Talbot's glare had softened immediately when he heard the fear in his brother's voice and disintegrated completely at Mapleton's words. One strong hand clasped the earl's shoulder and the other took hold of Mapleton's. “I cannot guess which of you is the worst scoundrel,” Tony sighed. “Max, you could at least have informed me of your intentions, though I admit I might have pleaded to be taken with you. And you, rapscallion, do you mean that you have actually had words with Mr. Kean?”
“Y-Yes,” the earl answered. “He t-told me all k-kinds of things about, about acting and p-plays. He is very n-nice. And I m-met Mrs. Jordan and Mr. K-Kemble and everyone.”
“You are the reason the play has not yet resumed?”
“Kean wished to spend some time with him,” Mapleton offered. “Are we forgiven, Tony, or not?”
“Yes, of course you are, but you will neither of you , please, cause me to worry so much again. I had thought Geordan lost or kidnapped. I did not know you were with him, Max, until I saw you returning together.”
“You do n-not h-hate me, d-do you, T-Tony?” the earl asked very quietly.
Talbot's hand dropped from Mapleton's shoulder, and he put both arms around the earl, hugging him tightly. He gazed at Mapleton a moment over Geordan's shoulder, a perplexed expression in his dark eyes, and then he whispered in the earl's ear. “I am sorry I frightened you brat. I love you. You must never think otherwise, please, not even when I am angry. No matter what you do, I will always love you.” He then released the earl and ushered both Max and his brother ahead of him into the box.
Since Mr. Kean had not had to deal with Talbot's anger, the play had already resumed. Geordan, however, was not instantly enraptured by it. He played distractedly with his fingers and fidgeted so much that David, who was seated to his right, at last put his arm across the back of the earl's chair and asked in a whisper if the earl wished to leave without seeing the end of the play. “It is fine if you do, Geordan,” he explained quietly, “for we have all seen it before.”
“N-No,” the earl whispered back, quickly stuffing his hands into the pockets of his inexpressibles and giving his auburn curls a shake. “I wish t-to see the end.”
Talbot's eyes seemed more melancholy than usual as he watched the short interchange.
“Do not take it so to heart,” Max urged him. “Geordie will not love you any the less because you were angry with him.”
“I know,” Talbot whispered back, “but I have ruined his evening and I could kick myself for it.”
“I doubt you have done any such thing, Tony. In a few more minutes he will be once again under Edmund's mund's spell and forget all about it. I am truly sorry,” Mapleton added. “It had not occurred to me that you might think him lost or kidnapped. I merely thought it would be a lark for him to meet Edmund all on his own. And I really did not want to escort him into the Green Room after the performance, with all the... well, you know the characters who show up there and all the flirting that goes on. That kind of thing he would not understand, would he?”
“No,” sighed Mr. Talbot with a smile beginning to twitch at his lips, “and I should have to explain it to him, and then I would be at point-non-plus.”
By the time the last bow was taken and the curtain rung down for the final time, the earl had regained all of his enthusiasm, and no matter how Talbot tried, he could not settle that gentleman down. When at last he got Geordan home and put him into Tyler's hands, Tony's jaws ached from laughing. “Take him,” he exclaimed. “I have heard all I care to of Kean and plays and White's and brains and hacks and theatres. See if you can get him to bed, Tyler. I am exhausted and I give up.”
Parsons, who waited in Tony's bedchamber, was relieved when that gentleman gave no sign of returning to the streets that night, and secretly gave thanks for the earl's presence. “For I cannot be easy,” he confessed to Simpson as the two of them locked up for the night, “with Master Tony's running about dressed like a ruffian and carrying his pistols. I should never have told you about it except that the earl came and I was afraid for him should something happen to Master Tony.”
“Yes, well,” murmured Simpson, “I am certainly uneasy about the matter myself. But there ben't much you and I may do. We do neither one of us know, after all, what Master Tony is about. He is very much like his father, you know. That gentleman was apt to dart off into the darkness at odd times himself. ’Tis part of being a Talbot, I begin to suspect. There's three of the earls now that I've served, Parsons, and certainly the first two were engaged in havey-cavey business from time to time if you ask me.”
“But Master Tony is not havey-cavey. No, nor he ain't an earl neither.”
