Patricia Veryan - [Sanguinet Saga 05] - Nanette

by Patricia Veryan

  She looked so awed that he could not restrain a chuckle. "It's just cant. I beg pardon; I should not have said it."

  "Cant? Oh—let me guess! It means… to be without funds? To borrow? To be, as my brother was used to say, In Dun Territory?"

  "More or less," he nodded.

  Clapping her hands, Miss Nanette laughed delightedly. "Oh, how quaint! Now this I have never before heard!"

  Considering that animated little face, Harry decided that she might look quite pretty in a nice frock, with her hair neatly brushed, and a ribbon around it… But almost at once the mindless emptiness filled her eyes and her chin lolled. He took a deep breath and, recovering his senses, waited until she was restored to normalcy, then asked gently, "Forgive me if I presume, but you've a slight accent—are you French?"

  "My mama was French."

  "I see. And your father is—"

  Her head flung upward, her eyes blazing at him. "We will not speak of my papa, if you please! Instead, I shall now ask you the questions. You are the fine aristocrat, why—"

  He started. "So you knew who I was, all the time."

  "You are Sir Harry Redmond. And your papa left you, among other things, a great house in Hampshire. You are very far from penniless." The sudden bitter twist to his mouth stopped her. Her eyes narrowed. "Unless…" She leaned forward. "Are you truly without funds, Sir Harry?"

  "Unfortunately, ma'am."

  She drew a long, deep breath, then snorted, "Disgusting!"

  "Wh-What?" Addlebrained or no, she was impossible! His brows lowering, he grated furiously, "Now what are you saying?"

  "That you should be ashamed! Not two years since your father's death and already you have squandered his entire fortune! Men! Pah!"

  "By… God!" raged Harry. "This is too much! I wish I was your brother! You should be soundly spanked for making such snap judgements!" His fury cooled, however, as he perceived the approach of a newcomer. Miss Nanette did not. She sneered, tossed her nose into the air and turned from him, bending nonchalantly to pick another lupin. Retribution, thought Harry with wicked joy, was at hand.

  Mr. Fox was in a humorous mood. His lowered head caught Miss Nanette well and truly. With a shriek, she dove head first into the stream. Her reaction was quicksilver. She sprang, dripping, onto the bank and her hand flashed out to slap across the donkey's face. "Odious! Wretched brute!" she shrilled. "Donkey!"

  Harry leaned against a weeping willow and laughed until the tears flowed down his cheeks. Mr. Fox, braying his distress, trotted to the tent and cowered behind it. Soaked, her hair a wet straggle, her dress clinging about her, Miss Nanette stood on the bank, trying to wring the water from her skirts, and all but weeping her fury.

  "You… you look a fine… sight…" gasped Harry, holding his ribs with one hand and wiping his eyes with the other. "A fitting chastisement!"

  "Horrid wretch of a—a gamester!" she retorted.

  "Oho! What a temper! You were right; I think you're worse than Juana! She, at least, would never slap a little donkey's face and make him cry."

  She ceased her efforts and regarded him with total dismay. "Oh… I did not do this. Did I?"

  "Look—at him," he gasped weakly. "Poor little fella's breaking his heart over there."

  She all but flew to put her arms about Mr. Fox. "Mon pauvre! I did not mean it! You were just playing, I know this. Although—it was very naughty of you. Ah—do not weep!" She kissed his neck and stroking him tenderly, pleaded, "You will forgive your wicked Nanette—yes? I am an odious girl and should not be heeded!"

  Harry, who had followed to watch this exchange, was fixed with an anguished gaze and a whimpered, "Mon Dieu!" The poor little thing is inconsolable. I am the greatest beast in nature! Whatever shall I do to make up with him?"

  He was touched to see tears in her eyes and, crossing to the cart, groaned, "Don't start weeping again, for heaven's sake!" He rummaged about and found amongst many papers a crumpled reward poster for Devil Dice. It seemed apropos. "Here…" He returned to hand it to her surreptitiously. "Give him this."

  She stared up at him in astonishment, and he noted that this morning the flecks in her eyes were green; also that her teeth were beginning to chatter and the end of her little nose to turn blue. "Hurry up," he urged. "He has a literary taste. And you are breaking out in goosebumps."

