by Amanda Scott
Livesey was indeed muttering something, but she could not make out his words. She did hear Rochford’s reply, and the strength of his voice filled her with relief.
“Thought I’d thrown myself clear,” he said, his deep tones carrying easily to her ears despite the increasing murmur of masculine voices behind her. “Landed on my right foot, and my ankle gave way. Then—I don’t know—I must have gone top over tail. My head aches like fury, I do know that.”
“And no wonder,” said the doctor acidly, “with the bump you’ve got forming there. Must have hit a rock, my lord, and ’tis no more than you deserve after overriding the fox as you did and spoiling the chase.”
“Glad to see you ain’t stuck your spoon in the wall, Rochford,” said one of the three other men who had followed them. “Daresay you’ll like to know the black did no more than strain a hock.”
The three men had been talking among themselves while one of them examined the big horse, and Philippa was nearly as conscious of their disapproval as she was of Brummell’s and Alvanley’s, not to mention Rochford’s. It was Alvanley, however, who first put the general opinion into words.
“Wouldn’t be a wonder if he had thtuck his thpoon in the wall, riding neck-or-nothing like he wath,” he said suddenly. “Lady Philippa, whatever were you about to ride into the field like that? You might both have been killed, you know.”
“Nobody was killed,” said the Beau in damping tones, “though Livesey is quite correct in noting that her ladyship’s impetuous behavior ruined a fine run.”
“Much you care for that, Brummell,” said Alvanley, changing line with the quickness for which he was noted and grinning puckishly. “You never ride beyond the first few fieldth anyway. Darethay you’d have drawn up two or three miles back, were it not for her ladyship’s having added a note of piquanth to the adventure.”
The other gentlemen laughed then, and Brummell looked sourly at the young baron, eleven years his junior and already possessed of a reputation nearly as great as his own for quickness of wit. “Thought you meant to hunt with the Quorn today, my lad.”
Alvanley pulled a long face. “Fortunately, I dithcovered Assheton-Smith meant to hunt Charnwood Forest, and one can never thee those dashed great granite stones amongst all the rotting fernth. Only consolation to hunting that ground ith that if you are killed you have your gravestone there beside you.”
The others laughed more heartily than ever, and Brummell, chuckling in spite of himself, said, “Damme, Alvanley, I wish I had said that.”
“Don’t worry, you will,” snapped Rochford wryly from the ground.
“If you have all quite finished,” said Dr. Livesey, brushing impatiently at his pants legs and glaring at the others, who except for the Beau were now slapping their knees in merriment, “I suggest we set about getting his lordship off the ground and into bed, where he belongs.”
“Nonsense,” grumbled Rochford, beginning to sit up. “I can …”
The doctor managed to catch him by the shoulder, thus saving him from cracking his head against the ground as he slumped dizzily backward. “Certainly, my lord, and you will dance the quadrille after dinner as well. Now, if my patient is of a mind to be sensible, surely someone might send for a wagon to convey him to his home.”
“Good gracious,” said Philippa, “it must be all of five miles or more to Wyvern Towers from here. If he has a headache now, I shudder to think how he will feel by the time he has bounced all that way in a farm wagon.”
“Have you a better suggestion, my lady?” asked the doctor. “I confess it will be a sad trial for him. Besides the headache, he is much bruised, and that left ankle is certainly swelling inside his boot.”
“That settles it, then,” Philippa said firmly. “It cannot be but a half-mile or so to my house from here, and although it is uphill, surely these men can carry him that far.”
“ ’Tis as good as done, ma’am,” said one of the three men whom she did not know. “We can use the gate there to carry him on, or two of us can make a chair for him with our hands, you know. Better than to create riot and rumpus by sending for a carriage or any such thing.”
So it was arranged, with everyone but Dr. Livesey and Philippa taking it in turns to make the chair. Even the Beau took his turn, and if the distance proved to be closer to a mile and a half than a half-mile, the men did not complain, except for Rochford, who insisted that he could perfectly well ride a horse if they would only let him. The others, treating the whole business as a lark, informed him that it was best to keep his injured ankle elevated and that he had, moreover, already proved himself incapable of sitting a horse.
