Mistress of the Hunt

by Amanda Scott

  Philippa chuckled, but her mind was already occupied with the possibility of discovering other females who would support her cause. Surely there must be wives or daughters in some of the many hunting boxes around Melton Mowbray who would enjoy riding with the hunt.

  “In any event,” she said a moment later, as though there had been no change in the course of their conversation, “I daresay I was acting out of some sort of ridiculous pride when I approached Mr. Assheton-Smith, for although they meet often at Melton, they are just as like to meet at Quorndon Hall, or Charnwood Forest, or even Ashby de la Zouch, which would make my joining them as inconvenient as riding with the Belvoir. After all, the Belvoir also meets at Melton occasionally. ’Tis clear I should have gone to Lord Lonsdale in the first place, Cottesmore Hall being little more than four miles from Chase Charley. The two estates march side by side, you know, with Wyvern running to the north of us both.”

  “I still believe you would be more comfortable with the Wyvern if his lordship will permit,” opined Miss Pellerin. “After all, there is no telling but what his sisters may visit Wyvern Towers over Christmas, and they are no doubt excellent horsewomen. I must advise you against riding as the lone female with any hunt, Philippa. You would not like it at all.”

  “No,” agreed Philippa slowly, “but I am persuaded that if Lord Lonsdale will agree to allow ladies to ride with the Cottesmore, a good number of others will turn out. If they do not, of course, that will be another matter.”

  Unfortunately for her plans, Lord Lonsdale, when she managed, with her ubiquitous companion in tow, to run him to earth the following day, proved as obdurate as Mr. Assheton-Smith in his refusal to contemplate the notion of allowing women to inflict their presence upon his hunt.

  “All them skirts flying about’d frighten the horses,” he declared. “Not the thing, Lady Philippa, not the thing at all.” He was a bluff, hearty man of very good humor for the most part, but most unfortunately he stood some four inches shorter than Philippa herself, and he seemed to feel the difference sharply when first they met. Accordingly, his good temper deteriorated during the course of the conversation until, goaded by her insistence that he ought to give her an opportunity to prove herself before refusing his consent so arbitrarily, he began to speak in a very curt way indeed.

  “I tell you, m’lady, you’ve not the least notion of what you would be about. A Melton man ain’t no fit companion for a female. He don’t want one around when he is enjoying his sport. Leastways,” he amended, “not in the field, and the sort he enjoys afterward ain’t respectable ladies like yourself. By God, ma’am, half the men you’d meet ain’t even respectable themselves. Anyone can join a hunt, after all.”

  Philippa knew that much to be true. At Melton one’s birth, looks, manners, or morals, within very broad limits, didn’t matter. In any given hunt, an earl might as easily find himself riding neck and neck with a well-heeled local butcher or greengrocer as with a squire.

  “There’s no one more gay or reckless than the Melton man, m’lady,” Lord Lonsdale said more gently, seeing her disappointment. “He cares neither for purse nor neck, reputation nor digestion. He’s but spending a few years of golden youth before settling down in that state of life to which it has pleased Providence to call him, with happy memories of all the wicked things he believes he did in those glorious days when he hunted from Melton. ’Twould be to deny him those memories an I let a woman join the Cottesmore.”

  “Mercy me,” Miss Pellerin said few minutes later in the carriage, “his lordship made all those dreadful young men sound very nearly saintly, did he not?”

  Philippa’s mouth had been drawn into a tight, thin line from the time they had taken their leave of Lonsdale, but at these words her angry expression relaxed and her lips actually twitched. When she glanced at Miss Pellerin, her eyes were twinkling. “He certainly did. One almost wished to weep at the thought of denying them their precious memories, like denying a puppy his mama’s milk.” She gave a little choke of laughter. “If the truth be known, his precious Melton men are, collectively, a mob of snobs without manners or morals—noisy, ignorant, and bad sportsmen.”

  “ ’Tis a melancholy reflection and quite past common understanding,” said her companion, “that the same gentlemen who behave so outrageously as to be the despair of the local people would in most cases individually regard the throwing of a sofa cushion when at home or being drunk in the presence of ladies as a deplorable breach of decorum.”

