Mistress of the Hunt

by Amanda Scott

  Rochford, accepting a glass of Madeira from Bickerstaff’s tray but declining interest in cakes or sandwiches, had taken a seat on a yellow-satin-covered gilt chair near Philippa’s. He stretched out his long legs before him and sipped from his glass, watching her while she spoke to her stepdaughter. When she caught his look, she smiled ruefully.

  “Ought I not to have sent them away, sir? I didn’t even ask you, but I realize now that you might well have wished for Lucinda to stay.”

  “No, why should I?”

  “Well, because you would not then have to await her convenience when you are ready to take your departure, of course.”

  He grinned at her. “But I should have to endure her conversations instead. I infinitely prefer her absence.”

  She shook her head at him. “Unnatural brother. Her conversation is not precisely stimulating, perhaps—”

  His choke of laughter stopped her. “I beg your pardon,” he said when he could speak again, “but your choice of words was more than my sense of the ridiculous would tolerate. Tell me, ma’am,” he added on a more provocative note, “did you put your cousin up to this Norse-mythology business?”

  Philippa stared at him. “What on earth would put such an idea into your head, sir?”

  “Why, the mention of the Valkyrie, of course,” he murmured, his gray eyes glinting wickedly.

  “I cannot think what you mean,” Philippa said tartly. “I cannot even, at the moment, recall precisely what—”

  He cut in without apology. “Oh, no, fair lady, that will not wash. I may acquit you of intent, but I cannot believe you do not see that some benefit might be drawn by filling my idiotish sister’s head with notions of young virgins, armed most ridiculously with helmets and spears, riding bravely into battle—no doubt upon hunters of the very first quality.”

  Philippa chuckled. “You must indeed acquit me of intent, sir, but I don’t pretend that the idea would never have entered my mind once Cousin Adeliza had begun to describe the Valkyrie. Truly, the notion of entertaining the girls with Norse mythology was hers alone. She is of the opinion that such tales are a good way to introduce young minds to history, and she approves of the Norse myths over those of the Greeks and Romans, because she thinks for some reason that they are more suitable for innocent ears. She will call the Valkyrie young warrior maidens, I do not doubt, not virgins. And now that I bring it to mind, were not the Valkyrie choosers of those who would enter Valhalla, rather than warriors themselves?”

  “Indeed, and they are thought to be responsible for the aurora borealis as well,” said Rochford, clearly enjoying himself. “Their armor supposedly sheds a strange flickering light which flashes from time to time across the northern night skies.” He sipped again, then glanced at his uncle and Miss Pellerin before looking back at Philippa. “Are you quite certain you did not urge her on to tell that tale in order to bring my sister into your quest to join the hunt, ma’am?”

  “I would not do such a thing,” Philippa replied, on her dignity. “I do not scruple to tell you to your head, sir, that I believe you ought to encourage your sister and other ladies of the area to ride with the Wyvern for the excellent reason that such exercise would be good for them. There is no need to encourage them to go beyond the first two or three fields, nor would they wish to do so, but to deny them the pleasure is wrong.”

  He smiled at her. “I apologize if I offended you. Such was never my intention. You will be pleased to know that I have written to assure that both my sisters mean to honor us at Christmas. If they do, I assure you I shall organize a family hunt to which you and Miss Raynard-Wakefield will certainly be invited.”

  “You are kind, sir. Jessalyn adores to ride and will be overjoyed by such an invitation. She is really too young to join in social gatherings, but since it will be a family occasion and since Lucinda will also take part, there can be no objection, I am certain.”

  He smiled again, and she found herself responding warmly. Indeed, he was a kind man and a gentle one. No doubt, all he needed was a certain amount of intelligent coaxing before he would be brought round to seeing matters as clearly as she did herself.