“Indeed, my lord,” said the doctor, attempting to soften the effect of these last words, “dizzy as you are, you might well find it difficult to maintain your balance. Moreover, your own mount is lamed. I cannot think you would prefer to ride pillion.”
Rochford said nothing further after that, but Philippa, riding at that moment between Jake and Mr. Brummell, could not think that these proceedings or the accompanying merriment were likely to improve the viscount’s temper. Nor did she think it would be improved when, a half-hour later, having turned her horse over to Jake and given orders that the other mounts should be seen to, she led the cavalcade into the stone hall, only to find Miss Jessalyn Raynard-Wakefield and the Lady Lucinda Drake hanging over the gallery rail in a most unladylike manner to see what was going forward.
“Good gracious!” wailed Lucinda. “What happened to Andrew? Is he badly hurt?”
“Was there an accident?” inquired Jessalyn of nobody in particular.
No one replied to these questions. Instead, the doctor turned to Philippa, raising his eyebrows. “Is it necessary to take him upstairs, my lady?”
“No, indeed, Dr. Livesey. This way, gentlemen.” She led them through the great stair hall, past the service stair, and through the dressing room to the blue damask bedchamber in the southeast corner of the house, overlooking the park. “The bed was made up fresh yesterday. Is there anything else you will require, doctor?”
“Rid me of his merry escort, my lady, and you will be doing me a signal service. Then, if you have a manservant who can help me get him undressed, I would appreciate your sending him along straightaway.”
“Very well, sir.” She went to pull the bell, and the butler entered with magnificent promptitude. “Do you send Stephen Footman to assist the doctor, Bickerstaff, and then see that these gentlemen are provided with refreshment in the yellow drawing room.”
“Yes, my lady. At once, my lady.”
“Don’t go, Philippa.” It was Rochford, speaking from the bed where he had been placed by his escort with exaggerated gentleness and many ribald remarks. The ominous light had not yet faded from his eyes, and Philippa was grateful for the doctor’s prompt intervention.
“Of course she must go, Rochford. Don’t be daft, man. I mean to examine you from top to toe, and you’ll not want her here for that, I’m thinking.”
The viscount glared and seemed about to contradict him when Brummell said gently, “Don’t be a bore, Andrew.”
Rochford looked away then, and Philippa made good her escape as soon as she had directed the other gentlemen into the yellow drawing room, situated immediately to the west of the bedchamber. Leaving them to enjoy whatever refreshment Bickerstaff saw fit to serve them, she hastened upstairs to the morning room, where she found her cousin and the two girls. Even as she spared a prayer of gratitude to whichever almighty being—Greek, Roman, Norse, or English—had stopped Jessalyn and Lucinda from descending to the lower floor, she discovered that it had been no easy task. To judge by the pelter of questions that greeted her entrance to the room, they had been forcibly restrained.
“What happened, ma’am? Cousin Adeliza would not let us go downstairs.”
“Is Andrew badly hurt? Oh, please, will he live, ma’am?”
“Philippa, what on earth are you about, to have brought all those gentlemen into this house? The gir
ls inform me that there are at least a dozen of them racketing about belowstairs.”
Setting her whip down upon the deal table and stripping off her riding gloves, she answered Miss Pellerin first with a rueful smile. “Not quite a dozen, ma’am, though I fear I have truly brought the Fates down upon us this time—or is it the Furies? I never can keep them all straight.”
Miss Pellerin smiled dryly. “I believe you must mean the Furies, my love. I daresay the daughters of the just heavens have less to do with what you’ve brought upon yourself than have the avenging spirits. The Furies concern themselves, as you must know if you will but consider the matter, with retribution. And retribution, I believe, is what you fear at the moment.”
“What are you talking about?” demanded Jessalyn. “Why did they have to carry Lord Rochford into the house, and why was it into this house?”
“Yes, please, and how badly is he hurt?” begged Lucinda, her eyes spilling over with tears.