  “Very bad ton,” said Philippa, still twinkling. But she sobered at once. “Those gentlemen of whom he speaks so fondly do indeed render themselves odious to the local people. Mr. Weems, my bailiff, was telling me that only last year a group of them offered the local cobbler a lift on their coach, and when the poor unfortunate man was halfway up, they started the team at a mad gallop with the poor wretch hanging on to the back as best he could until he was flung off into the road. On another occasion some so-called gentleman entered the village shop, which is kept by Mrs. Haversett, a charming old lady with gray ringlets. Weems said the gentleman ordered a pint of treacle and told her to put it into his hat. Mrs. Haversett told him the treacle would soil his hat but finally yielded to his insistence, whereupon he clapped the hat onto the dear old woman’s head and ran out shrieking with laughter. Melton is often terrified by such hooligan tactics, Weems says. To my way of thinking, Lord Lonsdale’s precious gentlemen could well do with a woman in their midst if it would curb such dreadful behavior.”

  “I am persuaded that you mean well, Philippa,” said Miss Pellerin with a small shake of her head, “but I hope you do not think to change the ways of the Melton men all by yourself. You are frequently inclined, I fear, to leap into things without thinking them through, and in this case it will not do.”

  Philippa recalled that Wakefield had often said the same thing of her. Indeed, he had frequently compelled her to write out separate lists of the positive and negative aspects of any decision she might make regarding matters of business. But since it would be foolish to consider personal desires in the same fashion that one considered more important matters of business, her companion’s words brought no more than another chuckle before Philippa said contritely, “I believe I have frightened you, Cousin Adeliza, but indeed I never meant to. My papa would say I’ve got a flea in my wig, and he would no doubt rant and rave and very likely succumb to the apoplexy he insisted my antics would bring upon him, but I beg you will not fall into the same error, for while I detest being told I cannot do something I wish to do, I have no true desire to force myself upon such a group as the one we have been discussing.”

  “So you will not hunt, after all, my dear. That is too bad, but indeed, I believe it is for the best.”

  “Not hunt?” Philippa regarded her wide-eyed. “Oh, no, ma’am, that is not what I meant at all. I do see now that it would be improper for me to foist myself on a large hunt when I should not have so much as the protection of its master, but there can be no harm to my joining the Wyvern if Rochford will look out for me.”

  “But he has not said he would,” Miss Pellerin protested, looking flustered.

  “No more he has,” agreed Philippa. “However, I mean to write a civil note to him the minute we reach the house, asking him to bring his sister to dine with us tomorrow. Once he is sitting at my dining table, he can scarcely refuse to grant me one tiny favor, can he?”

  She was to have her answer sooner than that, however, for when they arrived at Chase Charley, they were greeted by the information that Viscount Rochford had called and was awaiting their convenience in the library.

  —6—

  FEELING UNACCOUNTABLY EXCITED BY the news of the viscount’s presence, Philippa pulled off her hat and moved quickly to examine her reflection in the pier glass over the side table near the common-parlor door. Stripping her gloves from her hands and giving them into a footman’s keeping along with her hat, she tucked a loose strand of golden hair into her otherwise smooth coiffure and
decided she was presentable. With Miss Pellerin but a step behind her, she passed quickly through the parlor to the library, where she discovered Rochford in buckskins, riding boots, and a dark coat, sitting at his ease before a crackling fire, a leather-bound book lying open on his knee. When he saw them, he closed the book and got to his feet with leisurely grace.

  “Good day, ladies. I trust I have not called at an inconvenient time. My little sister wished to visit with Miss Raynard-Wakefield, and as your butler seemed to believe you would arrive momentarily, I took the liberty of accepting his invitation to help myself to the books in here. A tolerable library, I must say.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Philippa said, giving him her hand. “My late husband collected many of the books here, although with the exception of those volumes about hunting and Leicestershire history, he liked them more for the splendid show they make than for their content, I fear.”

  Rochford smiled. “My uncle, who is shortly coming to visit me, would count it a privilege to see this library, ma’am. He comes into Leicestershire, he says, for the hunting, but his nose is forever in a book, and our collection at Wyvern cannot match this one.”