  The little donkey eyed her reproachfully but finally accepted the paper and, having devoured it, leaned his head against her. "Ah .. !" One cold hand clapped to her heart and she closed her eyes with a sigh of relief. "He has forgiven me! Thank goodness!" She hugged Mr. Fox, and sneezed.

  "And you, little one, are taking a cold. Come over by the fire and take off those wet clothes. We can—"

  Instead, however, she made a mad dash for the cart and began to pull frantically at the oar. Watching her sadly Harry thought that there could be little doubt but that the poor chit's intellect was disordered. What a pity.

  Meanwhile, Nanette had succeeded in releasing the oar, and grasping it in both hands, she swung to face him, panting, "Stay back! Filthy villain! You think to ravish me now we are alone, hein?"

  "Good God!" gasped Harry, considerably taken aback. "I wouldn't ravish you were we alone on a desert isle for the rest of our days!"

  For some odd reason this did not appear to please her. "Crudity!" she screamed. "Foulness!" She swung the oar, but it was much heavier than she'd suspected and so cumbersome as to take her off balance. Her eyes widened as she was pulled sideways. Her swing had been lusty; the oar gathered momentum, and before she could relinquish her grasp it whammed into the tent, drawing her after it. The tent promptly collapsed and with a muffled shriek she disappeared from view.

  It had been quite some time since Harry had so hugely enjoyed himself. He wiped the tears from his eyes and sobbingly unearthed her. "Are you… hurt? By George, but you're a fire-eater!" Miss Nanette, lying with arms wide-tossed amidst the wreckage, refused the hand he reached down to her. "I have not… the breath…" she gasped. Her gaze searched his mirthful face and whatever she read there appeared to calm her fears. "That… beast of… an oar!" She began to giggle and Harry was undone. His hilarity exploded and he sat beside her while they laughed until they held their sides with exhaustion.

  Mr. Fox, meanwhile, had discovered the pot of gold at the end of his rainbow and happily devoured all the papers in Diccon's cart.

  Miss Nanette's gown was still not quite dry when she pronounced herself bored with sitting in the tent wrapped in a blanket and insisted upon it being brought to her so that she might don it again. Harry had worked hard to restore the tent and would have been glad to relax for a while. However, although the morning had became warm, it was cool in the shade of the trees, and fearing the girl would take a chill, he suggested they go for a short stroll. He quickly discovered that while her intellect might be disordered, she yet possessed an extremely high level of curiosity. Their 'short stroll' was constantly lengthened by her discovery of some new interest to this side or that, and her dartings off to investigate a flowering shrub or a hovering butterfly had a tendency to make conversation erratic. In the midst of a sentence describing the lily collection in the greenhouse at Moire, he turned to discover himself alone and could discern no sign of that small, untidy head. "What the devil!" he muttered in exasperation. "Tuppence . . ?"

  The only response was the echo of his own voice. Cursing under his breath he hurried down the hill and came upon her standing very still amid some small trees, a warning frown upon her face, and one slim finger held to her lips. He slowed and peered curiously. A squirrel was advancing with much caution along a low-hanging branch toward the acorn she offered. A twig snapped under Harry's boot and the squirrel was gone in a blur of speed.

  "Oh!" Nanette exclaimed with the stamp of one foot. "What a great, blundering creature you are to be sure!"

  "Your servant, ma'am!" He bowed his most graceful, flowing bow and, as they walked on together, murmured, "Such enthusiasm for flora and fauna! O
ne might think you'd never been for a country walk."

  "Not at my home," she sighed. "Always, my papa insisted I must ride in the carriage. Walking, he says, is for servants and street women. And my brother was a formidable horseman so with him I rode also. You, I suppose, having been blessed with a very kind father, learned much of the countryside?"

  Before Harry knew it, he was deep in a discourse upon Colin Redmond. Miss Nanette's interest was both intense and flattering, and not for some time did he realize that he was doing all the talking. As soon as that fact dawned on him, he turned the conversation deftly until he at last came to his opportunity and enquired as to how long she had been acquainted with Lady Nerina.

  "For about five years, I suppose." She headed for the brow of the hill and sat beneath a spreading old oak, gazing out across the countryside. "How very lovely it all is… so green, and just look at all the chestnut trees…"

  "Yes," he said shortly and, having cast a swift and unseeing glance at the verdant panorama, persisted, "did you meet her at the Convent?"

