Eppie sat up straight and gave me a sharp nudge, suddenly atremble with excitement. Startled out of my reverie, I looked up, frowning. Eppie nudged me again and pointed. To the right of the square a road led into the village, circling the square before turning into High Street. A man on a powerfully built chestnut stallion was slowly approaching the square. The horse’s sleek coat gleamed. The man in the saddle exuded virility and a casual, lazy confidence. Sunlight burnished his thick blond hair.
“It’s him!” Eppie whispered. “It’s Clinton Meredith!”
I had to admit that his appearance was a remarkable event indeed. The Merediths eschewed the village, almost never coming here, sending a servant if they required anything from one of the shops. Constantly gossiped about but rarely seen, the Merediths held themselves aloof. Seeing Clinton Meredith in the village was like seeing a Royal Prince consorting with the commoners. I hadn’t laid eyes on him since that afternoon I had climbed over the wall and seen him wooing the beautiful Laura under the rose trellis, and though I was filled with curiosity about his sudden appearance, I refused to show it, assuming a bored, blase expression unlikely to fool anyone.
“I wonder what he’s doing here?” Eppie exclaimed under her breath, too excited to speak in her normal voice.
“Who cares?” I said blithely.
“I’ll bet he’s on the prowl! I’ll bet he got bored at the Hall and decided to come lookin’ for a bit of tail!”
That was very likely, I thought. If all the stories about him were to be believed, Clinton Meredith spent the majority of his time pursuing sexual conquests. When he wasn’t prowling the gambling halls and drawing rooms in London, he was roaming the countryside on his stallion searching for a complaisant wench to assuage his appetite. Handsome as a god, imbued with potent masculine allure, he was rarely refused, rumor had it. Farm girls and the like considered it a privilege to service the dazzling heir, and women like Laura probably offered only token resistance, just enough to maintain a pretense, as she had. Clinton Meredith was one of the golden lads, rich and powerful, heir to a grand estate, spectacularly good-looking as well.
“He’s just back from London,” Eppie confided breathlessly. “There was a frightful scandal—something to do with an older woman, married to a cousin of the King! Janie Yarbro’s mother knows the sister of the cook at Greystone Hall and she gets all the gossip. Came home in disgrace, he did, just two weeks ago. They say the woman tried to kill herself, swallowed a whole bottle of some kind-a drug she’d got from an apothecary. I wonder if—Oh, Angie, he’s goin’ to stop!”
The man on horseback pulled on the reins and slowed the stallion to a walk, eyeing us with lazy interest. He circled the square, rode past the cannon, was momentarily obscured by the frothy blossoms of the apple tree, and then he came to a halt on the road, directly in front of the bench, only a few yards of grass separating us. Eppie caught her breath and flushed a bright pink, her eyes as wide as saucers, it seemed, and though I felt my pulses racing I somehow managed to maintain my bored expression.
“What are you girls doing?” he asked in that honeyed, melodious voice I still remembered so well.
Neither of us replied. Eppie couldn’t have uttered a word if her life depended on it, and I didn’t deign to speak. Clinton Meredith grinned, his full pink mouth curving up at one corner. Beneath the heavy, drooping lids his gray eyes were filled with amusement … and idle speculation as well. He sat casually in the saddle, one hand holding the reins loosely, the other resting on his thigh. He wore shiny brown knee boots, snug tan breeches and a tan frock coat with deep-brown velvet lapels and cuffs. The coat was unbuttoned, revealing a pale-golden satin waistcoat embroidered with brown and tan fleurs-de-lis. Though elegant, the clothes looked as though he had been wearing them a couple of days, and his tan silk neckcloth was definitely rumpled. Somehow this made him all the more attractive, more human. I found it hard to believe a man could be so beautiful, and that he was, as beautiful as any painting and virile as a ram.
“Cat got your tongues?” he inquired.
“Any fool could see we’re taking the sun,” I said. “We’re minding our own business. I suggest you mind yours.”
Eppie gasped at my boldness. Clinton Meredith grinned again.
“You’re a cheeky one, aren’t you? What’s your name, wench?”