  Taking her seat in a leather Kent chair on the other end of the hearth, Philippa said, “Your uncle is welcome at any time, sir. It would be our honor to receive him.”

  “Indeed it would,” said Miss Pellerin, entering the conversation for the first time as she took her seat in a straight-backed chair that the viscount drew forward for her. “I believe you speak of the Honorable Mr. Archibald Drake, do you not?” When Rochford nodded, she continued enthusiastically as he sat down again, “Mr. Drake is accounted a very fine scholar, Philippa. I have never been privileged to meet him, but I once read a monograph he wrote on Elizabeth Woodville—Henry the Seventh’s queen, you know—and I am persuaded that Mr. Drake’s mind is infinitely superior to those of most gentlemen.”

  “He can become a curst bore on the subject of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries if he’s given his head, Miss Pellerin, and so I must caution you,” said Mr. Drake’s undutiful nephew, crossing one leg over the other.

  “ ’Tis only fair that I caution you in return, my lord,” Philippa said in a confiding tone, her dark eyes atwinkle, “that such warning will but whet her appetite. I fear my dear cousin treads near the brink of being stigmatized for a bluestocking. She has to put a firm guard on her tongue in polite society in order to avoid giving herself away.”

  “Philippa!” Miss Pellerin was scandalized.

  “But it is true, ma’am, and I daresay that ten minutes in Mr. Drake’s company will unmask you, so it is as well that his lordship be warned.”

  “Very true,” said Rochford, smiling at the older lady in such a way as might have caused a younger heart to leap in response, “though I must tell you, ma’am, that I find nothing amiss in a lady’s having a well-informed mind. I have always thought such prejudice to be foolish beyond permission.”

  “Then you are an oddity, my lord,” said Miss Pellerin flatly. “A female in this day and age who reveals even the most innocent knowledge of Greek or Latin, not to mention of history or philosophy, must have windmills in her head. My mother was used to wince whenever I would speak of things about which a female was expected to know nothing, and she believed to her dying day that my spinsterhood was due to my having too often revealed the depth of my studies.”

  “And was that the cause, ma’am?”

  Philippa looked at him swiftly, suspecting impertinence, but Rochford looked merely interested and not at all as though he were roasting Miss Pellerin. The older lady also regarded him for a moment or two, solemnly, before she replied to his question.

  “I do not believe so,” she said then, slowly, “although it would be wrong to say that my education was not at all to blame. I received a number of eligible offers, though my papa did not agree with my mama’s notion of what gentlemen were eligible, of course. You must know, sir, that Papa was the one who provided the books and encouraged my studies, for he believed that most young men and all young women waste their time in school. In principle I agreed with him, but had I met a gentleman who showed a modicum of common sense, and for whom I might have developed a tenderness, I daresay I might have married even had I not believed his learning equal to mine. In any event, though it was not to be, my life has been an interesting one and I do not repine. After all, had I been married with a family of my own, I should not have been at hand when dear Philippa had need of me.”

  “Indeed,” said Philippa, “though I sound selfish to say it, ma’am, I am delighted that things worked out so that I might have you to myself.”

  Miss Pellerin regarded her fondly. “We rub along together tolerably well, do we not? Indeed, with this wonderful library and all the tasks we have to keep us busy, you need not trouble your head over such minor setbacks as you have encountered these past two days.”

  “Setbacks? How is this?” Rochford turned to Philippa, his harsh features softening as he looked upon her.

  She felt warmth flooding her cheeks, both from the admiration she read in his gaze and the conscious hope that her companion had not prematurely introduced what might prove to be a ticklish subject. Careful to keep her tone light, she said, “Oh, ’tis the most bothersome thing, but I daresay Lord Lonsdale is in the right of it, that it would be more convenient, not to say more proper, for me to hunt with a private hunting party than with all the rowdy, devil-may-care Melton men who ride with the Cottesmore.”

  “Certainly, it would be most improper for you or any gently nurtured female to ride with the Cottesmore,” agreed Rochford.

  Scarcely what she had hoped he would say, but Philippa refused to be put off by so insignificant a detail as that. “Gently nurtured females ride with the Belvoir,” she pointed out, smiling.