  "Mmmmn. What is that great castle in the distance?"

  "Bodiam. Were—er—were all of you young ladies leaving the Convent?"

  "Why, yes. We could not bring it with us, you see, sir."

  He frowned, but the dimple that peeped forth beside her mouth disarmed him.

  "Little shrew!" he laughed. "You know what I mean."

  "Out." She yawned behind her hand. "You wish to know if the Lady Nerina is returning to the Convent. She is not, for we were only visiting. We took Sister Maria Evangeline out for her birthday party, and then we journeyed to Park Parapine to see Nerina's cousin Yolande, who also attended the Convent when she was young. And on the way back we stayed at Mrs. Burnett's boarding-house, which is where you laid eyes upon your vision of paradise."

  Harry felt his face become hot and said hurriedly, "Yolande Drummond must have aged very rapidly since last month she was, as I recall, one and twenty."

  Watching him with grave intensity, she asked, "Did your papa have such very green eyes?"

  "No. His eyes were grey, like my brother's."

  "Ah, yes… your poor brother. I suppose he can no longer stay at Oxford now that you have gambled away all—"

  "You mistake it," he intervened coldly. "My brother will take his degree."

  "Bon! Your papa used to say he will become a famous scholar someday, and—"

  "Good God!" Harry dropped to his knees beside her. "You knew him?"

  "No. But my uncle spoke of him. He is making a book about interesting things in the law. So he goes often to the Courts. And he was most surprised by the funny way your papa acted at some trial or hearing… or something."

  His heart beginning to pound rapidly, Harry probed, "Do you mean the Hearing about the accident my father witnessed?"

  "She shrugged. "I do not recall."

  The witless look had crept over her face again so that he could have shaken her, and it took all his control to remain outwardly calm and wait.

  "Very well," she signed at length. "Since you are burning to ask me about your Goddess, we had as well get it over. She lives in Berkshire most of the year, at her father's country estate."

  His mind riveted to the other matter, Harry scarcely heard her, and when she paused, asked, "What did you mean—'funny way' . . ?"

  "I said no such thing! Nerina is not funny at all. Indeed, one has only to tell a joke for her to stare blankly and say she does not understand. Which is because although she is beautiful, she is a stupid, and—"

  "No, no! My papa!"

  "Your papa—was… stupid… ? Oh! What a dreadful thing to—"

  "Vixen!" He took her by the shoulders. "Must I shake it out of you? The Hearing! Your uncle said my father spoke in a 'funny way'."

  "If you do not this instant remove your hands from my body, Sir Harry Redmond, I shall tell you nothing at all! How do you dare to lecture other people about propriety when you yourself are a wicked gamester with libertine propensities, who—" At this point, the look of molten rage in his eyes caused her to say hastily, "That is better. My uncle said your papa saw an accident in which a young man was killed. Your papa was the only one who saw it, but he would say nothing although the coaches passed close by him and he must have seen who was in the big one. But this is all so very foolish, for you certainly know more of it than I, so why—"

  "I wish to God I did, for I feel it is important, somehow." He paused, worrying at it, then tossed up his head. "But if my father said he did not see who occupied the big carriage, then he did not. He never lied, and—"

  "And very obviously did not confide in you about the matter. So since he did not trust you with that, it is scarcely to be expected he would—"'

  "Trust me?" he scowled. "Of course he trusted me."

  "Then he must have told you of it. Unless…" She gave an empty little laugh. "Ah… I see. It is something you wish to keep quiet—yes? Well, if you were so compulsive a gamester you were ruining the poor man, I suppose he had to raise funds somehow. One could not blame him, and if the other driver was very… rich…" And she stopped again, quailing from the dead whiteness of his face, his eyes flames against that pallor. "He did not tell me," grated Harry, "because I was very ill at the time! And since you have the incredible affrontery to suspect his integrity, madam, let me advise you that he was far and away the finest—"

  Nanette's eyes slid past him and he checked and glanced over his shoulder.

  Unnoticed, Diccon had approached and was perched upon a large boulder. "What you done with all them papers what was in my cart?" It was the first time Harry had ever seen anger written upon that lugubrious countenance, but it was written there now, effecting an odd change in the man.