“Mercy me, Philippa, answer the girl before she floods the place,” said Miss Pellerin with acerbity. “I never saw such a one for watering up.”
“Lucinda, your brother will be perfectly all right,” Philippa said bracingly. “He took a tumble and bumped his head. All the commotion comes about merely because his friends were by to see him do it and cannot resist the opportunity to roast him. Such is the way with gentlemen, as you will learn. They are at this moment making merry in the yellow drawing room, whilst Dr. Livesey attempts to make Rochford comfortable in the blue damask bedchamber.”
“I want to see him,” said Lucinda woefully.
“Not just now,” Philippa told her, wincing at the thought of what Rochford’s reaction must be to his sister’s weeping presence at his bedside. “You will do better to wait until he is feeling more the thing. However,” she added quickly when Lucinda sniffled, about to give way entirely to her tears, “since he will very likely remain here overnight if not longer, I am persuaded he would feel better to know you are under the same roof, so if you will oblige me by writing out a list of what you will require, I will send someone to carry it to Wyvern. We must tell your uncle and your companion what has occurred, after all.”
“But I thought Uncle Archibald had ridden out with them.” said Lucinda on a note of protest, ignoring the reference to the worthy dame whom Rochford had hired to bear her company at Wyvern.
Philippa smiled at her. “He may have done so. Not everyone was at hand when your brother had his accident. We had taken a different direction, so the riders were separated into two groups.”
“How very odd,” said Lucinda. “Was there not but one fox?”
“Yes, well, in any event,” said Philippa hastily when she saw her stepdaughter’s mouth opening to pursue this interesting topic, “you may stay here for as long as Rochford wishes you to do so, Lucinda. Merely instruct your maid to bring the things you will need.”
Bickerstaff entered the morning room just then to inform her that the doctor wished to speak with her.
“Thank you, I shall go down to him.”
“And how many extra covers do you anticipate for dinner, my lady?” asked the butler without a blink.
“Extra covers? Oh, good gracious, I hadn’t thought. Surely not all of them.” Pulling off her hat, she ran a slim hand through the disordered tresses, then shook her head with a rueful grimace. “Tell Cook she must manage, whatever happens, Bickerstaff. I haven’t the slightest intention of inviting any of them to remain, but I shouldn’t wish to wager that we won’t have company nonetheless.”
“No, my lady. If I might venture to say so, his lordship may well desire one or two of the gentlemen to share his meal with him.”
She nodded. “Keep a sharp ear to the ground, Bickerstaff. I shall depend upon you, and upon Mrs. Bickerstaff as well, to see that Cook does not fall into flat despair.”
With that, she hurried down the great stair and was thankful to find the doctor awaiting her in the stair hall. Sounds of revelry came from the drawing room, and she would not have liked to have to seek him out among the others.
“How is he, Doctor?” Her tone sounded anxious, even to her own ears, and she could not be surprised that the doctor felt compelled to speak to her with gentle sympathy.
“He’ll do, my lady,” he said, smiling kindly. “He’s very strong, you know, and if he hadn’t hit his head, I’d have said you might see the back of him and the rest of that lot by suppertime. But he is suffering from concussion, I believe, and if he isn’t already as sore as be-da—that is, as sore as he can be—he will be by morning. I don’t think he’s broken anything, although his shoulder is severely bruised and he may have cracked his clavicle—the collarbone, you know—and his ankle was badly twisted. I’ve left a paper of instructions on the table in the bedchamber for his man, for I know you will send for him. There’s nothing much to be done, barring giving him a drop of laudanum to help him sleep and putting cold compresses to the ankle.” He smiled more broadly. “I doubt you’ll get him to take the laudanum. Not if he knows it, in any event.”
She nodded sagely. “I take your meaning, sir. We’ll see that he gets the rest he needs. How soon will he be up and about?”
“Couple of days should do it. He oughtn’t to ride or to be banged about in a carriage until he can stand and move about without feeling dizzy, though, so if you can contrive to keep him still for two days at least, you will have done him a service.” He coughed delicately behind his hand. “Uh, he has expressed a strong desire to speak with you, by the by, which is why I’ve ordered that lot to stay out of the bedchamber for now. Afterward, you can let them in if you must, but don’t let them stay long. I don’t like concussion.”
