Mistress of the Hunt

by Amanda Scott

  “Oh, to be sure, I had forgotten why you had come, Rochford. How very silly of me, but I daresay ’twas all this pleasant company. You, too, Philippa, will be wishing to speak with Jessalyn. I shall arrange for you all to be shown to your bedchambers at once, and then I shall have your respective charges sent along to you straightaway. I expect they are not precisely looking forward to the interviews, poor chicks. Imagine telling dear, absurd Miss Blandamore that you had each written permission for them to accompany our Bethie when they had in fact written the letters themselves and signed your names. Dreadful children!” With that parting shot, she stepped lightly to the bell rope and gave it a couple of hearty yanks.

  Philippa, glancing once again at Viscount Rochford, noted that his features had hardened and looked harsher than ever. As the light gray eyes met hers, she experienced a thrill of fear followed by a feeling of deep gratitude that she was not the person with whom he was annoyed. She even found it possible to feel compassion for the unfortunate Lady Lucinda.

  —3—

  PHILIPPA’S BEDCHAMBER WAS AN elegant room despite clear and present evidence of the young duchess’s desire to turn Belvoir into a real castle. Colorful Mortlake tapestries depicting hunting scenes draped two walls, the wide bed was hung with pale green-velvet curtains, and the large carved-walnut garderobe occupying a third wall displayed a cumbersome medieval appearance. When Philippa was shown into the room, she discovered a plump maidservant, attired in a blue dress with a white bib apron, flicking a feather duster across the carved windowsill. The duster whisked behind the girl’s back as she dropped a curtsy.

  “Good day, m’lady. I be Tilly, ’n I’m t’ do fer ye, since ye’ve not brung yer own woman.” A note in her voice indicated her low opinion of such frippery ways.

  “Thank you, Tilly,” Philippa said calmly. “I shall be glad of your assistance when I am ready to dress for dinner.”

  “Aye, m’lady. Just ’e ring, ’n I’ll come up straightaway. I’ve put yer things away fer ye, then. D’ye require aught else?” When Philippa denied any further need for her services, Tilly reached to straighten one of the pale green velvet curtains, then left the room, holding her duster in a fold of her blue skirt as though it were not the done thing to let such an article be seen.

  Philippa smiled and walked to the window. She was on the north side of the castle now, and thus had a clear view over the undulating green-and-gold checkerboard squares of the Vale of Belvoir. It really was wonderful, she thought, how much green there was. In Sussex, no matter what they did, the lawns at Wakefield Priory always seemed to have turned brown by now, but although many of the trees in the woods approaching Belvoir Castle had dropped their leaves, the lawns still displayed more green than brown, and the hedges contained as many green leaves as burnished golden ones.

  A scratching at the door of the bedchamber interrupted her thoughts, and she turned from the window.

  “Enter.”

  After a long moment, the door opened. Her stepdaughter paused warily on the threshold.

  Philippa’s lips thinned to a straight line, and her eyes narrowed. “Well, well,” she said, “I wish I might say this meeting is a pleasure, Jessalyn.”

  Miss Jessalyn Raynard-Wakefield was a slender young lady with fine pale blond hair swept back from a high, rounded forehead and held in place at the moment by a pale pink ribbon that matched her high-waisted three-quarter-sleeved round gown and her beribboned satin slippers. She had thirteen summers behind her and a reputation for beauty and wit that usually gave her the confidence to carry off her pranks with a high hand; however, as she hesitated in the open doorway, it could be seen that her normally pink cheeks were pale, her blue eyes lacked their customary sparkle, and her expression was apprehensive. In the silence that followed her stepmother’s words, she began nervously to chew her lower lip.

  “Close the door,” Philippa said, taking a seat upon the walnut dressing chair. “Then come here to me.”

  Jessalyn obeyed the first instruction but remained standing by the door. “What are you going to do?” she asked, swallowing hard.

  Philippa folded her hands in her lap and eyed the miscreant solemnly for a long moment before answering sternly, “You know what you deserve for this outrage, do you not?”

