Taffeta & Hotspur

by Claudy Conn

  The extensive Whitney stables loomed out of the darkness. It was late, well past ten, and she was certain most of the livery boys would be in bed. She pulled on the wide wooden latch, lifted it out of its catch, and swung the door gently open.

  “Who’s that?” came the gruff voice of a small man ambling toward her. The stables were dimly lit, and he pushed the candleholder in his hand toward the intruder’s face.

  “M’lady!” he cried out in surprise.

  “Hush, Tabby,” Myriah whispered, putting one gloved finger to her lips. “I need your help, old friend.”

  He squinted at her intently, his dark eyes noting her disheveled attire. He scratched his short gray hair, and his mouth moved dourly. “Eh, now, child, what ye got yeself into this time?”

  “Oh, Tabby, there is no time to explain now. Just trust me and help me saddle my horse immediately, and, Tab, I will ride astride!”

  “Hold now, m’girl,” said the groom authoritatively. “You ain’t thinking of riding out at this time of night?”

  “Oh, Tabby, please—just saddle Silkie for me. We need to hurry. If we don’t escape I shall be undone!”

  There was no denying the note of desperation in his lady’s voice. He had mounted Myriah on her first pony. He had served her as he had served and adored her mother, but he was not beneath putting a spoke in her wheel to save her from herself. He hesitated. “First you best tell me what’s got you running.”

  “Papa means to marry me to Sir Roland … He is in a temper, Tabby, and there is no gainsaying him. I must go to Grandpapa.”

  “That won’t serve, m’lady. It’ll set up your father’s bristles, it will.”

  “If you care for me, get my horse, Tab—please!” Then, with a bit more authority, she added, “Now—or I shall do it myself.” Myriah was out of patience.

  Tabson grumbled but disappeared into the darkness while Myriah fidgeted, fearing her father’s explosion on the scene. Perhaps he would not realize for a time, but then he would send up a maid to fetch her, and then … her absence would be reported, and he would have to say she had gone to bed ill.

  In what seemed interminable but was actually a short time, Tabby returned with his lady’s horse and a saddled roan for himself.

  “Tabby, what do you think you’re doing?”

  “I be going wit ye! Not the devil ’imself could stop me!” announced her groom as he watched her cinch her saddle in place and hoist herself nimbly onto her horse.

  She laughed. “Now, Tabby, I have to tell you that you should fear my powers a bit more than the devil’s.” She laughed again and added, “I’ve a notion to let you come—so be it!”

  She flung him a purse containing a tidy sum and led the way, cooing to her glossy, quiet stallion as she urged him onto the cobbled street. His ears flicked at the sound of her voice. A breeze caressed her cheeks, and Myriah laughed a wild, unbridled laugh. She was free—at least for the moment.

  ~ Two ~

  AS THEY PICKED their way through the narrow streets toward Charing Cross, Myriah’s eyes were bright with excitement. Even the thought that London at this time of night was not safe for a well-armed man, let alone a young woman, could not disturb her spirits.

  “’Tis a wild ride we ’ave ahead of us, m’lady,” Tabson said sourly.

  “Ain’t it grand, Tab? Imagine! Riding on the open road with not a soul to say us nay!”

  “Humph … providing no bridle-cull spots us,” returned the groom pessimistically.

  “And if he does, we’ll give him our trinkets and be on our way—’tis nothing!” said the lady, snapping her finger for emphasis and laughing at the thought of such an escapade.

  A company of merry gentlemen stumbled out of a tavern singing quite loudly, out of tune and not at all concerned with this deficiency. They spotted Myriah and called out robustly for her to stop awhile. She chuckled but kept up her proud chin, urging her horse to move at a faster pace.

  “Humph!” grumbled Tabby. At last they reached the toll-gate. After watching Tabby attend to the fee, Myriah gave her horse his head. They bounded forward in rhythm with one another, and Myriah’s restlessness lost itself in speed. How she loved riding freely.

  Tabby caught up after some effort and called to his mistress to slow her horse into a canter. “Don’t be all hell and fire, m’lady … leastways not in the dark! Ye’ll be planting yerself in some rut or other and giving that stallion ye say ye love so much a strained fetlock!”