  “I hope I have better manners than to contradict a lady, ma’am, but I believe that if you reconsider your statement you must admit that they do not ride with the open fields. As I recall the matter, Rutland did not extend an invitation to you to join them when the Belvoir meets at Melton.”

  “Will he never do so, then?” This possibility had not, in fact, occurred to her.

  “No indeed. When you hunted with his pack, I daresay you saw no one you did not know in the field, or if there was a stranger, he was one who might properly be introduced to you; whereas, in a general hunt, one often has not the least notion who the man riding next to one may be.”

  “Well, I daresay you are perfectly right,” Philippa said amicably, “which shows very clearly how wrong I was to apply to Mr. Assheton-Smith and to Lord Lonsdale at all, when I ought from the outset to have applied to you, sir. It becomes perfectly clear that the Wyvern is the hunt for me, for I am persuaded, sir, that you are rather more nice in your notions than to allow the scaff and raff to fling themselves into your runs. I may certainly rely upon you to invite only those gentlemen who may be trusted to treat a lady as they should.”

  Rochford’s eyes gleamed in appreciation of her tactics, but he shook his head. “No, Lady Philippa,” he said gently.

  “No?” She bit her lip, then cocked her head a little to one side. “Do you mean to say, sir, that there are those amongst your friends who cannot be trusted to keep the line? For if that is the case, I promise you that I have had a vast amount of experience in dealing with such gentlemen. I do not fear them.”

  “No.” This time the note in his voice was firmer. The gleam of amusement had faded.

  They looked at each other, and Philippa found herself thinking that his features were not precisely harsh, after all, but merely weathered, no doubt as a result of his having spent so large a portion of the past years under the open sky. As he had been a soldier, one must expect that such had been the case. He was really rather pleasant-looking, actually. She had liked seeing amusement in his eyes. It was a pity it had gone, a pity, too, that he meant to be difficult. Really, the men of Leicestershire were proving to be an altogether obstinate lot. Or perhaps w
idowhood had dulled her feminine wiles. She had not been used to have such difficulty in persuading gentlemen to her wishes in the past, and she would, she knew, be particularly annoyed should the viscount prove to be immune to her wiles.

  She dimpled, letting her smile come slowly as she raised her hands to fold them between her full, round breasts before leaning coaxingly toward him. “My lord,” she said gently, “surely you cannot mean that you will not allow me to ride even the distance of a few fields with your hunt.”

  “I mean precisely that, however.” He responded to her smile, but his own was rueful and his voice was bare of laughter when he continued, “I fear you still have little understanding of what hunting in this county is all about, my lady. ’Tis the pace that kills, not only the fox and horse, but also the nerve of the rider. I have no doubt that you have acquitted yourself well with the Belvoir pack on those days that Rutland allowed his mama or his duchess and her friends to ride with him, or that you have acquired more than a modicum of skill if you have hunted in Yorkshire, which is scarcely humbug country. But for those not brought up to hunting in Leicestershire, the fast pace and hard riding bring little pleasure. After suffering a few crumplers, galloping at a thorn-filled ditch ceases to be fun, whilst any other method of taking it would be suicide. Even the infamous Melton men come and go quickly. Only the most intrepid amongst them lasts more than three or four seasons before his banker’s nerve fails, or he takes a wife, enters Parliament, succeeds to the family estates, or takes his own local hounds. After that, he may return to Melton occasionally, but twenty minutes of a clipping run is all the hunt he wants by then.”

  “But you are speaking once again of the general breed,” she objected. “I have been told that one finds three hundred men or more in a field with the Quorn and at least half that many with the Cottesmore. The Wyvern is not so big, surely?”

  “No, of course not. I have my pack out for my own pleasure and that of my particular friends, but that does not mean for a moment that riding with the Wyvern would be suitable for a woman. The runs are by far too dangerous and the pace too fast. I do not wish to alienate your friendship, however,” he added, smiling again, “or to give you cause to compare me unfavorably with the duke, so if the idea finds favor, I shall undertake to promise that if my sisters should honor Wyvern Towers with their presence at Christmas as I believe they intend to do, I shall arrange a hunt for your pleasure and theirs as well. Will that satisfy you, ma’am?”