  Jessalyn dropped her gaze to the gold-and-white Axminster carpet. “Yes, ma’am,” she said in a near-whisper, shifting her feet, “but I hope you will not.”

  “I believe you,” Philippa said, repressing a sudden spark of amusement at what was clearly an understatement on the child’s part and forcing an even sterner expression onto her face. She knew well from experience that to give even a hint of her amusement would be fatal to any lesson she meant to teach. “Moreover,” she went on quietly, “as I have no wish to figure as a wicked stepmother, I shall certainly give you the opportunity to explain yourself before I pass sentence. Come over here, if you please, and tell me just what you were thinking of to have behaved so badly.”

  Jessalyn straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin. Her pink tongue darted out to lick her lips. Then she said, “I suppose we didn’t think. Not sensibly, don’t you know, or Lucy and I would still be in Bath. We certainly never thought you or Lord Rochford would be here,” she went on more rapidly, “or we never would have done it.”

  “But I wrote to tell you I was coming into Leicestershire,” Philippa said reasonably.

  “When? We left Bath on the ninth, don’t you know, since the duchess’s birthday was celebrated upon the thirteenth.”

  “Then my letter must have reached Bath soon after you left,” Philippa said, “which means Miss Blandamore knows by now what a dreadful trick you played her.”

  “How should she?” Jessalyn had moved closer, but she still kept a wary distance between herself and her stepmother.

  “Don’t be more of a goose than you already have been,” was the impatient reply. “She will know perfectly well that had I written giving you permission to depart immediately for Belvoir, I should not have written again so soon, expecting my letter to find you in Bath.”

  “Oh.”

  “All that is beside the point, in any event, Jessalyn. I wish you will come over here to me, so that I do not feel as though I were shouting at you. Not,” she added with a grimace, “that I do not feel a good deal like shouting. I presume that this little escapade was your notion from the outset.”

  Jessalyn bristled as though she would deny indignantly the possibility that she could have been responsible for anything, but after a second look at Philippa’s stern face, she capitulated, moving toward her. “Bath was very dull,” she said, hanging her head. But then she seemed to recollect herself, and her head came up again as she took another, impulsive step toward Philippa. “Really, ma’am, you can have no notion of how dreary it is in Bath in November. There is absolutely nothing to do.”

  “You have your school work, surely.”

  “Oh, that.” Jessalyn dismissed schoolwork with an indifferent shrug. “We just thought a birthday celebration for the duchess would be more amusing, don’t you know.” She looked at Philippa beseechingly, and catching the gleam of amusement that would no longer be suppressed, she sighed in relief. “I knew you would understand if I could but tell you. We—Beth and Lucy and I—had become such very good friends, don’t you know, on account of us all having estates in Leicestershire, although we had none of us met here ever, only at school. So we thought—when Beth’s mum wrote to tell her the carriage would collect her the following Tuesday—well, it just seemed like a splendid notion for us all to come. Lucy’s father is drinking the waters at Leamington Spa and she quite thought her brother was still on the Continent, don’t you know—and it is dreadfully unfair of him not to be, I think—but in any event,” she went on rapidly when her stepmother’s eyes narrowed ominously again, “I didn’t know precisely where you were. When last you wrote, you were in London from Brighton but were thinking you might not stay as long as you had intended, so I thought the Pri
ory, don’t you know, only there wasn’t time to send there or anywhere for proper permission, and Lucy’s papa wouldn’t care a rap, she said, and Beth was persuaded that no one would mind if we came with her, so we did.” She ended out of breath, her hands folded tightly at her waist and her anxious gaze pinned to Philippa’s face.

  “Don’t I know?” said her stepmother sardonically, unable to resist. “Really, Jessalyn, no matter how you might attempt to wrap this matter in white linen, you must know that what you did was very naughty.”

  “But how could I have asked you? Letters going back and forth would have taken weeks, which would not have answered the purpose at all, and I truly didn’t know where you were.”

