“What about...” I couldn't mention Mama, I remembered, so I finished, “Cousin Bret?"
“He decided that the woods were no place to ride in the middle of the night and took off back for the road ages ago. I imagine he's safely back in bed by now."
“And why do you think he was following me?"
“Because he wants to prove that you're a highwayman, Catherine. With that kind of ammunition he can blackmail your family into just about anything. Can't you see how truly desperate a situation you could put your family in?"
I huffed and I puffed and eventually I grudgingly admitted that I could indeed comprehend the danger of the situation. I agreed not to go about robbing people anymore. I even agreed to return the spoils, when he pressed me.
“Tonight?” he asked.
“What do you mean, tonight? Of course I can't return the spoils tonight."
“You could return mine."
Good heavens, I'd momentarily forgotten that he was one of Mama's victims. “Just what was it I took from you?” I asked, assuming he would realize that a highwayman could not be expected to keep straight all of her ill-gotten gain.
“Well, let's see. You took my purse with fifty pounds, and my watch that was my grandfather's, and you took my companion's fan because it caught your eye."
“Surely you jest!” I exclaimed before I could stop myself. No fan has ever held the least fascination for me. But I could imagine Mama being entranced with such an item, since the value of his purse wouldn't have impressed her at all. Not that Mama is necessarily interested in such things, either, but it must have made a nice change from the male items she usually claimed. Very few ladies are on the roads at night.
In any case, I tried my best to recover. “I only take fans from women who don't seem to deserve them,” I said severely. “You must have been with a particularly unacceptable female for me to be interested in her fan."
“Don't you remember the occasion?"
I waved aside the question as frivolous. “It's dark, you know. And I'm not ordinarily faced with women and their fans. You thought I must have felt a special attraction to you, I daresay."
He chuckled and drew me a little closer with one arm. “I'm surprised you didn't."
In order to make this distraction truly work—in other words, to keep him from reverting to the subject again—I gave him a little kiss. Since he was ordinarily the one doing the kissing, and I the returning of the kisses, this rather surprised him, but he seemed pleased. “You have a very satisfactory way of showing this attraction of yours,” he said.
The horse stirred restlessly, but stopped when Sir John drew on the reins and we clung together for a while, our lips scarcely parting. After a very long, breathless time, Sir John drew back and growled, “At this rate we will never get back to Hastings, my dear. And I think you are very much in need of your bed."
I didn't try to dissuade him from continuing on our way. It was, after all, deep in the night, and the stable boys might become alarmed if Lofty arrived there without me. I became almost eager to get back, not wanting them to mount a search party for me. And of course I wondered where Mama had gotten to and whether or not she would have returned before me. I devoutly hoped that she wasn't at that very moment off ordering someone to stand and deliver.
We rode in silence through the silver of the forest, reclaiming the ribbon of road after a while, where Sir John set Apollo to a gallop. It was exhilarating, riding on that powerful beast with Sir John's arm about me and the warmth of his body pressed against mine. I think I could have remained that way forever. When we rode into the stableyard there was absolutely no one around. I had come to expect, or fear, that half the household would have been roused and ready to ride off in search of me, but there was no one at all.
Lofty wasn't outside by the door, either. We discovered that she had been unsaddled and rubbed down and returned to her box. Really, I was rather indignant with Jed for so casually dismissing my absence. I didn't dare say so to Sir John, however.
“Where's your groom?” he demanded, his eyes flashing with anger. “Surely he didn't go off to bed when you were missing."
My mind worked a little faster then than it had earlier in the evening. I retorted with some confidence, “My groom is instructed to await my horse, not me. I dismount from Lofty while still in the shadow of the trees, my dear fellow. You wouldn't expect me to clatter into the stable yard at this hour, would you? That would attract a definite attention that I don't wish."
Sir John didn't look as though he believed me, but he didn't protest further. I greatly feared that he intended to speak with Jed in the morning, but then I remembered that Jed was very closemouthed about these proceedings. I breathed a sigh of relief about that, and about the fact that both Thunder and Antelope were back in their boxes.
Sir John frowned at me and finished caring for Apollo before taking me by the arm and leading me to the house. He marched me directly up to my bedroom and waited for me to enter, just as though he were afraid that I'd disappear on him again.
“Go in and get into your nightclothes,” he instructed. “Then climb into bed and call to me. I'm not leaving here until I see you safely tucked in bed."
While I'm not in the habit of taking orders from the likes of Sir John, I wasn't in any condition to refuse him what he wanted. I nodded silently and passed through the door, dropping my riding costume on the floor before I remembered that my maid would surely wonder what it was doing there.
Eventually I was in bed and called to him, convinced that he would have taken off for his room long ago, but I watched as the door opened and he came through, looking very dashing and like a highwayman himself.
Nothing would do for him but to walk straight up to my bed and assure himself that I was indeed wearing my nightdress, and quite a modest one at that, of heavy flannel, which came to my wrists and high on my neck. “Now see that you stay there,” he said. “Do I have your promise not to leave this bed again tonight?"
“Certainly. I'm too tired to move a muscle, let alone climb out of bed. Thank you for bringing me home—but not for scaring the daylights out of me."
