by M C Beaton
She looked down into the drawing room. Lord Peter had not arrived, but Sophia was being placed in position for her Attitude. Attitudes were much adopted by young society ladies of the Regency. An Attitude was supposed to—usually—represent some historical or classical figure.
Then Lord Peter arrived. He bowed to various members of the company. Then Cassie heard her father say, “And our greatest treasure, our daughter Sophia.”
“Very fine,” she heard Lord Peter remark. “The statue is …?”
“Leda,” said the countess.
His eyes began to dance. “Where is the swan?”
“Honk! Honk!” said Cassie gleefully from behind the portrait.
Lord Peter quickly covered his face with his handkerchief. “Too much snuff,” he mumbled.
“What was that honking noise?” demanded Sophia, abandoning her pose.
“I am afraid it was I,” said Lord Peter, though he had no idea where the diverting noise had come from. “I was blowing my nose. I do apologize. Will you walk with me, Lady Sophia?”
She inclined her head gracefully.
“That is a fine portrait up there,” said Lord Peter, coming to a stop in front of the fireplace.
“I have never really looked at it,” commented Sophia. “Some ancestor. Not worth much.”
Lord Peter looked up into Cassie’s eyes, and she saw to her horror that he had quite deliberately winked. She darted down the ladder and then fled to her room.
***
Unfortunately, there seemed to be no end to the good weather. The heat at last invaded the large, cool, stately rooms of Bramfield Park, and flies buzzed furiously over the gallipots in the corners. Not a breath of air moved the long curtains. Chairs and tables were moved out onto the long terrace at the back of the house for the guests. Lord Peter found himself restless and bored. For once, the pleasure of looking at beautiful things, so necessary to his soul after the long years of battles, did not soothe his senses.
Sophia was placed in his way everywhere he went. And she was such tiresome company. She was so obsessed with her own beauty that she appeared to see no reason to make any interesting conversation at all. At first he was surprised that such a beauty and such an heiress had not been snapped up, but as he got to know her more, he became aware of a coldness in her which was repelling. Sophia, he decided, did not like anyone in the whole wide world except herself and regarded the rest of the human race, including himself, with a thinly veiled contempt.
He was occasionally puzzled by the continuing non-appearance of the younger daughter, but decided she was still probably consigned to the schoolroom. He assumed she was some naughty child who had hidden behind that portrait in the drawing room to spy on the company. But he didn’t have time to think about this, as the Wychhavens were making great plans for a ball to be held in his honor. He wished there were some way he could make his escape. The place was a bore. The only thing that had amused him so far had been that odd little maid at the cottage in the village.
He decided to pay Miss Stevens a visit, setting out walking early one morning so as to be free from his host, who would no doubt have roused Sophia from her bed to accompany him if he knew his plans.
He hesitated a little before pushing open the gate to Miss Stevens’s garden. It was still fairly early, eight o’clock, but he heard a clatter of dishes coming from the house. At least the maid would be awake.
He knocked on the door.
There was a long silence. A curtain at an upstairs window under the heavy eyebrows of the thatch twitched and the white blur of a face looked down.
Then, “James! Answer the door!” came Miss Stevens’s frantic call. There was a long silence. “Well, then, Lucy, where are you, girl?” called Miss Stevens.
Another long silence, and then the door was at last opened.
“Oh, Lord Peter, do step in,” said Miss Stevens. “I do not know what has happened to servants these days.”
He followed her into the parlor, ducking his head under the low beams.
“Some refreshment, my lord?”
“No, I thank you. Where is your maid?”
“I remember now,” said Miss Stevens. “I sent her to the village to buy some … some bread.”
“An interesting child and with the accents of a lady. Where did you find her?”
“She was sent to me from the orphanage,” said Miss Stevens, her ever-fertile imagination coming to her rescue. “Yes, I, too, was amazed at the clarity of her speech and the delicacy of her manners. Of course”—Miss Stevens looked mysterious—“breeding will out.”