  “Well, that last point is clear enough. I don’t believe you would have been so foolhardy as to come to Belvoir knowing I was fixed at Chase Charley, but you ought not to have come at all if you could not obtain my permission. Surely you must have known the duchess would make mention of your visit in her next letter to me.”

  “I didn’t know she corresponded with you,” Jessalyn said simply.

  “Well, that doesn’t matter. What you did, you and Lady Lucinda, was very bad, my dear. It is against the law, in fact, to sign a name not your own to a letter, or to anything else, for that matter.”

  Jessalyn bit her lip again. “I didn’t know.”

  “You knew it was something you ought not to do.” Philippa made the words a statement, not a question, and was unsurprised when Jessalyn remained silent. “You must apologize to the duke and duchess, my dear, and to the dowager duchess as well, for having involved all of them in your escapade.”

  “I did already,” the child said, “when the duchess scolded us all for what we had done.”

  “How did she find you out?”

  Jessalyn grimaced. “It was Lucinda’a fault. The duke mentioned the fact that her wretched brother was at Wyvern Towers, having heard the news from his master of hounds, and Lucy was so dismayed, she just cried out, ‘Oh, no!’ After that, our tale was told, don’t you know, and things got rather confused until the old duchess ordered us off to our bedchambers. I think she was miffed because we had caused a scene, but I’ve noticed she likes causing them herself well enough.”

  “Jess!” Philippa had meant to call her to order for her disrespectful reference to Viscount Rochford, but the child had spoken too quickly for her to get a word in, and now it was all she could do to stifle a rising chuckle. Young Jessalyn had come to know the dowager rather quickly, for her grace was indeed one who didn’t like scenes unless they were of her own creating. But when Jessalyn merely grimaced at the reproach in her stepmother’s sharp use of her name, Philippa came back quickly to the issue at hand. “Very well,” she said, “if you have already made your apology, you need say no more, but you must write to Miss Blandamore to explain precisely what you did and beg her pardon for deceiving her. You may,” she went on sternly when Jessalyn’s mouth flew open in protest, “begin your letter at once, for you are to keep to your bedchamber without company until we depart tomorrow morning. Is that clearly understood, Jessalyn?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” The tone was sulky, but after a moment when Philippa had said nothing further, Jessalyn brightened perceptibly. “Is that all?”

  “That is all for now, young lady,” Philippa corrected, “but we will speak of this matter at length when we reach home. I shall decide then what is to be done with you.”

  “Oh.” The brightness dimmed.

  “You may go now, Jessalyn.”

  Once the child had gone, Philippa soon became restless, uncertain that she had handled the matter as it should have been handled. She had not been a parent long enough to know the best way to cope with such problems and thought that perhaps she ought to have read the child a much more severe scold, or even to have used her as Jessalyn had clearly expected to be used. Philippa had no doubt that had Wakefield lived to see this day, he would have been furious with his daughter, but she was not by any means certain he would have whipped her. He had been, in Philippa’s experience anyway, a comparatively gentle man. Her own father, by contrast, might well have soundly thrashed a young Philippa who had been guilty of perpetrating such an escapade. She grimaced. The Earl of Toddleigh had not been one to suffer mischief tolerantly.

  She sighed, letting her thoughts drift to Viscount Rochford. Though her first thoughts were of a pair of fine gray eyes and an odd, unfamiliar humming in her mind, she soon brought herself to remember that the gentleman was undoubtedly enjoying—if such a word might be utilized in such a circumstance—a similar confrontation with his young sister. What if he discovered that it had been Jessalyn’s bright idea to leave school? What if he thrashed poor Lucinda for her part in the matter and then discovered that the chief miscreant had been let off much more easily? Would he not demand to know what Lady Philippa was about to let her young charge off scot-free after Jess had led the other young women astray in such a dissolute fashion?

