It was a telling stroke. “Yes, she does,” he agreed. “But—it ain’t in—”
“Kent!” cried Euphemia, starting to her feet.
Although startled by such vehemence, Buchanan also stood politely. His surprise was heightened as a small boy tore across the breakfast room to halt before Euphemia like a well-trained horse that strains at the bit, yet knows it dare not take one step further.
Euphemia bent to smile into that glowing face and pull the boy into a hug that was crushingly returned. “Welcome home!” she said gaily. Then, detaching his clutch from her skirts, took him by the shoulders and, turning him, added, “Simon, this is my page. Kent, you must make your bow to my brother, Lieutenant Sir Simon Buchanan.”
Utterly astonished, Buchanan responded to the mystifying hint of warning in her eyes and, bestowing his charming smile upon the boy, said, “How do you do, young fella? You’d best take off that scarf. It’s warm in here.”
The grey eyes became huge in the child’s thin, peaked face. Having obediently unwound the scarf from about his neck, he bobbed a nervous bow and retreated a step toward Euphemia’s skirts, the unblinking and awed stare still riveted to Sir Simon.
“Kent has been down in Surrey,” said Euphemia. “Mrs. Craft took him to her son’s farm.”
Baffled, he said, “How, er—nice. Did you like the farm, Kent?”
A nod was his only reply.
“He loves animals,” explained Euphemia, and again the boy nodded.
“Well, that’s splendid.” The wide stare was beginning to disconcert Buchanan and, wondering what in the deuce his sister wanted with a page, and why she should treat him as though he were a long-lost brother, he enquired, “What kind of animals did you find at Mr. Craft’s farm?”
A painful flush spread up the finely boned features until it reached the thick, light hair. Euphemia reached to the sideboard, took up a tablet and a pencil and placed it on the table beside the boy.
Kent wrenched his eyes from Buchanan to look up at her appealingly. She smiled encouragement. “Sir Simon will understand. Show him how clever you are.”
The pleading eyes fell, the lips trembled, but obediently, one thin hand took up the pencil and with painful care printed, “Cow. Dux. Chikens.”
Over that downbent head, Buchanan met his sister’s anxious gaze and, his kind heart touched, said, “By George! Is that a fact? Regular Noah’s Ark! Have you seen the wild beasts at the Exchange?”
The child had proffered his report with his head bowed. At these magical words, however, the eager eyes fairly leapt to search the man’s face. Tears glistened on the long curling lashes, and Buchanan wondered whether that shame had been occasioned by the obvious lack of education or the fact that he was mute.
“Kent? Are you in? Oh! You naughty boy!” Mrs. Craft appeared in the doorway, her plump, usually good-natured face pink with chagrin. “How dare you rush in here and interrupt Miss Buchanan and Sir Simon! I do apologize, Miss. He ran from the hack before I could—” She checked, for the effect of her words had been disastrous. Kent was cowering back, one arm flung up as if to ward off a blow, while panting sounds of terror issued from his white lips.
“The devil!” Buchanan expostulated. “What have you been doing to the poor child, Mia?”
His sister, however, had already dropped to one knee, and was murmuring, “It is quite all right. Do not be frightened. Nobody is going to beat you.”
“Beat him!” exclaimed the distressed housekeeper. “I never had no such thought! Poor little fellow!” She bustled forward to slip an arm about the small, shrinking form and, with motherly caresses and soothing reassurances, led him away.
Buchanan pulled out Euphemia’s chair for her and resumed his own place. Picking up a piece of toast, he demanded, “What the deuce was all that about? I vow, Mia, no sooner is my back turned than you’re at it again! Who is it this time? Some crossing sweep or link boy I shall be required to find a place for? Now dashed if my coffee ain’t cold!”
Despite these grumbles, there was no anger in his face and, undeceived, Euphemia poured out the offending coffee and, refilling his cup, said, “He was a climbing boy and tumbled down the library chimney while I visited my sister at the Rectory. He had no real name apparently, and since I found him in Kent, that seemed as good as any other.”
Taking his cup, he frowned, “A climbing boy. Poor brat! That devilish custom must be stopped. Should have been stopped years since.”
“Indeed it should. How I pray that the men who allow such wicked torture of innocents are reincarnated as just such helpless victims of our ‘civilization’! I wish you might have seen the child, Simon. I was never more shocked. He huddled there in the corner of the fireplace like a living skeleton, covered with soot, and fairly sobbing with terror. But when I made towards him, he fainted dead away.”