“Ah, but he handles all the earl's affairs. And who is to say but when he returns to the streets so late at night it is not part of those affairs, handed down from father to son. Have you never wondered, Parsons, why the last earl should havet met his death in the dead of night on the Great North Road near Manchester? There are no Rutlidge lands to the north of London. None. And when he left here, he had expressed his intention to see to one of his properties.”
THE following morning the sun rose over the forests surrounding Westerley to discover the Countess of Rutlidge, dressed in an elegant riding habit of deep green velvet with a saucy hat perched upon her copper curls, pacing before the stables. As Marshall led her mare out to the mounting block, she frowned a bit, then smiled and allowed the groom to assist her into the saddle. “Are you sure you do not wish me to accompany you, my lady,” asked the man, rubbing his hand softly across his bewhiskered chin. “’Twould take but a moment for me to saddle a hack. ’Tis early to be riding out alone.”
“No, Marshall. Thank you. I shall come to no harm on Rutlidge land, and I shall not leave it. It is only that I have the fidgets with both Tony and Geordan gone so long.” With that, she turned the horse's head toward the forest trail behind the house and cantered out of sight. Marshall, staring after her, shrugged his shoulders and shook his balding pate.
“Be in London soon,” he muttered to himself. “No help for it. Deadly dull wi'out the lads.”
As the forest grew more dense around her, the countess slowed her mare to a walk and picked her way carefully through the trees to a small patch of grass and wildflowers perched on an outcropping above the stables. She stared down at Westerley below her and sighed. She remembered when Daniel first had brought her here how ugly she had thought the place and how terribly unaristocratic. She had always been fond of Rutlidge House and London and society. She had never desired to live in the country. But if she had ever dreamed of living in the country, Westerley would not have been her choice of reside.
“But I love you,” she murmured quietly to the house and land that lay below her. “You have given me back my Geordie, and I love you for it.”
She turned the little mare back into the forest and picked her way farther along the trails, switching at whim from one to another. In the lower-lying areas the mist was beginning to rise. Skitterings and shuttlings and twitterings, all subdued by an early morning sleepiness, reached her ears and brought a soft smile to her Cupid's bow lips. In her mind she could see her boys bounding through the trees intent upon capturing a squirrel. They had always longed for a squirrel when they were little ones. No one, not even their father, could convince them that the little rodents would not make good pets and would not be delighted to share their schoolroom and nestle with them in their beds.
She grinned more broadly as that picture led to another in which a nine-year-old Geordan, his angel's face scratched by twigs, his stockings falling, one revealing a bleeding knee, and his curls a mass of dark auburn tangles, came running into the forecourt with a bundle of dirty fur held tightly in his arms. Close behind him a seven-year-old Tony ran, yelling for her at the top of his lungs. “Hurry, Mama, hurry,” he'd been yelling. “There is a ’mergency.” The emergency had turned out to be an injured rabbit that Geordie had managed to release from a poacher's snare. As she recalled, that rabb
it had been an excuse for both boys to sleep on the kitchen hearth for two whole nights, and it had lived, from then on, an extremely pampered life running loose about the grounds, being hand-fed and petted, and accepting with extreme civility a nest of the boys' making at the back of the stables in which it had raised litter after litter of sleek brown bunnies.
“What did they call it?” she murmured to herself, thinking back. “Annie. Yes, that was it. Annie R. Rabbit.” Her smile wavered only a little, but she bit at her lower lip and tears stood in her bright blue eyes as she remembered. What she remembered was Tony standing beside the bed where her broken little Geordie had lain still and quiet and completely unresponsive for so many, many months. She remembered the incredible triumph and pride in Tony's eyes as she and Daniel had come charging into the room in answer to his calls to find that silly rabbit snuggled comfortably down on Geordie's chest, chewing contentedly on a tie of his nightshirt. She remembered crying, “Tony, sweetheart, why on earth did you put that filthy animal on...” and then she had seen the deep blue sea of Geordie's eyes, wide open and shining, watching that rabbit's every twitch and chew and nuzzle.