“You're welcome. Sleep well. Good night, my sweet,” he whispered as he leaned over to kiss me. “We'll talk more in the morning."
I knew there was something important that I wanted to ask him, but I was so exhausted that my mind had become a blank. He must have left the room then. I wouldn't know because the moment I closed my eyes, I was fast asleep.
* * * *
Because I didn't know what to tell him, I avoided Sir John the next day. What if he pressed me hard about my activities? What if he wanted me to produce the spoils of my highway robbery right then? I needed time and patience to get all that information from Mama. And even more time and patience to deal with my own jumbled feelings from the previous night's experience. I didn't dare encounter the baronet. The easiest thing to do for the time being was to spend all of my time with Amanda.
Though this surprised her, she could not very well, being Amanda, send me about my business. She did suggest that there might be some things I needed to see to at the stables, but I assured her that everything was under control.
This actually wasn't an untruth, as I'd slipped out there first thing in the morning to see that all of the horses were all right, that is, all the ones that had been ridden out the night before. Jed refused to answer any of my questions. He was very polite in telling me that he most certainly couldn't quite remember whatever it was I needed to know.
When I was with Amanda, Sir John approached us on no less than three occasions. But Amanda had not gotten over the annoyance she felt with him for being a rake, so she gave him short shrift. I was impervious to his suggestions of strolls about the grounds, or accompanying him on an expedition to look at horses for Robert, or any of the other tempting devices he used to try to lure me away.
“You'll have to excuse me, Sir John,” I told him, stiff as a poker, the third time he approached. �
��My head is aching abominably today and I don't at all feel up to entertaining company."
Amanda considered this a rude way of dismissing him, but since she had gotten the idea—heaven knows where!—that I was as annoyed with him as she was because of his rakish reputation, she was willing to overlook my behavior, rough as it was.
Sir John wheedled. “I know just the thing to cure the headache,” he assured me. “A walk in the shade, a quiet moment in the arbor on the swing. Just what you need to feel better in no time."
“Ordinarily I would agree with you, but today I cannot see my way clear to accepting your invitation. You must allow me to be the best judge of my own health."
“By no means!” he exclaimed, trying mighty hard to appear in a jovial frame of mind. “I have had great experience in treating young ladies for the headache and I am guaranteed to succeed."
Amanda, of course, was horrified by this declaration. She considered it an outright admission of his dalliance with any number of young ladies, and her skin paled right before our eyes. Her voice, chilly before, now turned positively frigid. “Catherine will do best to stay with me on this occasion,” she said. ‘'Mama would wish it that way.''
Though Sir John desisted after that, he did whisper a threat into my ear as he departed, when Amanda's attention was distracted by Cousin Bret's arrival. “You'll not manage to avoid me forever, my girl. And you'd better be ready to do a lot of explaining."
Cousin Bret was as determined to get Amanda alone as I was not to be left alone with Sir John. Amanda didn't want me to leave her, I could tell, but it was important that I learn what he was up to and how much damage he could do. So I tactfully excused myself and went to listen at the open door onto the balcony.
Chapter 13
Perhaps fearing that he would be interrupted, Cousin Bret got straight to the point. “You must have some idea of how attached I have become to you, dear Cousin Amanda. May I call you Amanda?"
“Why, no, that would be most improper,” she protested, backing away from him. “And I don't at all know what you mean by saying you've become attached to me. You know you've always been made welcome here as one of the family, but I don't think it would be wise of you to form any particular attachment. We are close family, and that is surely tie enough."
Poor Amanda. I could almost have pitied her, except that Cousin Bret had probably never gotten the full brunt of her tongue when she was offended and I wished to hear her exhibit it to him. Unfortunately, he wasn't waiting for anything more promising to come from her lips. Better to convince her of his hold before she had a chance to say too much.
“You haven't any idea how close a tie I have to your family,” Cousin Bret remarked. He was playing with a snuffbox, flipping the lid open and then snapping it shut. Perhaps he regarded this as a sophisticated thing to do; I could see that Amanda merely found it irritating. After a moment she grabbed it from his hand, as one might with a persistently annoying child, and stuffed it in the pocket of her apron.
“I shall return it later,” she told him. “Now I think we had best terminate this conversation before more is said that should be left unsaid. Let me assure you that I am perfectly satisfied with arrangements the way they are."
“But I am not.” The disappearance of his snuffbox had roused his ire and I thought for a moment he intended to grab it back from her. It would have been an awkward business, but that is not above Cousin Bret.
Still, he was even more determined to have his way over the conversation, so he motioned her to a chair and she, out of some sense of politeness, I suppose, took it. He seated himself with a most insufferable assurance, crossing one skinny leg over the other and waving it in a disastrously amusing fashion.
“As you know, I am to come into my father's property upon his death. However, as your brother will be heir to the earl, I think he would not be averse to giving Hastings to me. On the best authority, I have it that it is not presently entailed."
Amanda stared at him. “Give you Hastings? Your wits have surely gone begging, Cousin Bret."