  She laughed but did indeed ease her spirited horse into a slower gait. After the docile rides in Hyde Park, this carefree exercise created euphoria, banishing Myriah’s concern.

  Tabson felt it incumbent upon himself to bring his mistress to a sense of reality and dispel the sweetness of her fantasy with his gruff practicality. “’Twill not serve, m’lady, and well ye know.”

  “Hush, Tab, I won’t have you growling at me.” Myriah laughed.

  “Growl, is it?” said the man, sticking out his lower lip. “And what will ye be calling it when yer papa bowls down upon us at Guildford House?”

  Myriah sighed, and a slight crease marred her brow. “Oh dear … he will do so, I suppose.”

  “Hang me if he doesn’t! Then what will ye say? Fine set-to there will be!”

  “Oh, Tabby, I never thought of that. Papa will be angry to be sure, but he and grandpapa are good friends …”

  “Humph! Lord Guildford will take your side in the matter, and it’s plain as pikestaff yer papa is bound to take umbrage. A rare set-to there will be!” grumbled the elderly man.

  Myriah’s frown deepened. “Oh, Tab, you are taking too doleful a look at the whole thing. I shall fix things up right and tight. See if I don’t!”

  To this her groom had little to say. However, he continued to mumble incoherently. Myriah lost her patience and moved her horse forward, leaving Tab some distance behind her.

  When they reached Tunbridge Wells, the horses were watered and rested for a few minutes. Then once again they set south on the main pike. The adventure had lost its initial thrill for Myriah, and her mind was now busy with the problems facing her. There was Sir Roland, who surely would be upset. She had done him an injustice leaving as she had, allowing him to believe she had acquiesced to her father’s outrageous plan. But then, she had not missed his expression, which told her he had not been completely fooled. But Papa—there was no telling what he might do, though she was fairly certain he would post down to her grandfather’s in the morning … and then there would be a scene.

  The road meandered past rich green farms and through meadowlands boasting of spring wildflowers, whose scent was carried on the growing breeze. The aroma infiltrated her senses, and for a moment she just breathed it in and sighed. Feeling rejuvenated, Myriah said, “Just look about at all this glory.”

  “Look at what, m’lady?” asked her astonished groom as he came up alongside her. “What can ye see in the darkness? ’Tis half-daft to try!”

  “Oh, Tabby, don’t vex me so! I can see … with my mind’s eye, and I do so love Kent!”

  “Aye!” Tabson agreed, relenting, for it had been his home as well, and he too was heartily sick of town life.

  They maintained a steady pace for the next half hour without speaking. In her haste Myriah had neglected to put on a riding hat, and her fiery ringlets had tumbled down upon her shoulders. The breeze was stronger now and whipped the long, thick locks across her cheeks. With an exasperated sigh she reined in, pulled off a glove, and pinned back the wayward tresses.

  Tabson looked up at the sky and mumbled a complaint that made Myriah raise her eyes heavenward. “Oh dear …”

  Clouds had gathered and obscured the moon’s glow, and a low mist had set in and seemed to be getting thicker. They had been on the road for nearly three hours, and Myriah knew their horses would soon need a proper rest.

  “We are nearly there, are we not, Tabby?” She pulled a face and added, “This mist is dreadful. I can barely see ten feet in front of m
e.”

  “Humph,” agreed her companion.

  For the next thirty minutes they continued, the silence punctuated now and then by an unladylike exclamation when Myriah found herself off road and in the thicket. At last a fingerpost loomed up at the crossroad, and she rode up to the narrow white wood.

  “Dymchurch three miles—oh, no, Tab,” Myriah exclaimed. “We must have taken the wrong turnoff—we are heading in the wrong direction.”

  “Humph. Thought the air a bit too salty. Nothing for it, m’lady. We’ll have to take the coast road. It cuts through the marshlands farther down, and we can follow the river a bit to Northiam.”

  “Oh, Tabby, I am so tired. We’ve been traveling for hours—how much longer do you think it’s going to take?”