“Do you mean she is of good birth?”
“Very high birth, my lord. She is the daughter of … Ah, but I must not reveal his name.”
“Lucy is the by-blow of some lord?”
Miss Stevens colored delicately. “I wish there were some other way of putting it, but … yes.”
“But how did she come to affect the manners of a lady? Contrary to romantic belief, the daughter of an aristocrat brought up in an orphanage would look and sound exactly like any brat from an orphanage.”
“She was not there very long.” Miss Stevens looked at the clock, as if for inspiration. “This lord—you must forgive me for not giving you his name—brought Lucy up as his own daughter, governesses and all that.” Miss Stevens waved an airy hand. “But he married a cruel and beautiful lady. ‘Get that creature gone from hence!’ she cried.”
He leaned forward and looked at her intently. “I am sure it was a snowy night.”
Miss Stevens returned his look with a limpid gaze. “How did you guess? It was two winters ago and the snow was falling fast. ‘Get you to the orphanage, where you belong!’ cried this cruel lady, her beautiful rouged lips curling in a sinister smile as she pushed poor Lucy out into the snow. Lucy was wearing only a thin muslin dress. She was nigh dead with cold when she stumbled into the orphanage. For long days and nights her life hung in the balance. But she was befriended by Mrs. Griggs, a fine woman of strong religious principles who was married to one of the governors. A careful application of chicken soup brought her back to life. I myself make very good chicken soup.”
There was a long silence. Laughter bubbled up inside Lord Peter, and he felt he must make his escape soon before he laughed in her face. But some imp prompted him to say, “I am amazed the orphanage took her in just like that. I mean, such things have to be arranged, and orphanages are full to overflowing as it is. She looked strong enough. Would not the workhouse have been a more suitable place?”
“Not the workhouse,” whispered Miss Stevens, looking so afraid that for one mad moment he almost believed her story. But then he saw the careful dams on her old gown, for Miss Stevens was dressed ready for her morning chores, and the trembling at the corner of the spinster’s mouth, and he realized that Miss Stevens herself lived in dread of the workhouse. He guessed that apart from the mysterious Lucy, she did not really have any servants at all.
He rose to his feet. “A most fascinating story, Miss Stevens,” he said. “No, do not try to call your servants. I will find my own way out. I shudder to think that one of my class should be the cause of such distress.” He dug in his pocket and pulled out a rouleau of guineas. “Perhaps this will help to give the girl a dowry.”
“My lord, I cannot possibly accept—”
“But it is for Lucy, and I am sure she will be glad of it.”
He bowed and left, leaving the stunned Miss Stevens staring at the guineas.
The morning was fine and the air still held a certain amount of freshness. He decided to take a look at the village.
It consisted of a long straggling row of houses and shops with an inn at one end and a squat church at the other. He searched along the row of shops until he found the bakers. No Lucy.
Suddenly bored again and disappointed but reluctant to return to Bramfield Park, he walked on through the village. There was a small shady wood to the right of the road as he walked beyond the village to the far side,
away from Bramfield Park. The morning was becoming hot, and the shade of the trees looked inviting. And then, as he looked into the wood and along the narrow path that traversed it, he saw a flash of red.
Red hair. He plunged along the path. It twisted and turned through the wood, and he began to run. And then, at the far edge of the wood where it bordered a cornfield, he saw the girl, her slim figure moving easily and quickly.
“Lucy!” he called.
She stopped and looked back and then took to her heels and ran straight into the cornfield. He ran after her out of the dark coolness of the wood and plunged in among the cornstalks, seeing always that hatless red head bobbing above the stalks ahead of him. He caught up with her in the middle of the field. She stopped suddenly, realizing she could not escape him.
He took out his handkerchief and mopped his brow. “I’faith,” he cried, “you run like the wind, girl! There is no need to have fear of me. I wish you no harm.”