  Accordingly, in the days that followed, Philippa put her feminine wiles to work. Lady Lucinda arrived each morning in her brother’s carriage, accompanied by the young maid who served her, but she was collected nearly every afternoon, after the day’s hunt, by her brother and her uncle, which gave Philippa ample opportunity for her efforts, particularly since Mr. Drake seemed interested in conversing only with Miss Pellerin. Philippa was encouraged by the fact that Rochford made little secret of his liking for her. Though he did not precisely state that he had sown most of his wild oats on the Continent and was now ready to settle down with a wife, she was nearly certain from the omnipresent twinkle in his eyes and his increasing warmth of manner that he would make her an offer before she left Leicestershire. And though she told herself that she would be no more inclined then than she had ever been to accept such an offer from any man, she could not very often bring herself to ignore his flirtation. Likewise, although when it crossed her mind to do so, she made every effort to dampen his pretensions by setting him at a distance, she could not in all honesty say she had made a great effort to discourage him. Still, her fondest hope was that his own wish to please her would best serve her particular purpose in the end.

  Rochford seemed intrigued by her attitude toward him, but she had little doubt that he had rarely encountered difficulty in attracting members of the fair sex. He was certainly handsome, poised, and possessed of undeniable charm, and when he began to increase his efforts, Philippa realized that he had set himself to charm her. No doubt, she told Miss Pellerin when they had entered upon the second week of their new routine, Lord Rochford saw her as something of a challenge to his talents for seduction.

  “I think he is an excellent young man,” said Miss Pellerin, frowning slightly. “I cannot think why you make such odd attempts to keep him at arm’s length, my dear.”

  “Well, I do not think them odd at all, and I intend to go right on as I have begun,” said Philippa, who would have found it difficult by then, if pressed, to give a sensible reason for her behavior. Rochford’s company was by no means repugnant to her. Indeed, she had come to look forward to his visits and to feel prodigious disappointment on those days when he chose to hunt some distance from home and thus did not appear at Chase Charley in time to escort his sister home. Nonetheless, before very long she was certain her goal was in sight, and so she told Miss Pellerin. “I am quite certain, ma’am, that only a perfect ninny would fail to take advantage of the situation as it stands. I daresay if the matter is handled properly, Rochford’s desire to please me will stop him from making any strenuous objection to my joining his hunt.”

  “Oh, my dear, I believe you underestimate the strength of his prejudices in this matter,” said Miss Pellerin with a worried frown. “I cannot believe that he will change his mind just because you ask it of him.”

  “Well, I do not intend to ask him,” Philippa said with studied unconcern. “I have quite decided that I should be much the wiser to present him with a fait accompli.”

  —8—

  DISCOVERING WHEN THE VISCOUNT would next be taking his pack out was not difficult. All Philippa had to do was to inquire of her gamekeeper, Sam Cudlipp, who was responsible for stopping earths—those bolt holes down which a fox might run to ground—for any hunt that wished to cross Raynard-Wakefield land. For this signal service, Cudlipp was paid a tidy sum by each of the shire hunts, and since new earths must be stopped the night before a hunt, Sam would surely know when the Wyvern would next be out.

  Accordingly, the very next morning before breakfast, Philippa and Pottersby rode through the parkland behind the house to the keeper’s cottage, which stood in a narrow hollow of the woodland, overshadowed by a mighty Spanish chestnut tree. The exterior of the cottage was thatched and gabled, with walls three feet thick to keep out the cold of winter and the heat of summer. Su
ch walls, as Philippa had discovered through Wakefield’s conversation, were not solid masonry, but two shells filled up between with rubble and mortar rammed down hard.

  The visitors were met in the cottage yard by two barking retrievers, and within moments a buxom, vivacious, middle-aged woman appeared at the door. Calling to the dogs, who were by then gamboling about Philippa as she slid unaided to the ground from her saddle, the woman bobbed a curtsy. “Good day t’ ye, m’lady.”

  “Good morning, Mrs. Cudlipp.” Handing her reins up to Pottersby, Philippa gathered the train of her habit over her left arm. “Is Cudlipp at home?”

  “He be down t’ the kennels, m’lady, but back in a pair o’ minutes ‘e said. Will ye honor the house, mum?” Then, to Philippa’s astonishment, she added sharply, “Get ye gone now, but mind ’e make yer manners to ’er ladyship!” Mrs. Cudlipp’s words were explained, however, when two small children, a boy and a girl, slipped out from behind her skirts, executed awkward bobs, and ran giggling away with the dogs. Smiling, Philippa accepted her hostess’s invitation to step inside.

  The brick floor of the low-pitched sitting room was a step below the level of the ground, and there was a peculiar but not altogether unpleasant odor that seemed to come from the fire, where roots burned, hissing as sap exuded from them and boiled in the fierce heat. The cottage was exquisitely clean, with not a speck of dust to be seen.