  Their dispute forgotten, the culprits exchanged guilty glances. "I am truly sorry, Diccon," Harry said contritely. "I only gave him one, and he—"

  "Harry did not give it to him, dear Diccon." Nanette crossed to smile at the Trader with a rather startling degree of charm. "I am the naughty one."

  "But I told you to give it to him," Harry argued.

  Diccon folded his arms. "I 'special asked of you to keep a eye on Mr. Fox, Harry. Some of them papers was important t'me. Very important."

  Nanette hung her head, and Harry stepped closer to her. "It started when Mr. Fox pushed Miss Nanette into the stream," he explained.

  "And then I tried to hit Harry with the oar," she said with a dimple.

  "Only she knocked down the tent instead," grinned Harry.

  Diccon looked from one merry face to the other and sighed.

  Chapter VIII

  Aside from his morning fits of the sullens, Mr. Fox was a good-natured beast, perfectly willing to pull the cart and exhibiting few of the signs of mulishness associated with his kind. On one point, however, he was most stubborn, and this was a disinclination to hurry. It was partly due to this trait, and partly because Diccon had stops to make along the way, that their progress was not rapid. Two days later, in fact, they had only travelled as far as Lewes. They camped in late afternoon, to the west of that pleasant little town, in a glade bright with wildflowers, blessed by the proximity of a small stream, alternately shaded by trees and warmed by the sunshine.

  Nanette hummed softly as she carried flour and lard from the large food box in the cart to her cooking table. Harry put up the tent and Diccon sat leaning against a birch tree, writing laboriously in the small leather-covered book he always carried and that he called his business book.

  "Harry… We need more wood," called Nanette.

  Harry had walked beside the cart for much of the day and had hoped to rest for a little while, wherefore he gave an irked frown.

  "Unless, or course," she added innocently, "you are not hungry, sir?"

  He was ravenous. He placed one hand upon his heart and bowed low, and waving the wooden spoon airily as she did so, she sank into a graceful curtsey. He grinned, finishing his task, gave Mr. Fox a friendly pat, and started on his next assignm
ent as the mellow call of a cuckoo lingered on the warm air. He became quite heated in the process of gathering an armful of firewood and, sitting on a boulder, put down his branches and stared at them glumly. They should reach Chichester tomorrow and heaven knows it was past time, yet the thought saddened him. These past few days had been touched by a rare lustre difficult to identify but vaguely associated in his mind with his campaigning in Spain. Perhaps it was the clean open air and the long hikes beside the cart that made food when it came beyond words delicious. Perhaps it was the long philosophical discussions he enjoyed with Diccon as they followed the sunlit ribbon of lane and track and highway—discussions that never failed to leave him impressed by the Trader's breadth of knowledge. He sighed. He would miss the drowsy chatter around the campfire at night, capped by Diccon's superlative music. He would miss Nanette's consuming interest in everything, that opened one's own eyes to little sights long overlooked—the beauties all about that busy days in Town rendered invisible. He smiled faintly as he thought of his indignation that very morning when he'd awoken to the tugging of her impatient hands and been dragged to the brow of the hill whereon they had camped, to view a sunrise of such surpassing beauty that his vexation had been swept away by the wonder of it…

  "Harry… ? Ha… rrry…"

  The imperious summons made him start up, grab his harvest, and hurry back to the clearing. Yet once there he found Nanette standing at the table gazing upward, her hands covered with flour, flour on the tip of her pert nose, and her eyes following a flock of birds that wheeled and dipped across the turquoise skies. He halted, watching her upturned face and the sheen the mellow sunlight awoke along her profile. In her own way, he thought, she was not unattractive. Her body was certainly beyond reproach; small she might be, but her curves were just as they should be and, although much more pronounced than the fine-boned perfection of Lady Nerina, were nonetheless the type that many men would find delightful. Her snub little nose and the proud tilt of her chin had a way of growing upon one; and her eyes—when they were not crossed — were large and the more interesting because the flecks amid the hazel tended to vary according to the colours around her, or the time of day, so that in the early morning they were the clearest blue, and at this moment, closer to green. A little touch of feminine fal-lals could work a vast improvement, though she stood in dire need of instruction in the proper behaviour for a lady of Quality.