Philippa had scarcely heard anything he said after the bit about Rochford’s wanting to speak to her, but she nodded and thanked him for his assistance. The doctor regarded her speculatively for a moment, then said gently, “There truly is no reason to fret, you know, Lady Philippa. He’ll be fit as a fiddle in no time at all, and you may send for me at any hour. My house is the second you come to on the Nottingham Road in Melton. Any of your local lads’ll know where to find me.”
“Yes, of course, Doctor,” Philippa said vaguely. “Won’t you have a glass of Madeira before you go?”
“Don’t mind if I do.”
She watched him enter the drawing room and heard the surge of masculine voices that greeted him, then turned toward the back of the stair hall. A moment later she entered the blue damask bedchamber, hoping she looked more composed than she felt and wondering just how mussed her hair was.
Rochford was propped against a number of pillows. The bedclothes came only to his waist, but he was wearing a gray woolen dressing gown that she recognized as belonging to the late baron. His eyes were closed, but when he opened them as she shut the door behind her, Philippa swallowed uncomfortably and, for some odd reason, remembered her confrontation at Belvoir Castle with Jessalyn. She hadn’t felt like this, she thought unhappily, since before she had married.
Rather than let the silence grow, she said “Dr. Livesey said you wished to speak to me.”
“I do.” He straightened a little, wincing in the process. “I should like to say a good many things to you, my girl.”
She had seen the pain in his expression and experienced a flashing memory of the fear she had felt when she had seen him lying unconscious on the ground. That memory was followed by an increasing sense of guilt. Stepping a little closer to the bed, she said contritely, “I never meant anyone to be hurt, sir. We had become friends, I thought, and I was persuaded that you would not be really angry if I joined your hunt in progress. I meant to depart before the kill, you know, and no one would have thought anything more than that I had ridden in and out for a bit of a lark.”
“You never believed for a moment that I would approve of such an action,” he said so coldly that a chill raced up her spine, causing her to feel instant empathy for any subaltern who had chanced, during the course of Rochford’s milit
ary career, to incur his displeasure.
He waited now for a response, and she felt her dignity deserting her. “I … I was persuaded—”
“You persuaded yourself is what you mean to say, Philippa, and a damned idiotic thing it was to have done,” he said harshly. “Had you truly believed I should not object to such a course, you would, at the very least, have joined us at the meet, not midway through the first run. And certainly you would not have taken flight as you so stupidly did the moment you realized I had seen you.”
“I was frightened,” she said in a small voice that could be controlled only with effort. “You …you looked so fierce.”
“I was angry. I am angry, for a more ill-advised stunt I cannot imagine. You must have mush for brains, madam, or you would know that much yourself. You might have been killed or have brought harm to someone else, for you hadn’t the least notion of what you were doing. Have you even considered what might have happened if the fox had contrived to go to ground in whatever copse you chose for hiding? You’d have had the hounds rioting at least, and God only knows what else would have occurred. As it was, only luck prevented your mount from stumbling when he overran the hounds and headed the fox. Lord, what a mess that was! And riding as you did, without thought for line or obstacle, you might have been blinded in that bullfinch if your horse hadn’t found an opening. I won’t say what you deserve for this day’s work, my girl, but you may count yourself fortunate that I am not your father, for I should not then be satisfied with mere words, I promise you.”
He was not satisfied by so few words as these, of course, and continued in blistering form for some minutes longer, his accusations bleak and pointed, his opinions harsh and cutting. Fighting an overwhelming urge to burst into tears, Philippa listened meekly, having no wish to defend herself. She well knew that little though she liked what she was hearing, she deserved to hear every angry word. Indeed, her own guilt threatened to bring her more pain than any words he might choose to say, even though his temper caused him to say hurtful things, things that exaggerated the truth. Such things, she knew, were but the result of temper. Then, too, how it must gall his pride to know he had failed to take a jump that she had cleared easily.