“None of your bleedin’ business, and I’m not a ‘wench.’ Why don’t you just sod off.”
“Hostile, too. I don’t often encounter hostility from one of the village lasses. Most of them are more than eager to be amiable to the heir of Greystone Hall. That’s who I am, you know.”
“I know,” I said dryly.
“You’re not impressed?”
“Not a bleedin’ bit.”
Clinton Meredith turned his attention to Eppie, his handsome face suddenly stern. “You!” he snapped harshly. “What’s your name?”
“Ep—Ep—Ep-pie Dawson,” she stammered.
“What’s hers?”
“An—Angie Howard.”
Those seductive gray eyes met mine again. Having provided the information he wanted, Eppie had ceased to exist. I found it difficult to control my breathing, for, defiant manner aside, I was really quite intimidated and amazed at my own cheek. I knew what he was up to, all right, knew what he wanted, and it frightened me. Glorious he might be, but he was still a man on the prowl, looking for a lay. He must be hard up indeed to pick on someone plain as me, I thought. Must be my bosom.
“Well, Angie,” he purred, “I must say, I find you quite challenging. Did anyone ever tell you you have gorgeous brown hair?”
“Not bloody likely!”
“Rich and thick and shiny as silk, it is. You’ve got a very provocative mouth as well.”
“Save your breath,” I told him. “I’m not interested.”
“No?” He arched one brow.
“Not in the least.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“Conceited, aren’t you? And superior and arrogant and—and a despoiler of innocent girls.”
He smiled at that. Couldn’t blame him. It sounded like something out of one of the novels I’d read, but it was true nevertheless. Nothing a man like Clinton Meredith liked better than popping a cherry, and he wasn’t going to get anywhere near mine. He was handsome, sure, like a Prince out of a storybook, but that didn’t mean a thing to me. Neither did the fact he was a bleedin’ aristocrat. I was as good as he was any day of the week, I told myself, and I wasn’t about to cower and curtsy like most of ’em did when he deigned to notice ’em.
“You’re innocent, are you?” he crooned.
“I know what’s what.”
“I’ll bet you do at that.”
He gazed at me, eyes amused, a smile curving on his full mouth, and I returned his gaze with cool hauteur, wishing my breasts weren’t so large, wishing they weren’t about to pop out of this old lavender dress I should have altered a long time ago. My bravado was about to give out and I was afraid I might start trembling, might let him see how uneasy I really was. Clinton Meredith continued to look at me, and I could feel the color tinting my cheeks despite all my efforts to prevent it. After what seemed an eternity he sat up straight in the saddle and thrust his feet more firmly into the stirrups.
“Sure you don’t want to play?” he inquired.
“Quite sure,” I retorted.
“Don’t know what you’re missing,” he said.
“A case of the pox, probably.”
“You’ve got quite a mouth on you, Angie Howard. Don’t know that I’ve ever met a cheekier lass.”
“Go sod yourself!”
Eppie almost went into convulsions beside me. Clinton Meredith gave me a mock-polite nod, eyelids drooping, a half-smile playing on his mouth. He sat there in the sunshine on his powerful stallion, one of the Lords of the Earth amused by a saucy village brat who ordinarily would have been beneath his notice. I despised him, despised everything he stood for, and as those smoky
gray eyes looked into mine he must have sensed what I felt. His manner changed. He frowned, a deep furrow above the bridge of his nose. Cold as ice he became, aloof and superior, but that couldn’t conceal his anger. Men like Clinton Meredith weren’t used to being bested by their inferiors. Didn’t sit well with him. Didn’t sit well at all.
He looked at me for a long time, seething, and finally he pressed his lips together and jerked the reins and turned the horse around, riding off the way he had come. Eppie gripped my hand so tightly I thought my fingers would snap. She still wasn’t able to speak, wasn’t able to manage it until he was completely out of sight, and then she had to take a deep breath before she could control her voice.
“I thought I was goin’ to die!” she exclaimed.
“Whatever for?” I asked coolly.
“The things you said to ’im! Never knew you had so much brass. Me, I was shakin’ like a leaf the whole time.”