She gave her head a little shake and rubbed away the tears with one gloved hand. Smiling up at the sky beyond the treetops, she whispered a tiny prayer of thanksgiving—a prayer she had whispered every day of her life since Daniel had come into Rutlidge House dirty and exhausted, tears streaming down his face, and Geordan limp and broken in his strong arms. “I am a foolish woman,” she told the little mare, urging her downhill toward the stream. “I am crying over the past instead of enjoying the present. What I shall do, Letticia, is go to London. That is exactly what I shall do. I shall send Tony a letter this very day and warn him to expect myself and James on Sunday afternoon.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
FRIDAY afternoon Talbot ushered the earl into Gentleman Jackson's Boxing Saloon. Tony had been a frequent visitor there in his college days and had kept pace with most of the sporting crowd until his father's untimely death had thrust him headlong into an entirely different and much more responsible life. He looked about him now rather quietly, a hand on Geordan's shoulder. He had tried to explain about boxing and about the Gentleman himself, but Geordan had never seen a mill and could not conceive of why any grown man should actually desire to hit and be hit by another, especially if they were not terribly angry at each other. It was Viscount Eliot who spied the pair first and made his way to them with a smile of triumph. “I have got a hit in over Jackson's guard,” he crowed at Tony. “Just now. Hello, my lord. I wondered if we should see you here.”
“You have been greatly honored, then,” Tony nodded knowingly, “for Jackson won't let anyone slip a hit in on him if he does not think they have earned the pleasure.”
Eliot nodded, and wiping the perspiration from himself with the towel that hung about his neck, he grinned at the earl. “You are leading your brother down the path of his early years, you know. He is a legend in this building. Only gentleman ever landed a hit on Jackson without being allowed to do so. I don't suppose you box, do you, my lord?”
“No, he does not,” replied Tony emphatically before the earl could even open his mouth. “But I thought he i might like to know what it is you bucks are saying when you lapse into boxing cant. And I did not hit Jackson without being permitted to do so.”
“Yes, you did. I know, though Jackson don't talk about it. Gave him a regular facer, drew his cork, and blacked both his daylights for him. I tell you, Talbot your name is legend. I wish I had been old enough to see you do it. Didn't do it here, though, did you? Seems to me Uncle Miles said you had come to blows somewhere in the provinces.”
Tony glared. “Miles Eliot? He told you that da-deuced story? I shall meet him for it.”
“Why? You do not mean to tell me it ain't true? I shall be crushed if you tell me that, Talbot.”
“’Tis true,” murmured a deep voice, “but if ye spread it aroun’ lad, I'll spread yer face aroun' in equally as many places. Tony,” the big man said, offering Talbot his hand, “ 'tis wonderful to see ye. Come into my office and we'll 'ave us a visit, no? An' perhaps ye'll introduce me to this fine gentleman.” The well-worn boxer's face looked down at the earl with a lopsided grin much like the earl's own. His bushy eyebrows rose a little as he surveyed the earl's riding coat and buckskin breeches. “Had a bit of a spill, did ye, lad?” he asked.
Geordan, who immediately returned his own lopsided grin, which made Jackson chuckle, shook his head. “N-No. I only s-stopped to get a d-dog out from under a c-carriage. We c-came in Tony's curricle, so I c-could not take a spill.”
“Well, that's all right then,” nodded Jackson, ushering them both back into the small room he called his office.
“This is my brother Geordan,” Tony said when the office door had closed behind them. “Geordie, this is Gentleman Jackson.”
“I g-guessed,” Geordan announced proudly.
“Aye, and I guessed as well,” Jackson laughed, “the moment I seen ye at the door. Was a time, my lad, when ye were all that Tony talked about. I reckon my memory is not so bad that I would not know yer grin and yer eyes and them curls a yers. ’Twas ’cause a you yer brother drew my cork.”
“Tony d-did that?” the earl asked, his eyes widening.
“Gave me a reg’lar facer. Angry he were and foxed as well.”
“Enough,” Talbot groaned. “The brat does not need to know the sordid details of my past life.”
“But I think it is int'resting,” the earl said. “You n-never t-told me anything about f-fighting anyone.”
“Well, ’tweren't actually a mill, bantam,” Jackson laughed. “’Twas more like a flea abitin’ on a tired dog. Smashed is what I was at th' time. Snockered. Or else I'd have knocked yer pesky brother clear into th' next county.”
Talbot leaned back in the chair Jackson had provided him, propped his feet up on the edge of the Gentleman's desk, and laughed uproariously.