  Mrs. Cudlipp turned to Philippa with smiling, respectful dignity, desirous of pleasing, yet quite at her ease. “Will ye take a cuppa, m’lady?”

  “Thank you,” Philippa said, adding as her eye was attracted to a rug of some beautiful fur lying across the sofa, “Those stripes are familiar, but surely that is not a tigerskin!”

  Mrs. Cudlipp chuckled. “Not hardly, mum. That be catskin, my special, ’n only jest sewed together. It be a-dryin’ now. That be t’ first I done only o’ tabby, though I done one afore that was all black, ’n right handsome it was, too.”

  Fortunately for Philippa’s future standing in that household, Cudlipp chose that moment to push the heavy door open and step inside. Thus she was spared the necessity of forming a polite response, and could turn her attention immediately to the purpose of her visit.

  Sam Cudlipp wore buskins, baggy homespun breeches, and a duffel coat with his dog whistle hanging from a buttonhole and his keys clinking from a ring at his wide leather belt. He would have been a tall man but for a slight stoop acquired in the passage of the years, no doubt as much from the weight of his gun or his game bag as from hours of walking. There was still plenty of power in his long sinewy arms, brown hands, and bull neck, however, and there was intense vital energy in his bright blue eyes as he nodded at his visitor.

  “The bairns come baying that ’er ladyship be in t’ cottage, ’n I seen Jake Pottersby in t’ yard. Welcome, m’lady.” He spoke from the depths of his broad chest, as men will who shout often across the fields and through the copses, and the sound filled the small room. There was solidity in his footsteps as he moved forward, and he met her eye fully and unshirkingly, yet without insolence, putting Philippa forcibly in mind of what men must have been like in feudal days when they all had had an affinity for the woods. There was something, too, in his overwhelming masculinity that reminded her suddenly and disconcertingly of Rochford.

  That straying thought caused her to stumble over her greeting. “G-good day, Cudlipp. I have come to … that is, I must know … Oh, dear.” She shook her head in comic dismay. “My words seem to have got jumbled on my tongue.” Gratefully she accepted a cup of hot, strong peppermint tea from Mrs. Cudlipp just then and sank down upon the sofa, only to start and sit very straight when she realized she had nearly leaned back against the catskin rug. “Oh, this tea is delicious,” she said appreciatively. “I must apologize for appearing to be such a zany.” She looked up at Cudlipp, who still stood rock solid where he had stood since entering the cottage.

  “What be ye wishful of, m’lady?”

  “Why, ’tis the simplest thing,” she said lightly. “I wish only to know when Lord Rochford means to hunt the Wyvern pack over our land. I know he must inform you, Cudlipp, because if he does not ride north, he will almost surely have to ride onto our property, and he will wish you to stop the earths for him.”

  “Aye, ’n see yon drains put to, as well,” the keeper responded. He looked at her searchingly, and for a moment Philippa dreaded that he would ask her why she wished to know and then would refuse to tell her. She was not by any means sure she would be able to come the mistress over the servant with this man. Fortunately, however, Cudlipp made no such demand. It appeared he had merely been thinking. “That be Tuesday next,” he said at last. “We got t’ Quorn on Monday, ’n t’ Cottesmore on Thursday, so it be Wyvern on Tuesday.”

  Philippa allowed a small sigh of relief to escape her. During the next few moments she managed to elicit his opinion with regard to the direction the Wyvern pack was most likely to take, and soon after that she bade her hosts farewell in the yard and allowed Jake Pottersby to fling her into the saddle.

  The morning sun’s warmth had penetrated the parkland by the time they crossed back over the narrow stream, and the damp steam that floated upward from the peaty soil and sodden masses of decaying leaves beneath the horses’ hooves was the reverse of pleasant, but Philippa paid little heed, for her nostrils soon accustomed themselves and her thoughts were busy.

  As they approached the stables, she spoke over her shoulder to Jake Pottersby. “Have you looked about for a suitable hunter or two, Jake?”