“Not at all. I think when your brother hears of the goings-on here he will be more than pleased to relinquish his estate to keep them quiet. I could easily have the earl's ear, too, you know."
Amanda hadn't the slightest idea what he was talking about. She frowned with perplexity and then seemed to hit on the obvious explanation. “You cannot mean Sir John and Catherine! I'm sure there is nothing improper about their discoursing with each other on occasion. Sir John's reputation is bad, to be sure, but he wouldn't dream of inflicting himself on my sister. Why, she's a young woman of quality."
Now it was Cousin Bret's turn to wonder where the conversation was going. “I'm sure I don't care a fig for what Cousin Catherine and Sir John do. They're both too ramshackle for words, if you want my opinion."
After all the time I'd spent trying to be affable to Cousin Bret, this was how he repaid my efforts! Unconscionable.
But he was continuing. “Don't be a peagoose, Amanda. We're talking about your mother's ‘adventures.’”
Amanda obviously hadn't the slightest suspicion of Mama's affairs. She stared at our cousin with the frown that had become a permanent feature on her face during this interview. I could tell when she hit on the idea that he was talking about Mama's conversations with ghosts. Well, poor girl, what other evidence did she have of her own mother's problems?
“Mama has a slight nervous disorder,” she acknowledged graciously. “It is the result of Papa's dying so suddenly and leaving her all alone. You mustn't think that it is something that will last forever. It has only been a year since Papa's death and she will recover in time."
Cousin Bret obviously thought she was talking about Mama's highwayman act. “You have done nothing, yourself, to put an end to this, I take it?” he asked, almost incredulous.
“Well, what is there that I can do? She's not just of the easiest disposition to be culled into a more ordinary frame of mind."
“But the consequences! I assure you that I would put a period to it if I were in charge of Hastings."
Amanda stared at him. “You would do nothing of the sort. It is Mama's own choice, what she wishes to do. And you are not going to be in charge of Hastings. Pray put that thought from your mind."
“That's not the only thought I have in mind,” Cousin Bret assured her. He swung his leg a little faster now. He'd gotten to the real meat of the conversation. “I think,” he said in his most sinister voice, “that it would be well for the two of us to marry.''
I wanted to run in there and slap his face for such impertinence. Amanda's color rose high in her cheeks, her nose seemed to become longer and sharper, and she stared at him with painfully cold eyes.
“I'm sure I cannot think where you came to believe that I would be agreeable to such a proposal, but I beg that you will disabuse yourself of the notion instantly. Nothing could be farther from my mind than a marriage with you. There has been no suggestion in my behavior that I would welcome such an offer. In fact, I have just spent a certain amount of time warning you from making it."
She leaped up from the chair, only to be followed by him as she raced for the door. Fortunately, it was not the door were I stood, but the one into the hall, and it was partially open, so that she could call for help, of course, should anyone attack her. That's the purpose of all doors left open in a young woman's presence, I assume.
Cousin Bret restrained her with a hand on her sleeve. Amanda didn't dare pull away for fear of ripping her best day dress. Poor lamb. I could sympathize with her confusion over the situation. She plucked desperately at his fingers, trying to remove them from the light fabric, but he persisted, twisting the material between his fingers in an excess of excitement.
“I'm afraid you don't understand. I can force you to marry me,” he told her.
Her astonishment was considerable. Her eyes widened with incredulity and her fingers fluttered into little butterflies that moved round and round her neck. “You m
ust have lost your mind. If you let me go this instant, I will not tell Mama. Otherwise, I shall be forced to speak with her, and she will find it necessary to insist that you leave the house. Really, something has happened about which you should see a medical man, Cousin Bret. Your brains have become overly active, or you have been reading gothic novels. Gentlemen do not force ladies to marry them, and if you have taken the notion that they do, you are much mistaken."
Cousin Bret had still not let go of her dress, but Amanda was so agitated that she pulled away from him and I heard the fabric rend. “Oh, now look what you have done!” she cried. “It can never be repaired and it is my very favorite. Alice said that I don't look so well in any other gown and now I shall have to find something new to wear. Oh, you wicked, wicked man.” And she took off at a run, pushing open the door and racing out into the hall and up the stairs.
Cousin Bret just stood there, looking as though something had happened that he did not at all comprehend. He frowned and stomped his foot and took to pacing about the room. For a long time he wore a path on the Axminster carpet, up and back, up and back. His hands were clasped behind his back and his head down; he looked the perfect caricature of a man distressed.
I hadn't the least pity for him. Imagine his trying to blackmail dear Amanda. Probably it was a very good thing that she hadn't the slightest idea of what he was saying. Save for the necessity of keeping my own knowledge a secret, I would have raced into the room and confronted him.
As I was crouched there on the balcony, Sir John came upon me and expressed his annoyance with my behavior. “You really are the most abominable girl, Catherine."
I couldn't think of a good retort, so I shrugged. He shook his head in exasperation and placed my hand through his arm. “We need to talk,” he said, then he led me to the shrubbery at the side of the house. It was a neglected shrubbery, not one where people strolled very often, because in hot weather it was muggy and in cold weather it was breezy.
Miss Ryder's Memoirs Page 15