“Why is he l-laughing?” Geordan asked, his big blue eyes innocently seeking Jackson's brown ones.
“I cannot imagine,” replied the renowned boxer solemnly. “Perhaps he is a cup and saucer short of a set. Would ye like to see all of this place, bantam? And watch a bit of a mill?”
“Well, I think I sh-should,” Geordan replied, his eyes glancing at the still-laughing Tony, “but I do n-not truly under-understand why anyone would wish to b-box.”
“No, nor do I,” Gentleman Jackson grinned, “except to make enough money to feed himself. Why these swells wish to box is beyond me. But they keep paying me to teach 'em, so I'd be a fool not to. Are ye comin' along, Tony, or are ye goin' to go inta hysterics on us?”
“I'm coming,” Tony offered, swinging his feet back to the floor. He watched as the tough old boxer looked Geordan over thoroughly once more, then gently grasped the smaller hand in one of his great rough ones and led the earl back out into the Saloon. “Tell me 'bout this dog, bantam,” Tony heard him murmur. “Was it a big fellow or jist a pup?”
“Oh, he is b-big. D-Do you n-need a dog, Mr. J-Jackson?”
Tony chuckled as an odd expression lept to the Gentleman's face. “Ye mean to say ye crawled under a carriage to rescue a dog and ye kept th' thing? Didn't it belong to no one?”
“Everyone s-said he was a s-stray and we sh-should let the c-carriage run over h-him.” Geordan came to a stop and looked searchingly into the boxer's eyes. “You w-would not do such a thing, would you? L-Let h-him die just because he had n-no home?”
“No,” Gentleman Jackson replied emphatically, “never.”
“Be very careful, Jackson,” Tony warned with a twinkle in his eyes. “Very careful, or he'll slip in under your guard.”
“Well, I do n-not exactly know what that m-means,” Geordan stated, with a quick glance at his brother, “b-but I think you m-might be just the very p-person, Mr. J-Jackson, to—”
“No, Geordie, do not say it,” Tony chuckled, as the Gentleman stared questioningly from one
to the other of them.
“B-But he would be p-perfect, T-Tony. Unless you have ch-changed your m-mind?”
“I have not changed my mind, scamp.”
“C-Could you wait r-right here for m-me?” the earl asked. “I will c-come right b-back.” He loosed his hand from the boxer's and crossed the floor, weaving through well-muscled, partially clad bodies until he reached the entrance. He disappeared through the door, leaving it to swing shut behind him.
“Will the lad be all right on his own?” Jackson asked. “Perhaps we ought to go after him, Talbot?”
“No,” chuckled Tony, “I do not want to do that, thank you very much. My tiger has the curricle right out-side. He'll be thanking heaven by now that Geordan has reappeared.”
“I was thinkin', Tony,” murmured the Gentleman, “that we might lift a glass at the Daffy Club, maybe blow a cloud? But I don't expect ye'd want to interduce that bantam to no Blue Ruin. Ye know what I could do, though,” he added before Tony could answer, “I could git Marsh to serve th' lad up some lemonade.”
“Lemonade? Marsh has lemonade at the Daffy?”
“Well, it ain't well-known, but he keeps it fer himself. We'll show the boy about the place an' then we'll toddle off to the Daffy an' have us a bout o' talkin'. Glory, what's that?”
Tony's gaze followed Jackson's to the door. “Geordie,” he roared over the noise of the gym, “you put a lead on him before you bring him any farther! It's a dog,” he added, grinning, as they watched the earl untie his neckcloth and retie it around the creature's neck. “As a matter of fact, it's the dog.”
“That bantam wrestled that monster out from under a carriage? By hisself? Yer hoaxin' me, Tony. There ain't no way.”
“Oh, no, Geord did not wrestle with him,” Tony explained, as Geordie and the mongrel wound their way through a number of young bucks. “He crawled under he coach, sat down beside the thing, and they had a long talk. Seems it had wanted to come out all the time, but all he people yelling and jabbing at it made it decide not to o so. That, at least, is what Geordan told me. I, myself, do not speak dog. I do not know,” he said a little more loudly at his brother's approach, “which of you is the more ramshackle, Geord, but your neckcloth looks a great deal better on him.”
Amelia's Intrigue (Regency Idyll Book 1) Page 10