I stood up and casually brushed my skirt and she popped up, too, enormous brown eyes sparkling with excitement. A gentle spring breeze caused the apple blossoms to rustle, a few delicate pink-white scraps falling slowly to the grass. I wasn’t nearly as calm as I pretended to be, but Eppie wouldn’t ever know how shaken I was. I had my pride to maintain.
“He wanted you!” she cried as we started back down High Street.
“Why don’t you talk a little louder, Eppie. I don’t think the butcher heard you.”
“I told you you had something,” she continued. “You may not be beautiful, but Clinton Meredith was sure ready to pleasure you—and I hear he does it good.”
“He’s had a lot of practice.”
“And you cool as could be—and cheeky! I’d never have the nerve to speak to ’im like that. Isn’t he the handsomest thing you ever set eyes on! If it’d been me he’d wanted I’d’ve leaped at the chance.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
“Sometimes I worry about you, Angie. I really do. I can understand you not bein’ interested in Will Peterson and his kind, you’re too refined for ’em—but Clinton Meredith! I suppose you think he’s not good enough for you either?”
“As a matter of fact, he isn’t,” I replied.
Eppie shook her head and said I was the most bewilderin’ person she’d ever met, she’d never be able to figure me out. We walked past the school, past the greengrocer’s and the bake shop, then Eppie sighed and said she guessed she’d better be gettin’ on home. We parted company, and I left the village, walking slowly down the shady lane. Sunlight seeped through the limbs overhead, dappling the lane with shimmering flecks of gold. I could smell leaf and bark and pungent soil, rich country smells, and I longed to tear off my shoes and run through the woods and feel the wind on my cheeks and be carefree, a child again, climbing trees, gathering mushrooms, getting into mischief, not fifteen and too tall and prey to all the emotions constantly churning inside.
Clinton Meredith had wanted to lay me, me, plain and gawky, not beautiful like my stepsisters, and that frightened me, but … I had to admit that it excited me, too. I was a good girl, a virgin, and I intended to stay that way, but it was exciting to … to think a man found me desirable. Even Clinton Meredith, sod that he was. I could appreciate his good looks, his sensual mouth and those seductive gray eyes under the heavy lids, but he hadn’t stirred a single tremor in my blood, not that way. He was too conceited, too sure of himself by far, and his superior air put me off, but … he had wanted to lay me, said I had gorgeous hair and a provocative mouth. Maybe … maybe one day the right man would find me desirable, too.
With these long legs? With this skinny body and too big breasts and high cheekbones? Not bloody likely, Angie, I told myself. Clinton Meredith was lookin’ for tail and anything with a heart murmur would do, long as he was able to spend himself. Don’t go gettin’ smug. Take a good look at Janine, take a good look at Solonge, then peer into the mirror and see how bloody pleased with yourself you are.
A week passed, two, and I was restless as a kitten, unable to concentrate, unable to take an interest in anything. I snapped at Eppie and we quarreled and made up the next day and then quarreled again. She called me a snooty little bitch and I called her a hateful little slut and vowed never to speak to her again. I performed my chores with lassitude, clumsy as could be, incurring Marie’s wrath when I broke half a dozen dishes. My father kept to his study, scribbling away or just staring into space, and I rarely saw my stepsisters. Janine was napping most of the time, and Solonge was busily occupied with her many suitors. April turned into May, and May was opulent, the air soft and fragrant, the trees all full of sap, flowers luxuriantly abloom. That only made me feel worse. Marie claimed I needed a good strong dose of tonic and said she was glad her girls hadn’t gone through such an awkward stage.
Each day seemed to stretch out, endlessly long, woefully empty, each marked by that feeling of suspension. I felt I was waiting for something, but what? I had no idea. If the days were bad, the nights were worse. I tossed and turned in my bed up there under the eaves, windows opened to let in the soft night air and the hooting of owls. My body seemed to ache for no reason, “growing pains,” Marie called them, and despite what I had told Eppie I did think about it. I thought about it a lot, and the man was always tall and thin with a dark complexion, moody brown eyes, unruly black hair, like Hugh Bradford. Sometimes I was in danger and he rescued me and then held me close and stroked my hair and murmured comforting words and I felt secure and happy in his arms and drifted to sleep with a smile on my lips, and sometimes he was dressed in black and wore a black silk scarf over his lower face and he wasn’t gentle at all and I thrashed about restlessly on the bed and tried to think of something else and the dreams that followed were vivid and tense and exhausting.