“And so you bathed and cared for him, and have taken him under your wing,” he said. But his eyes were approving, for all his teasing words. “What did his master say?”
“A great deal. And Roger, of course, ‘supported’ me by folding his hands and murmuring that the ‘law is the law and one must not interfere with the way of things for all is planned and ordained,’ or some such fustian!”
Buchanan snorted. “Prosy bore! How Mary ever came to wed such a sanctimonious do-noth—” He closed his lips over the rest of that remark, and then grinned, “I’ll wager you took care of friend sweep!”
“I told him I had little doubt but that the boy was stolen, and as my brother-in-law had said, the law is the law and we would send for the Watch at once and have the case investigated. The child’s feet were most horribly burned, and his poor little back badly bruised and cut from beatings, while from the way his bones stuck out one might suppose he’d not eaten for months! It was all I could do not to take my sunshade to that wicked man’s sides! And so I told him!”
“And he fled—incontinent? You should have been with us at the Rhune!”
“Oh, I did not chase him off,” she said demurely. “Rather, I set the dogs on the fellow.”
“What, those two ancient Danes? They can scarce totter about.”
“No, but they do bark and growl so beautifully.” She laughed outright. “The villain turned as white as the child was black, and ran like a hare!”
“How I should love to have seen it! But I’ll lay odds our Roger was most perturbed.”
“Yes. So I apologized, listened attentively to his advice to put the boy in a foundling home, and instead brought him here. That was only ten days before you came home. I sent him down to Surrey hoping we could get some meat on his poor bones, and also because he had become almost doglike in his devotion to me. I’d hoped it would…” She hesitated.
“Enlarge his horizons? Ain’t. He looks at you as if you was the Goddess of the Dawn.” Buchanan’s blue eyes twinkled. “And he’s not the only one. I—”
“I intend to teach him to read and write,” Euphemia interposed hurriedly. “You can see he’s already made progress, and he is so eager to learn. How sad that the poor boy is quite unable to speak.”
“So, what are my orders? A tiger? Good old Ted Ridgley might—”
“No! I have seen Lord Ridgley drive! If you do not object, dear, I mean to keep him here, and perhaps educate him sufficiently that he could train for a valet.”
Buchanan pursed his lips. “Lofty aspirations for a lad without a name.”
Her brows lifted at this, as did her firm chin, but before she could speak, he threw up one hand and conceded, “I surrender! I know that look too well! Unless I mistake it, our Kent is already fated to valet Prinny someday. At the very least!”
* * *
BUCHANAN withdrew his gaze from the wintry scene beyond the carriage windows and his thoughts from the 52nd, and turned to his sister, muffled in her fur-lined pelisse, the hood drawn up even inside the luxurious vehicle. “I beg your pardon? What cannot you like?”
“Kent sitting up there on the box with Nee
ley,” repeated Euphemia. “He must be utterly chilled and is so very frail.”
“Frail? Devil a bit of it! The boy’s all sinewy steel. I vow, Mia, after a day with him at the Exeter Exchange, I thought I’d be obliged to take myself to the nearest surgeon! Even Old Hookey don’t run us that hard! Why, damme if I ever had a chance to get cool, let alone cold! And it was freezing!”
Since her brother had returned from that expedition with Kent’s hand confidently tucked in his, and the pair of them with eyes aglow and cheeks rosy, she was undismayed and said smilingly, “You have worked wonders with him.” She thought, And how we shall miss you when you go back … But pushing that grim spectre away, asked, “How old is he, would you suppose?”
“Who knows? Climbing boys are usually so stunted it would be difficult to hazard a guess. To judge from his size, had he not been working long in the chimneys, he might be six or seven. Otherwise, he could be as old as twelve.” They were silent for a moment, occupied with their thoughts. Then he said, “I’m glad you kept him, Mia. I like the boy. He’s surprisingly mannerly. Have you remarked how he eats? Almost finicking, he is so dainty about it.”
“Yes, and never pushes himself forward, or behaves in a crude way. There is good blood in him, I do believe.”
“I fancy you have tried to question him about his past?”