“Now, how was I to know that?” said Cassie reasonably. “Goodness, I’m tired.” She sat down in the corn and grinned up at him. “I am not used to racing so early in the morning.”
He took off his coat and placed it on the ground and sat down beside her.
“We are crushing Farmer Warby’s corn,” pointed out Cassie.
“Only a little of it. Miss Stevens told me a very interesting story about you.”
“Oh, really?” Cassie gave him a sidelong look. “Which one?”
He laughed. “What an odd thing to say! She told me of your illegitimate birth and how your father, Lord Thingummy, married a cruel and beautiful woman who turned you out one night and made you walk to the orphanage.”
“Was it snowing?” asked Lucy, a gurgle of laughter in her voice.
“Can’t you remember?”
“Of course I can and of course it was.”
“Then if you were brought up as a lady, it must be hard for you to be a maid of all work.”
“I survive.” Cassie plucked at an ear of corn.
The sun was glinting on her shining red hair. It was thick and hanging in a tangle of curls down her back. Her face was small and elfin, and he noticed when she lowered her eyes that her lashes were ridiculously long.
“Would it surprise you,” he said, “if I told you that I did not believe one word of Miss Stevens’s story?”
“Not at all. You who are so rich and secure in the world cannot know of the miseries that befall a poor bastard child.” Her eyes were wide and serious.
“You are not trying to tell me that all that farrago of nonsense is true?”
Cassie looked so hurt that he began to wonder if that famous actress, Mrs. Siddons, might not have a rival at last.
“I remember it well,” she said in a low voice. “It was bitter cold. I pleaded and begged, but she threw me out just the same. I thought I would die of the cold, but I have a strong constitution.”
“Miss Stevens said you nearly died, that your life hung in the balance.”
“Which it did,” said Cassie. “But I rallied, which all goes to show that I do have a strong constitution. Talk of other things. How do you find Bramfield Park?”
“A trifle dull.”
“And are you going to propose to Sophia?”
“Surely Lady Sophia to you, citizen, or are you of a radical persuasion?”
“Are you going to marry her?”
“She is very beautiful. She has a sister, has she not? Cassandra? I have not seen her. Is she a child?”
“I would not ask about poor Cassandra. She is … deformed. That is why she is never introduced to the guests.”
“Is this deformity so terrible?”
“She is a hunchback, not so bad, but horrible for her parents, who like everything about them to be beautiful.”
“Why is it, my sweeting, that I do not believe a word you say?”
Cassie looked away. “Perhaps you are not in the way of conversing with servants.”
“And why is it that I am sure you are not a servant? That Miss Stevens is an indigent gentlewoman without any servants?”
“I am a servant and a very good one, too!”
He seized one of her hands and examined it. “That hand never did a day’s work, Lucy.”
Cassie tried to pull her hand away, but he hung on to it fast. She suddenly realized she was sitting in the middle of the cornfield with this lord, that he was a strong and masculine man with a very steady, disturbing gaze, and her hand trembled in his.
He put an arm about her shoulders and smiled down at her. She could feel the warmth and strength of that arm through the thin muslin of her dress.
“D-don’t,” she pleaded as his face drew closer, blotting out the sun.
“One kiss for a summer’s day,” he murmured. His lips closed on hers, gentle and sweet. He was amazed at the wave of passion that engulfed him, at the freshness and tenderness of those lips. He bent her back into the corn, raised his head, and said huskily, “Why, you are enchanting!”
For one moment she stared up at him, her eyes wide, hearing the light breeze ripple through the corn and the birds singing from the woods, and then she wriggled like an eel from under him and jumped to her feet. “You disgusting old man!” she shouted, and then she was off and running.
He stayed where he was, shocked. How old was this Lucy? Eighteen? Perhaps nineteen? But to be called old and in tones of such loathing. Suddenly, he felt as old as she had damned him. And just as disgusting.