  He scratched his head. “One … maybe two hours if this mist holds up.”

  “One or two hours! Why, it must be past two in the morning. Good lord.”

  “Best be moving on, m’lady. Dymchurch be no place for lingering at night.”

  “Why?” asked Myriah, surprised.

  “Because it ain’t!”

  She was too weary to press him further and this time allowed him to lead the way.

  As suddenly as it had appeared, the mist vanished, and only the dewy grass and moist bushes retained evidence of its earlier visitation. Low, flat, and marshy lands were dark and eerily foreboding in the blackness.

  The road was lined by narrow dikes, glistening rills, and shadows that teased Myriah’s imagination. She spurred her horse forward, passing her groom. A chill and strange sensation seized and swept through her. All at once, the eerie feeling made her pull her horse up short, sure that she had heard something …

  Tabby halted his horse directly behind her and leaned forward in his saddle. “What be that?”

  “Hush,” commanded his mistress, listening intently.

  Again the sound came to her ears, and this time she could identify it. A horse—it was the snort of a lone horse. She squinted through the darkness, zeroing in on a clump of evergreens and shaggy bushes. There—she saw it! The animal had shaken its head, and she caught the movement, following the line down the horse’s nose to a dark clump at its hooves.

  “Oh no, Tab!” Myriah uttered worriedly, her heart racing.

  She couldn’t really see, and yet instinct—a certain ‘feeling’—told her someone lay injured beside the horse. Without another word she closed the distance to the object of her interest, slid off Silkie, and went down on her knees beside a young man.

  His face was half-hidden by his arm, and his fair hair was free of the hat that had fallen beside his limp form. She pulled the heavy material of his riding coat away from his chest as she eased him onto his back. Tabby had by this time jumped off his old roan and was leaning over both her and the unconscious stranger. “He is hurt,” she told him.

  “I see that, m’lady—must have had a bad fall.”

  However, in an attempt to give the man some air by loosening his garments, Myriah’s hand had come in contact with something warm and sticky. Horrified, she pulled her hand away. “Oh … oh, no … Tab … it’s blood …”

  Her groom knelt beside the unconscious stranger and examined him. In short order he found the wound through which the man seemed to be losing his life’s blood; it was located in the young man’s upper left arm.

  “Tabby, I’ll have to make a tourniquet. Fetch some water from the dike.” She tore off a length of her muslin underskirt and handed it to him. When the groom returned, he placed the cool, wet cloth on the man’s forehead while Myriah tore another strip of cloth, saying fretfully, “Oh, I do hope I can remember the knack of it. When Sir Thomas took a bullet last hunting season a tourniquet saved his life until the doctor was fetched, and I watched how it was done. Do hold his head up, Tabby … that’s it,” she said, slipping the material ’round his biceps above the wound.

  “Now, Tabby, we’ll need some of that heathenish brew you call whisky.” She saw that he was about to deny the possession of any such thing and added, “’Tis not the time to tell me round tales. You have not been my dearest Tab all these years without my knowing you. Now do get it, Tab.”

  The groom grumbled heartily but a moment later produced a bottle of the questionable libation, which he put to the young man’s pale lips. The fiery liquid proved to be potent indeed, for the lad coughed fitfully, and his eyes fluttered open. His lips parted, but he said nothing as he stared up into Myriah’s face. Again the whisky was sent down his throat; again he coughed and squinted at her.

  Myriah watched as he attempted to focus. He whispered hazily, “Flaming beauty …”

  Myriah realized he was still dazed and took command of the situation. She grabbed the bottle from Tabby and forced more of the burning brew down the injured man’s throat.

  The young man suddenly tried to sit up. “I remember … my horse …”

  “Right here. Your horse is right here. What has happened to you?”

  He stared at her and smiled. “I took a fall and have no doubt landed myself in hell, beauty.”

  Myriah laughed out loud. “That, sir, is no compliment! I have always thought men were supposed to declare themselves in Heaven after being brought round by the attending heroine.”

  He looked up at her in puzzlement. He certainly was hazy, and he had suffered a loss of blood. Myriah frowned as she watched him trying to regain control of himself. His voice when it came was faint and gravely troubled.