“Many times. But it is quite hopeless, except—I went to visit Sir Giles Breckenridge in Town. Sir Giles and Deirdre and I fell into a discussion of the war, and I suddenly realized that Kent had wandered off and was staring at the big canvas of the gypsy encampment. You recall it, I’ve no doubt.” Her brother, no art lover, merely wrinkled his brow dubiously, and she went on, “Well, at all events, Kent held my hand very tightly and kept pointing up at the painting. He seemed so agitated, poor mite, I can only think that at one time he may have lived with gypsies.”
“Stolen, beyond doubting,” he nodded soberly. “And they sold him for a climbing boy.” A gust of wind rocked the carriage, and, glancing out at the starkly unclad trees and bleak countryside, he muttered, “Jove, it’s a good thing I decided to leave yesterday! Had we tried to journey next week, I doubt we would have reached Bath in time for Easter! Looks like it is about to snow, drat it!”
He quite expected this observation to trigger a request that Kent be brought inside, which he had begun to think would be justified. To his surprise, however, his sister asked absently, “Where is Dominer?”
“Domino?” He stared at her. “Does Aunt Lucasta plan a masquerade, then? Good lord, I cannot abide such frippery—”
“I said Dominer, silly! The estate.”
“Oh, you mean Hawkhurst’s place. About ten miles this side of Bath.” Curious, he asked, “Why?”
“Have you ever seen it?”
“Papa took me there once, when I was a boy. There was a fete or some such thing. As I recall, it is absolutely magnificent. Everything they say of it.” He frowned and, a chill light dawning in his eyes, asked, “You have not been there, I trust?”
The unfamiliar tone brought her head around to him. “Good gracious, if it is as lovely as you say, I’d think you would want me to see it.”
“I had best not catch you within ten miles of the place!” he growled. “Fellow’s got the worst reputation I ever heard of! Downright shocking!”
“A rake?” Her eyes sparkled, but, noting that his mouth had settled into the grim line that came so seldom to his pleasant countenance despite his personal troubles, she was intrigued and said chidingly, “Now, Simon, I never knew you to be strait-laced. And you must certainly be aware I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself.”
“More than a rake, Mia.”
“A traitor? A-a bluebeard? Oh, pray do not be fusty! Tell me! Has he murdered seven wives and tossed their bodies to the dogs? Or— Good gracious, dearest! I spoke in jest, merely.”
“It is no jest. But I collect I had best tell you what I know of it, before you decide you may rearrange his life for him!” Buchanan’s frown lingered, and, waiting with interest, Euphemia forgot the frigid temperatures and decided that Hawkhurst must be a real scoundrel.
“You will not remember Blanche Spaulding, I fancy,” he began slowly. “Devilish pretty girl. Fair as an angel, with great green eyes, and the softest, sweetest voice you might ever wish to hear. She was the undisputed Toast about … Well, it was when I was still up at Cambridge—must be seven or eight years ago. At all events, every Buck in Town was after her, although she was practically portionless. Why she chose Hawkhurst none of us could understand. Oh, he was popular enough, then, and I’ll admit, a fine sportsman. But never much for looks, and Blanche was not the type to marry a man’s wealth. Still, he wooed and won her and took her to Dominer, and she was seldom in Town after that. A year later, I heard she had presented him with an heir. I’d have thought no more about it, but one night I dined with Timothy van Lindsay—one of your more ardent beaux!” He grinned as Euphemia smiled archly, and went on, “Tim chanced to mention that rumours were rife about the Hawkhursts. Ugly little whispers that he ill-treated her; certainly, he was known to have taken a very highflyer under his protection. I thought it most sad, for Blanche had been such a lovely little creature, but it soon slipped my mind again. The whole thing broke like a mine blast at the time I came home with that fever. I can only think Hawkhurst had become ripe for Bedlam. From what I gather, he had been conducting a running feud with a neighbour, a jolly good chap, Lord Gains, who was used to be one of his oldest friends. One night, Gains rode over to Dominer to demand an accounting. They quarrelled fiercely, and instead of calling the fellow out like a gentleman, Hawkhurst tossed some kind of acid in his face!”
Euphemia gave a gasp. “How despicable!”
“Wasn’t it! Blinded Gains in one eye.”
“Good heavens! They went out, of course?”
“Can’t say…” His brows furrowed thoughtfully. “I never heard of it.”
“Even so, how did this affect your lovely Blanche?”