***
Cassie ran hard all the way to Miss Stevens’s cottage and arrived panting and disheveled. Miss Stevens was in the back garden, watering her vegetables.
“Why, Cassie!” she exclaimed. “What is the matter? You must have something cold to drink. James!”
It said a lot for Cassie’s kind heart that she did not scream out that there was no James, had never been a James, or a Lucy, or a Jane, or a page called Ben, or any of the other retinue of servants that Miss Stevens claimed to have.
“You told Lord Peter that I was a bastard child,” said Cassie. “He followed me, he chased me, and he kissed me, and God alone knows what else he would have done had I not escaped.”
“Oh, my dear, tell him who you really are. He behaved wickedly, yes. But he thought he was dealing with a servant. When he knows you are the earl’s daughter, he will marry you.”
“No, he will not marry me,” said Cassie, exasperated. “And I have no time for men, lords or otherwise, who think they can have their way with servant girls. Do you know what would happen if he ever found out about me? He would go to Papa and report that his daughter was running wild in the countryside, pretending to be a peasant, and your maid. I would be confined to my room on bread and water. Do you remember when I slipped out to go to the village ball and Papa descended and found me dancing reels with the peasants? One month of bread and water was what I got for that—and no books. Think what he would do to me if he ever learned of this! Worse than anything, I called Lord Peter a disgusting old man.”
“Cassie!” shrieked Miss Stevens. She dropped the pail of water she was holding. “He is one of the most handsome men I have ever seen. Did you remark his legs? I have never seen a finer pair.”
“Anyway, if he calls again, tell him that your lips are sealed as concerns my history,” said Cassie, who did not want to think of Lord Peter’s physical charms, legs or otherwise. “I was hard put to follow your tale of wicked beautiful women and the snow.”
“One woman, Cassie,” Miss Stevens looked miserable. “I thought I had done rather well. Come into the house and let us have some tea.”
Cassie sat dejectedly in the parlor listening to Miss Stevens in the kitchen berating a nonexistent maid. Miss Stevens came in carrying a tray and saying, “I really must speak strongly to that girl. She becomes lazier by the minute.” Then the spinster’s eye fell on the rouleau of guineas.
“Cassie, dear. Those guineas are for you.”
“What? Why …?”
“Lord Pe
ter left them. He said they would provide you with a dowry. Do you think I ought to return the money to him?”
“That will engender more questions. Use the money yourself, Miss Stevens. I do not need it.”
Miss Stevens bent over the teapot to hide her confusion and gratitude. She need not dread the winter ahead. She would be able to afford wood and coal. She could even buy a new gown!
“Cassie,” she said tentatively when she had recovered, “I think Lord Peter is a very fine man.”
“I should not have been so rude to him,” said Cassie ruefully, “but he does frighten me. There is something very predatory about him.”
“There is always something predatory about a man in love,” said Miss Stevens.
“Do you not mean in lust?”
“Really, Cassie, I know what I am talking about. I remember when Sir James Torrington was much taken with me at the hunt ball.”
“Did he kiss you?”
“Oh, no, but he danced with me twice, and he helped me to jelly at supper and his hand shook.”
“And what became of him?”
“I had no dowry”—Miss Stevens sighed—“and so like all the others, he cooled off.”
***
Cassie crept down to the secret passage just before dinner. The guests and family were assembled. Lord Peter, she noticed ruefully, did look extremely handsome. He was talking to her father. “Am I never to meet your other daughter?” he was asking. Cassie clutched the top of the ladder.
“She is an odd little thing,” said the earl. “Not very sociable. Not like our Sophia.” He turned and gazed fondly on his elder daughter, who promptly struck an Attitude, supposed to be Penelope awaiting the return of Odysseus. One white hand shielded her brow as she gazed out to sea while the other white hand warded off suitors.
“Is she still in the schoolroom?”
“Cassie? No, she is eighteen but looks like a child. We do not have high hopes for her.”