  Philippa began to pace her room as her imagination ran wild, and it was not long before she knew she had to have more space and air than the bedchamber’s suddenly confining limits allowed her. Miss Pellerin having expressed the intention of taking a nap before dinner, she had no wish to disturb her, nor could she wish to submit herself to another spate of the young duchess’s conversation, however charming. Accordingly, she slipped from her room, hoping she would meet no one, and was fortunate enough to find her way to a small north terrace without encountering a soul.

  Philippa crossed the terrace to the crenellated stone parapet that surrounded it and stood gazing out over the Vale of Belvoir, breathing deeply of the chilled fresh air and relishing the quiet. Below her, at the edge of the lawn, two brown hares were nibbling the remains of some shrub or other in the border, and a little further on, several gardeners were engaged in planting a clump of what looked like paper birches. A pair of black-and-white magpies screeched at each other overhead, and as she looked up to try to catch sight of them, a voice spoke near enough to her right shoulder to startle her.

  “Saw you from my bedchamber window. Dare I hope you have throttled your stepdaughter?”

  She turned quickly to find the Viscount Rochford looking down at her from a point rather too near to be comfortable. ‘I beg your pardon, sir, but I cannot have heard you correctly,” she said stiffly, moving to put more distance between them and wishing that the startlement—for surely that was the cause of it—had not made her heart pound so rapidly.

  Rochford appeared to be under the mistaken impression that she was merely making room for him at the parapet, for he stepped forward to stand directly beside her, and although he did not actually touch her, he was so close that she seemed to feel a prickling sensation all along her side. “You heard me well enough,” he said, smiling rather grimly. “The last thing I anticipated having to cope with upon coming into Leicestershire was my youngest sister, I can promise you that much.”

  “I daresay.” The sun, lowering toward the line of hills to the west, set auburn highlights dancing in his dark hair, and as she noticed these, she noticed also that a lock of hair toward the back of his head was lifting in the slight breeze, fluttering. Philippa was again conscious of a wish to try to widen the distance between them. Somehow his nearness was most disconcerting. He turned just then to gaze out upon the view, however, and she seemed able to breathe more naturally. “I collect, sir, that your presence in the county came as something of a shock to the Lady Lucinda.”

  He looked down at her again, and this time his smile was natural, even boyish. She found herself thinking that he might well have found time for mischief himself when he was a schoolboy. “Something of a shock,” he repeated, savoring the phrase. “I believe you underestimate the tenderness of my sister’s sensibilities, ma’am.”

  “Do I?”

  “Indeed.” He chuckled. “She knew perfectly well that my father was safely out of her way, and although she admits that my sister Margaret did inform her three months ago
that she was sending for me, Lucy appears to think herself prodigiously ill-used for the simple reason that she thought it must take many months, if not years, for me to return.”

  “Dear me! Where did she think you had got to, sir?”

  “The Lord only knows. She ought to have known I was in Portugal and had only to get on the first boat home, but her knowledge of geography appears to be scant at best. I cannot think the unfortunate Miss Blandamore has taught her very much.”

  Philippa’s mind had taken another track. “I am a little acquainted with Lady Kegworth, sir. I trust she had no imperative reason for requesting your return.”

  “Well, my father is not in good health, if that is what you mean, but that has been the case for several years. Until now, however, he has taken an interest in running the estate. Margaret’s reason for sending for me was that he no longer does so, and so when she and Kegworth agreed to accompany him to Leamington Spa, they decided at the same time that it was time I took the reins into my own hands. They picked the devil of a time for it, I must say,” he added on a note of bitter amusement.

  Philippa lifted an eyebrow. “You had more important matters in hand, sir?”

  He did not misread the disapproval in her tone. This time his smile was a rueful one. “Disobliging of me, was it not? The fact of the matter is, however, that the tide on the Continent has shifted to our favor. Wellington was on the point of entering France when I left, and I confess I should have liked very much to accompany him. Indeed, with the end in sight, as it is, I believe, I should like to be present when he routs Boney for good and all.”

  “I daresay that if he is as good as they say, Lord Wellington will manage nicely without you, sir,” Philippa said, turning her attention once more to the vale.