“From what I heard, when she ventured to reproach her husband for such revolting behaviour, he knocked her down. The poor girl probably thought him quite crazed, for she fled the house that very night, with her child and her maid. It’s said Hawkhurst chased her half across the Continent. Nobody really knows what happened, save that catch her he did, in the south of France. And that very day her chaise went off the road and into the sea.”
Appalled, Euphemia asked, “Was she killed?”
Buchanan nodded glumly. “And her little boy. Hawkhurst came home. He wouldn’t admit it, of course, but everyone knows. The chaise, you see, had been tampered with. The Préfet de Police of the area made it known that he was sure foul play had been done, and they say Hawkhurst got away barely ahead of a mob eager to exact justice for the little lady.”
Euphemia was silent for a moment, her lively imagination recreating the tragic episode. “I can scarce believe,” she muttered, “that such monsters walk the earth. Why, he should have been hanged! Though, were it up to me, I’d have ordered him drawn and quartered, besides! That poor girl … how utterly terrified she must have been for her baby!”
“What vexes me so,” growled Buchanan, “is that no one would help her. Since she died Hawkhurst has become a positively slavering rake, though he never goes near Town, of course. Likely be run out on a rail, did he try it! So now you can see why I will not have you near that place.”
“Yes. Though … we could see the house from a distance, could we not?”
He said a grudging, “I suppose so. It is on a hill, as I recall. Why? Have you an insatiable craving to see what a monster looks like?”
“Heavens—no! But, well, Kent so loves to look through my Guide to the West Country, and he especially admires Dominer. It would be so nice for him to see the actual estate.” She watched Simon’s disapproving frown anxiously. “Is Hawkhurst always in residence? Might he not have gone away for the holidays?”
“Matter of fact, by the o
ddest coincidence, I saw his curricle in Reading last night. Drives fine cattle, I’ll say that for him.”
“Curricle! In this weather? His poor groom!”
“Told you he belongs in Bedlam. Even so, Mia, he owns the land for miles around. I cannot like you to set foot on it!”
“Then I promise not to leave the carriage! Oh, I should so like to see the house, and it would take us only a little way from our road. Please, dear?”
Buchanan argued, fumed, and struggled. And in the end, of course, he pulled on the check string and lowered the window to call to Neeley. Settling back again, his teeth chattering with cold, he muttered a disgusted, “W-W-Women!”
* * *
“OH, BUT the countryside is heavenly!” exclaimed Euphemia, admiring rolling hills that fringed a patchwork of neatly hedged meadows spread out below them. “How unjust that so evil a man should own it all.”
Buchanan, his cheek pressed against the window, said, “And more unjust that we are followed! If it is your Bluebeard, my girl…”
“You do not really think so? Heavens! Tell Neeley to turn around!”
“What, on this blasted narrow track, with a sheer drop three feet from the wheels? Devil I will! Besides…” He opened the window and, squinting into the icy air, hurriedly drew back. “Perhaps I was mistaken. He may have turned off, for there is no one in sight now, and—”
There came a sudden thunderous roar. Euphemia’s eyes widened in fright and Neeley’s voice rang out in a shriek. Buchanan glanced to the left, snatched his sister into his arms, then they were flung down as a great shock hit the coach. The breath smashed from her lungs, Euphemia did not even have time to scream …
Papa’s batman had left the tent flap open again, most assuredly he had, for the air was full of dust, and the endless Spanish wind … was … Euphemia opened her eyes. For an instant nothing was clearly distinguishable. Then she saw a light floating above her. She frowned at it in puzzlement, and gradually it resolved itself into a window. But what in the world was the carriage window doing up there…? Her head hurt, and dust was everywhere. It was hard to think, and harder to breathe. But that was not because of the dust. Something was across her throat. She reached up and pulling away an arm, turned to discover Simon, huddled and unconscious beside her, his white face resting on the right-hand windows. With a sob of fear, she remembered. There must have been a landslide—or perhaps a tree had fallen. “Simon!” she choked. Her brother gave no sign of life. Her head throbbing, she struggled to sit up, and the carriage rocked alarmingly. What was it he had said just before the accident? “… a sheer drop three feet from the wheels…” My God! she thought. Are we hanging over the edge? Moving cautiously, she managed to touch his face. It was warm. He was alive still, but perhaps his shoulder was hurt again. She tried to kneel and gave a little gasp of terror as once more the carriage lurched. Why did Neeley not come to help them? Oh, if only Simon had not sent her maids and his valet on ahead of them! And—
Some Brief Folly Page 3
