Miss Fellingham's Rebellion

by Lynn Messina - Miss Fellingham's Rebellion

  She perched in the window of her father’s study to watch for the marquess—discreetly to one side, of course, so her presence wasn’t revealed to persons passing. Deverill arrived not fifteen minutes later, and as soon as she saw the horse she was meant to ride, her resolve began to weaken. It had been so long since she had been bestride and surely their stables in Dorset did not have anything as fine as the chestnut mare that was now occupying the street in front of her town house. Oh, what a beautiful creature.

  Although she knew it wasn’t at all the thing, Catherine opened the door before the marquess even knocked and immediately peered over his shoulder at the impressive specimen.

  If Deverill found this behavior unusual, his greeting gave no indication. “Ah, Miss Fellingham, you look lovely this morning.”

  Catherine barely spared him a glance as she bid him good morning in return. Reconsidering the matter, she thought that perhaps it was best if she did go riding with him. For her scheme to work, she would have to be seen with Deverill, and a morning trot along Rotten Row was the perfect opportunity. Perhaps they would meet some of the marquess’s friends, eligible men who did not find her the veriest quiz.

  “Miss Fellingham, you are not wearing your habit,” Deverill observed, still standing on the step, although Caruthers now loomed in the hallway, waiting to reinstate proper decorum. “Has there been a change of plans?”

  “What?” Forcing herself to look away from the mare, Catherine turned to Deverill and had to concede that he was an impressive specimen, as well, in his white lawn shirt, buckskin breeches and Hessians. “Um, no, there hasn’t,” she said, quickly thinking of a reason for her inappropriate dress. “I merely had not expected you to arrive so early.”

  “We said nine, did we not?” he observed with a wry smile, amused at being upstaged by his own horse.

  “Uh, yes,” she agreed, feeling foolish. “I hadn’t realized it was so late in the morning. Is it really nine already? My, where did the morning go? Please, take a seat in the drawing room while I change into my habit. I really can’t believe it’s already nine.”

  Hearing his cue, Caruthers stepped forward to lead Deverill to the appointed chamber in the appropriate fashion and offered him tea. Catherine tensed at this, imagining her mother coming down for her morning repast and finding the most eligible bachelor of the season comfortably ensconced in her own drawing room sipping tea. Such a development would send her into transports of delight so overwhelming, she might never recover.

  Without waiting to hear Deverill’s response, Catherine ran up the stairs, into her room and opened her wardrobe to look for her riding habit, which she had not worn since coming to London. Determined not to tarry a second longer than necessary, for she had told her mother Deverill was arriving a full hour later to avoid an awkward scene, she tossed several articles carelessly on her bed and groaned in frustration when her habit didn’t magically appear.

  “May I help you, miss?” asked Betsy, observing the ruckus with a patient expression.

  Catherine gratefully sought her assistance in locating her riding habit. She longed to ask Betsy not to mention the episode to Lady Fellingham, but she knew as soon as the maid found the garment, she would run to her mistress to report the marquess’s presence in the house. For this reason, she sought her help in putting on her habit and even requested that the maid retrieve her pelisse for her. By the time Betsy returned to the second floor, she and Deverill would be gone.

  “Thank you, my lord, this is very kind of you,” she admitted graciously a little while later as they entered Hyde Park, a groom following at a discreet distance. “It is my brother Freddy’s dearest wish that we keep a stable in town, but I’m afraid it is simply too impractical to seriously consider.”

  “I thought we agreed on Julian,” he said.

  Surprised, she raised her eyes to his. “Yes, but that was before—” Her speech broke off as soon as she realized what she had been about to say.

  “Before?” he prodded.

  “Nothing, my lord,” she said quietly, appalled by the blunder she had very nearly made. Imagine—revealing her knowledge of his and Lady Courtland’s scheme! Nothing would bring about the end of the game more quickly and, she realized in that instant, she very much wanted it to continue, at least until the end of the morning.

