feverishly changed into a gown, calling her maid Hannah to help, and worried over Etienne, trying to forget the reverend’s indiscreet behavior. Etienne had looked helpless in his torn clothing, blood-soaked breeches and with that scruffy beard; he was so unlike his usual immaculate self. But she had found him endearingly defenseless, and she longed to be back with him. What was wrong with her that she thought of him so?
It was only her gratitude for his former service to her, she thought, that made her worry over him. That, and the normal human care for anyone hurt and in need of aid. Hannah finished fastening the plain gray cambric round gown, and May, impatient to get the visit over so she could hurry to Etienne, only allowed her to coil her hair in the simplest of styles before dashing out to the landing and composing herself to descend in a staid and proper walk.
As she entered the reverend was speaking, but he broke off immediately to stand and come across the room to bow over her hand once again. He gazed up into her eyes, his own twinkling with hazel light. “I think I preferred you in breeches, my lady,” he said very softly. He winked before turning to guide her across to a seat on a sofa.
May almost could not breathe. So she had not imagined his eyes lingering on the lower part of her body. As she had hurried up the stairs she had glanced over her shoulder once and had found the reverend gazing after her, staring fixedly at her bottom even as he spoke to Dodo. Her heart thudded sickly, and her breathing accelerated. As soon as she could, she pulled her arm from his grip.
She must get a hold of her feelings, she thought as she felt a welling of panic. She remembered the night she had been kidnapped, and her fear as Captain Dempster advanced on her in the dim room of the cramped cottage he had taken her to, to deflower her for her supposed groom, Lord Saunders. The greedy light in the reverend’s eyes was the same as Dempster’s, she thought, the sick feeling washing over her.
She wondered if, seeing her dressed so improperly in breeches, the reverend had remembered her mother, and the scandalous goings-on at Lark House in the years her mother held court to all her depraved beaus. But the reverend was a man of God and would never abuse her like the captain did, nor would he compare her stainless reputation with her mother’s debauchery.
And indeed when she forced her eyes up from her hands, folded in her lap, he smiled only a normal smile as he glanced at her. “Isabel and I would never have intruded at this early hour if we had not felt that we must begin work on the fall harvest festival. Some are talking of a ball, as well, in the assembly rooms, and if we time it right we will have the light of the harvest moon for travelers. What think you, Lady May?”
“I see the merit of your suggestions, Mr. Dougherty.”
Mr. Dougherty and Mrs. Naunce stayed for the better part of an hour as they worked out the details of ball and festival, and came to an agreement on a date six weeks hence. Dodo was invaluable, and gave her suggestions as to a fortune-teller’s tent, a penny-pitch game, races for the children, and a grand meal for the whole village and surrounding area.
She was so good at all of this, May thought, watching the older woman easily direct the conversation and plans into appropriate paths. Finally, the reverend and his sister stood as one, on some silent signal between them.
“I fear we have taken up far too much of your time,” the vicar said, bowing yet again over May’s hand. He then offered perfunctory obeisance to Dodo. “But I must say I feel we have made an excellent start on the plans. May we return, this day next week shall we say, and compare notes again?”
Dodo, after a swift glance at May’s distracted expression, agreed.
“Certainly, sir,” she said graciously. “We will speak with cook and with Lady May’s steward about the harvest before then.”
Stainer brought the reverend’s hat and Mrs. Naunce’s shawl.
Mr. Dougherty paused in the hallway and glanced back at May. “I must give a word of warning to you ladies,” he said, his expression serious. “Warn your staff to lock up securely at night. I would recommend an armed groom patrolling the grounds, too. There have been some minor thefts in the village lately. And two nights ago there were gunshots heard. I fear there is danger afoot. One cannot be too careful.”
He bowed, turned and departed to his waiting carriage.
Chapter Four
With trembling hands, May packed a wicker basket with the assembled items she would take out to Etienne. Witch hazel, gauze, ointment—the same ointment she had used on Cassie’s leg—laudanum, soap, brush, towels. She rolled two blankets into one sausage-like roll and tied them tightly so they would drape over Cassie’s back.
She hauled it all downstairs into the kitchen and opened the basket again. Meat pies, bread, cheese, wine and apples, some for Etienne and some for Théron. Cook lo
oked at her oddly.
“I’m very hungry, and will be gone for hours,” she said. She buckled the leather strap that closed the basket and headed out the back kitchen door.
Etienne must be thinking she had deserted him by now, she thought, scurrying across the grass sward that led down to the stables and glancing up at the sun that now ascended high into the sky. It had been three hours! Three long hours since she had told him one hour and said good-bye to him. He would be even weaker, hungrier, even more thirsty!
Almost sobbing in her haste, she lugged the heavy basket and roll of blankets into the stable and called for Zach to bring her Cassie. As she fastened the basket on to the saddle, looping the piece of rope around the blankets, she called out, “Bill, get me one of the mucking out pails, too. I will take it in case I want to . . . to water Cassie.”
The grizzled man folded his arms over his barrel chest, his forearms knotted with thick muscles. He ambled toward her and said, “Surely yon stream is good enough for a horse?”
“I may want to take some water and eat my lunch elsewhere and let Cassie drink. A . . . a picnic, so to speak.” She tried hard not to notice the skeptical rise of the old groom’s eyebrows.
He shook his head and brought a bucket over, strapping it on to the back of her saddle along with the blankets. He frowned. “Ye’re not a-goin’ on a journey, are ye?”
“Of course not,” she said sharply, as Cassie danced sideways, responding to her mistress’s anxiety to be gone. “I am just riding out to the far edge of Lark House property. I’ll be gone a few hours, well into the afternoon, I should think.”
“All right then, lass,” Bill said. He slapped the mare’s rump and chuckled when the high-strung animal bolted. No fear. The missy could control a horse better’n most men he knew. But he sure was powerful curious why the mistress needed all that gear. He made his way across the grass up the hill toward the kitchen to speak with his wife.
The Rogue's Folly Page 3