  “Aye, mistress, I have and all. Happen there be two nags available from young Lord Ponsonby in Melton. Eh, but they say he’s run off ’is legs and be needful t’ sell off ’s young’uns. Leicestershire born ’n bred, the pair of ’em be. Ain’t reetly seen ’em m’self, but hear tell they be prime bits o’ blood ’n bone.”

  “Then get them for me at once, Jake. If they are so good as that, they won’t be on the market long. Go today, and don’t haggle. Pay whatever the man wants for them if you think them good enough for us.”

  “Sithee, Miss Philippa,” said Pottersby to her back, “be ye meanin’ t’ ride these nags yerself, think on, or be ye purchasin’ ’em fer the young lord?”

  “Don’t be absurd, Jake. I told you before that I want them trained to a lady’s saddle, and I shouldn’t take it upon myself to purchase a hunter for Wakefield, in any event. He would be sure to take a pet. Moreover, did you not say there are already two young horses he’s sent up from Oxford?”

  “Aye, and a pair of fratchin’ cocktails, they be, look how. Still ’n all, ye ride a feather. Happen ye oughtn’t to have more nag than ye can handle.”

  “I want good mounts, Jake, with strength and staying power, and I’ll have none of your nonsense. It will do me no good to have some gentle prad who won’t take a fence standing or any other way. I want to hunt, and I want to be able to stay at the front of the field if I wish to do so. Do you understand me?” She turned to glare at him.

  Pottersby nodded. “Aye, happen I do, think on, ’n I’ll wager t’ old earl’d take on mortal bad an ’e knew what yer gettin’ up to. Bad enow, we got t’ keep our glims peeled fer any mischief young miss might be framin’ to—”

  “What so you mean, Jake? Has Miss Jessalyn been creating ructions in the stables?”

  “Not to say ructions, Miss Philippa. Happen she did come down yesterday, a-saying that she and her young ladyship’d be framin’ t’ ride, but I told her we ain’t got but one lady’s saddle, ’n that’un was yours.”

  Silence fell between them as Philippa gave this new matter some thought, and they had passed into the stableyard before she spoke again. Then, as he was helping her dismount, she said, “Lord Rochford means to invite her to hunt at Christmas, so I think it would be as well if you were to purchase proper ladies’ saddles and two more horses for the stables, Jake, horses with some hunting skills but suitable for Miss Jessalyn and the Lady Lucinda to ride. Try, if you ca
n, to find some with a bit of spirit but small enough for them to handle easily. Jessalyn, at least, is an excellent horsewoman, but I don’t want her on Wakefield’s hunters or either of the two you mean to purchase for me.”

  Jake nodded, and half an hour later, in the breakfast parlor, Philippa informed Jessalyn that she had arranged for her to have her own mount. “But mind, Jess, you are not to ride any of the horses in the stable unless Jake Pottersby says you may, and you are not to go out without a proper groom to attend you, not even if you go with Lucinda.”

  Jessalyn regarded her speculatively for a moment, but she must have realized from Philippa’s firm expression that there would be no coaxing her to let the young ladies ride before Jake had found suitable mounts for them. Fortunately, he was able to do so within very few days, and their first excursion was—as Jessalyn laughingly told Philippa and Miss Pellerin afterward—to the gamekeeper’s cottage to see the catskin rag, for although Philippa had not mentioned the real reason for her visit to the cottage, she had been unable to resist describing the rag.

  Pottersby succeeded in acquiring the two hunters from Lord Ponsonby the afternoon following their discussion, and Philippa spent the following days working with them. She was very pleased with both of them. They had beautiful manners, good soft mouths, powerful shoulders and haunches, and strong, well-formed legs. After an afternoon of larking first with one and then the other, she announced excitedly to Pottersby that they were exactly what she had had in mind.

  “Aye,” he returned morosely, “ ’n better nor like, ye’ll end wi’ a broken neck, m’lady.”

  “Pooh,” she retorted. “Why, Cupid—the bay, you know, for he goes as though he had wings—is so light of foot that he fairly sailed over that double oxer at the end of the north wheatfield. You know, it is not merely a hedge and two rails but a ditch as well, and nearly an in-and-out rather than a mere oxer, but he treated it as though it were nothing. And the black is the best over water I’ve ever seen, though he can be contrary when it comes to hedges, I’ve noticed. With Cupid there is no checking or crashing, just smooth as be-damned—as Wakefield would say.”