  After examining her silently for a moment, he nodded. “Very well. But I would prefer it if you would call me Julian. Then I could call you Catherine without seeming too forward.”

  The absurdity of this statement made her laugh, for she had never met anyone more forward than he, and she felt some of the tension drain out of her shoulders. “I sincerely doubt, my lord, that you’ve ever worried about seeming too forward.”

  He smiled, perhaps conceding the truth. “And what about you?”

  “Me?” she asked, at once surprised and amused by the notion. “I daresay nobody has ever thought me forward. Indeed, ’twould be very much the opposite.”

  “I doubt that,” he said. “But I meant, do you wish you could keep a stable in London?”

  “Ordinarily I would say no, since I think it’s better not to ride at all if you have to keep to a sedate pace and can’t gallop freely. However, this short ride has demonstrated to me how much I miss being atop a horse, and now I’m wondering if perhaps a little something is not better than nothing at all. You see,” she said with unexpected earnestness, “I’ve always thought the reverse.”

  “A Spartan, Catherine?”

  She examined him carefully to see if he was teasing her, for she felt certain he must be, but nothing in his gaze indicated amusement. Reassured, she said, “No, not really. I have just found that it is far easier to want nothing than to pine for everything.”

  “And what about the things you can’t live without?” He looked at her curiously and waited for her answer.

  “Hmm,” she murmured consideringly, “I very much doubt that there is anything that I can’t live without. Except, perhaps, gooseberry pie. But Cook bakes one for me every Sunday, so I don’t have to pine for that.”

  “Nor shall you pine for a horse,” he declared her regally. “I shall leave word with my groom that my stables are at your disposal. Please make use of Daisy whenever you like.”

  Taken aback by his overwhelming generosity, she stuttered, “R-really, my lord, that…I, um, I am afraid that wouldn’t be proper.”

  “Propriety be damned,” he said forcefully. “And if there is anything else you’re pining for, please let me know. Be assured I would help in any way I can.”

  Catherine stared at him, trying to reconcile this kindness with the cruelties he had uttered about her not two days before. Disturbed, she reminded herself that he was a bored nobleman looking for some game to play. She was naught but a project to him, a project he only took on at the instigation of a friend.

  To save herself from folly, she changed the subject. They’d talked enough about her for one morning. “Lord Deverill, I am going to begin to wonder at your reputation as a flirt if you continue in this solemn vein. Come, let’s talk of something lighter. Do tell me how you got involved with the Elgin Marbles. Some devil’s bargain you made, perhaps?”

  He laughed. “Not at all. My late father was a crony of Elgin’s long before he went into diplomatic service in Greece. Elgin fell on hard times. He was in debt, as you know, and he lost his wife because his damned nose fell off—wretched business, that. I knew my father would have wanted me to help if I could. It wasn’t my idea to sell them to the British government, but I supported it and helped facilitate the transaction.”

  “But the way he acquired them!” she point out emphatically. “How can one not disapprove? For a private citizen who was also a collector to use his position as special ambassador to the Levant is unconscionable. If he hadn’t been there as a representative of the British Crown, the Turks would never have given him permission to dismantle the Parthenon Frieze in the first place.”

  At this charge, which was well
founded and worthy of discussion, Deverill stared at her in amazement. “Remarkable,” he said.

  His gaze was intense, and she immediately began to wonder what she had done wrong. Was there a ridiculous speck of dirt on her nose? Had she grown another head without noticing it? Discomforted by the intensity, she demanded that he tell her what was remarkable.

  “That you know all that,” he explained. “Most of the ladies of my acquaintance know only where the modiste is on Bond Street.”

  “I’m afraid I should get very lost indeed if I tried to find Bond Street, let alone the modiste,” she admitted.

  “Don’t be absurd, Catherine, nobody except the coachmen know where Bond Street is,” he said, making her laugh again. “Come, explain to me how you are so knowledgeable in the news of the day.”

  “It’s no great mystery, my lord. I simply make a practice of reading the dailies, which anyone can do. And I am quite a wretch about it, too,” she confessed, “perusing the paper in the breakfast parlor while the others in my family eat and discuss the modiste on Bond Street.”