  “Heaven? But you don’t look like an angel …”

  Myriah again laughed and arched a friendly brow. “Indeed, ’tis a lamentable truth, I must say, but still shabby of you to remark on it!” She sighed mockingly. “Ah, but there is yet time to alter your hasty opinion once I put you into the hands of your local doctor.”

  “NO!” objected the young man, cutting her off and making a feeble attempt to raise himself up, only to collapse back down.

  “But, sir,” returned Myriah, prohibiting such action with a firm hand on his chest, “you have sustained a nasty wound, and it must be attended to at once by someone far more experienced than I.”

  “Please, ma’am … if you … would be so good—just help me get to my feet?”

  “On no account,” Myriah replied authoritatively.

  “She-devil!” the young man muttered.

  “Have a care, my friend,” Myriah teased, rallying him as best she could, for he had her worried. He looked so helpless. “I may end by sending for that doctor after all.” She sighed and put a hand over his mouth, preventing any further speech. “Evidently you have some aversion to the physician in question for reasons not yet known to me. Very well then. Where shall we take you? You cannot continue to lie here in my lap. I am getting most frightfully stiff.”

  He grinned beneath her palm, and she lifted it from his mouth to allow him speech.

  “Wimborne Towers—just up the pike to River Road.”

  “Right then, Wimborne Towers it is.” She turned and called sweetly to her horse. The black stallion snorted but was in tune to the sound of his mistress’s voice. “It will be much easier for us to get you mounted on my horse, who has a very nice trick.”

  Silkie nudged her, and she told him firmly, “Down, darlin’, that’s my love.” She clucked encouragement at the handsome animal, watching as he went down first on his fores and then completely. She was proud of him and herself for having taught him the useful ploy. With Tabby’s assistance she got the wounded man to his feet and positioned him on the horse. Myriah then cooed softly to the stallion, bringing him back up.

  Her thighs ached from the night’s riding, the small of her back felt pinched, and her head was throbbing unmercifully. This was no longer an adventure but a grueling, uncomfortable, mind-racking evening. She steadied herself before mounting the man’s horse still grazing by the side of the road and allowed Tabby to lead Silkie while she brought up the rear.

  Before long they had reached the fingerpost that turned them onto the
River Road. This led through a stretch of flatland, broken only by a scattering of low, budding trees. It sloped gently upwards and passed a wooded cluster of birch and evergreens that opened into what obviously had once been a magnificent estate park.

  Even in the darkness of night, Myriah was impressed with the estate’s layout and with the huge Tudor home that beckoned. Concern for the young man lest he fall off her horse kept Myriah busy watching him, yet even so she felt that the house and the grounds must have once been quite regal, and not so very long ago.

  After what seemed an interminable time they reached the covered portico of the mansion. There was nothing for it but to leave the horses standing as they assisted the young man off Silkie and brought him to the front double doors.

  He leaned heavily on Tabby, who had little to say throughout these proceedings, while Myriah banged hard with the knocker.

  The young man coughed convulsively. Myriah, worried lest the bleeding begin again, tried to hush him, but he pulled at a chain at his waist and produced a large brass key. “No—no servants,” he managed to advise them in a hoarse voice.

  She exclaimed impatiently as she took the key and worked it in its housing.

  She pushed the heavy doors open. After they helped the young man inside, Tabby closed the doors at his back.

  “Candles on the table …” the lad told Tabby, who went and lit one in its lantern-styled container.

  The wounded man motioned the way to the second floor, and after some exertion they deposited him on his bed. He closed his eyes and lay back. Myriah winced, for she could read the pain in his face. She placed the candle lantern on his nightstand.

  Tabby removed the young man’s torn and dirty coat and undid his waistcoat. The white linen shirt was already destroyed, and so he made short work of it as he tore it off.

  Myriah gasped at the blood-soaked muslin she had wrapped around his wound. “Good God, sir … you may be pluck to the backbone or a simpleton—I don’t care which, for I shan’t let you go on without medical assistance any longer.”