  “Ah, a bluestocking,” he said.

  There was a teasing quality to his tone, not a critical one, and she didn’t feel the least bit offended or compelled to defend herself. “I prefer information citizen.”

  He nodded slowly. “Let’s see about that. The corn laws.”

  “Opposed,” she said.

  “Lord Liverpool.”

  “An undynamic prime minister. I am convinced I can do better.”

  “Crop rotation.”

  “An excellent idea and one that I’ve applied to my garden in Dorset. Viscount Townsend is a brilliant agriculturalist.”

  “Remarkable,” he said again.

  “Not really,” she dismissed lightly. “It’s expected that young ladies of my age and breeding know how to read. That’s why our parents employ governesses when we are young.”

  “That is true,” he conceded, “but they very rarely retain information or form opinions on the matters.”

  “Lord Deverill, I once again must express amazement at your reputation as an accomplished flirt,” Catherine said. “Do you subject all ladies to your low opinion of our sex or am I the exception?”

  He turned in his saddle and examined her carefully with his unusual green eyes. “You are, my dear Miss Fellingham, quite the exception.”

  Again he threw off her studied equilibrium with his words and deeds, proving that he was in fact the accomplished flirt he was reputed to be. “And what is your excuse?” she asked, grappling for a topic to keep the conversation going, anything so that he would stop looking at her like that.

  “My excuse?”

  “For being an informed citizen,” she explained. “You will own, I trust, that the male half of society is not quite famous for its knowledge of political matters. Once, during my misspent youth, I attempted to converse with a gentleman—I believe he was an earl—by asking what he thought of the Treaty of the Dardanelles and he replied that the Dardanelles were a lovely couple and he was delighted they had worked out their differences.”

  Deverill laughed, as she hoped he would. “My excuse is very mundane. I’ve taken up my seat in the House of Lords.”

  At this, Catherine looked at him in surprise, for never in all her rhapsodizing over the unrivaled Marquess of Deverill had her sister mentioned an interest in politics. Knowing of it made her think better of him than the loan of any number of sweetgoers ever could. “You are to be congratulated, my lord. I understand from my father that the benches are too hard for the successful completion of any legislative business.”

  “Thank you,” Deverill said with the utmost sincerity, though his eyes gleamed in a way that Catherine found entirely disconcerting. “They say the secret to parliamentary greatness is a stiff upper lip but I think it’s a stiff upper back. If you can learn not to mind a creaky feeling between your shoulder blades, you can impose any number of protective tariffs.”

  “So you were in favor of the corn laws, then?” she asked, her tone only slightly censorious, for she was enjoying herself too much to disapprove fully.

  He flashed her a smile. “You would think so, wouldn’t you, given the deplorable role I played in the Elgin drama. But, in fact, I’m more liberal in my ideas than you would credit. As I said, I helped Lord Elgin out of a sense of obligation to my father, who, it should be noted, would have been appalled by my nay vote on the corn matter. He was a very good man, honest and fair with the tenants and generous and kind to the servants, but rather traditional in his beliefs. I fear my untraditional bent frequently frustrated him.”

  Despite the implied friction between father and son, it was clear from his words that they had rubbed together well. “You still miss him very much,” she observed.

  He shifted his grip on the reins to one hand, turning slightly in his seat, and it seemed to Catherine as if he was about to reach for her with his other. She braced for contact, fearful of how it would affect her and uncertain of what it could mean, but then he straightened his shoulders and looked directly ahead at the bridle path, which was quiet. Only a few other riders were out, mostly grooms taking horses out for some exercise.

  “Perceptivity, my dear Fellingham,” he said softly, “is as rare among the ton as intelligent conversation. I imagine you learned that, as well, during your misspent youth.”

  Catherine had learned nothing of the sort, for she rarely made comments that one could classify as perceptive, and she felt self-conscious now as she wondered if she had put off the marquess with such a personal remark. He had spoken matter-of-factly about his father, and yet she had introduced a note of sentiment. Embarrassed, she looked down at her fingers holding the reins and felt her enjoyment in the morning fade. What she had liked most was the ease of conversation between them, and determined to restore them to solid footing, rather than retreat into her silent shell, she tried to think of harmless subjects to introduce. It could not be that difficult, for Evelyn did it all the time and she made it seem effortless, as if all she had to do was smile for clever nothings to fall from her lips.

  Finally, she settled on the weather. She knew, of course, that it was the most insipid topic possible and the last resort of bores, but that was why it was ideal. She needed to brush up on her light conversational skills if she was going to take this time around.

  “It’s a beautiful day, is it not, my lord?” she asked.

  He gave her a curious, sideways glance before agreeing. “Why, yes, Catherine, it is. The sky is a deep cerulean and the clouds look alarmingly like fluffy, white bunny rabbits. Do you think it will rain tomorrow?”

  Grateful that he took her cue, she responded, “My predictive skills are sadly lacking, but I would venture to guess yes, based on the fact that this is England and it rains frequently here. What think you about the temperature? Shall it grow seasonably warm any day soon?”

  “I should imagine it will grow unseasonably hot just in time for Lady Rivington’s ball,” he returned with a smile. “I can do this endlessly, my dear. I’ve been conversing with débutantes and dowagers for what seems like centuries, although in fact I know the period can only be measured in years, and I am capable of holding any number of extended conversations on the weather or the modiste or the fireworks at Vauxhall Gardens. I’m familiar with all the polite courtesies expected of me and I am happy to follow them if that’s what you’d prefer, but for my part, I’d much rather enjoy your company silently than partake in the insipidness that society would call lively conversation.”

  This speech, which Catherine listened to with growing wonder, unsettled her greatly, for she felt certain that somewhere buried in his words was the highest compliment she had ever been paid. Fearful of her own susceptibility, she reminded herself that he was only following Lady Courtland’s orders.

  Determined not to linger on the uneasy feelings he inspired—determined indeed to ignore them entirely—she looked at the marquess with a bold expression. “My lord, may we run?�
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  “Run, Catherine?”

  She leaned into him as if revealing a great secret. “Gallop,” she said, her eyes focusing on the path ahead. “I know it’s not the thing, but it’s early and so few people are here to disapprove. I feel confident that if the park authorities should take us to task, your consequence will pull us through. Is that very wrong of me?”

  His eyes glowed for a moment, and Catherine was almost frightened by the look he gave her. She began to worry that she had again said something very wrong. Perhaps one did not talk of a marquess’s consequence to a marquess. Her tone had been playful and she had meant no real harm. She was about to apologize when Deverill said, “I should like nothing better. Race you to the end of the path.”

  Catherine pulled in her legs, tightened her grip on the reins and took off in a full gallop after Deverill, who already had a sizable lead, thanks to the advantage of his horse’s long legs. But Catherine was no novice at racing. She and Freddy used to ride hell for leather to the old barn every morning when they were children. She flattened herself against the horse’s mane and talked gently into Daisy’s ear. She had discovered early on that horses were much like people: They wanted only encouragement. “Come on, Daisy, we are so close. Thatta girl.”

  But Catherine didn’t really care if she and Daisy won the race. All that mattered was that she was out here in Hyde Park on this beautiful morning under this deep cerulean sky littered with bunnylike clouds riding this chestnut mare at breakneck speed alongside Julian Haverford, Marquess of Deverill, one of the most sought-after peers of the realm. It might have been the happiest Miss Catherine Fellingham had ever been.

  She arrived at the finish line a few seconds after Deverill. He, too, was out of breath—and smiling.

  “Jolly good,” he said when he was no longer quite so winded. “I have never seen Daisy move so quickly. I must admit, at the onset, I meant to do the gallant and ease up a bit so that you would feel as though it were a close race. But that, my dear, was genuinely a close race. Indeed, I’ve never pushed Gale so hard in the city before.”