I made up with Eppie, of course, and we took walks or wandered around the village, but I couldn’t talk to her about all the things that bothered me, knowing full well she wouldn’t understand, and I found her lively chatter irritating. Eppie was one of the lucky ones, simple and uncomplicated, a stranger to the doubts and fears and dramatic moods that plagued my days. Most of the time I preferred to be alone. Then I could be blithe and carefree or tragically sad according to mood, never knowing in advance which it would be. I was like an actress playing a role, but the role was always entirely real to me, and, in a perverse way, I almost enjoyed being sad, just as I enjoyed racing through the woods like a colt, elated by the sheer joy of being alive.
May was halfway over as I wandered across the fields one Monday afternoon under a clear blue sky that seemed to arch into eternity. I was wearing the old lavender dress again, the full skirt fluttering in the breeze. I still hadn’t altered it, but I wasn’t likely to encounter anyone and today I didn’t care if my breasts were too big. The sun was warm on my bare arms, and the breeze was laden with the delicious scent of newmown hay and caused silken skeins of hair to blow across my cheeks. I strolled aimlessly, and in the distance, beyond a line of trees, I could see Greystone Hall silhouetted against the sky, just the top stories and rooftops visible from here. It seemed another lifetime ago that I had climbed over the wall and scrambled along the tree limb to spy on the gentry. I was a young lady today, and today I was content to be a young lady, serene and demure, a role I rarely played.
I wasn’t wearing the old lavender dress that was too small for me. I was wearing something much finer, cream-colored silk with a dark blue velvet sash, and I had on a wide-brimmed cream-colored hat with a blue ribbon and a long blue plume that draped over one side. I was the beautiful Lady Angela and spoke in a flat, tony voice without a trace of country accent. I was on my way to tea and I would chat pleasantly with all the attractive gents while I poured from a silver pot and they would all be charmed by my wit and poise. I wasn’t fifteen. I was twenty, maybe, maybe twenty-two, all grown up, without a care in the world. The field was dotted with wild daisies, and I stopped to pick some, gathering a handful and holding them up to my face to smell their scent. They were roses
, gorgeous pink roses, given to me by a handsome, courtly young man whose manners were flawless, whose voice was tender, whose eyes were … were brown and moody, whose hair was dark and unruly, who smelled of the stables.
I heard the barking then. I dropped the daisies. I whirled around, paralyzed with fear as I saw the three sleek greyhounds racing across the field toward me, barking fiercely. My throat went dry. My heart started pounding. I cried out as they leaped and lunged, sailing over the ground like shiny gray arrows in the sunlight, nearer and nearer. They were going to tear me to pieces! I closed my eyes tightly, terrified, expecting to feel fangs sinking into my flesh at any moment. The barking grew louder. They were upon me! I trembled, bravely opening my eyes. All three of them were crouching only a few feet away, ready to spring and growling now, fangs bared.
I didn’t move. Neither did they. They crouched there on their haunches, growling savagely, and I felt my knees growing weak and felt my head growing dizzy and knew I was going to faint any second now and when I fell they would leap upon me and rend me to pieces. I took a deep breath. One of the dogs snarled angrily, edging nearer. If I made the slightest movement they … they would kill me and I was too young to die and … and I was going to faint, I was going to fall, I was going to be torn to pieces right here out in the open and Father would never know how much I loved him because I hadn’t told him and … Fuzzy gray clouds seemed to close in on me and I started to reel.
“Stay!”
The voice seemed to come from a great distance, from the end of a tunnel, and I barely heard it over the pounding of my heart. I closed my eyes again and blackness swallowed me and through the blackness I could hear the dogs whining and hear a rough voice thundering orders and then black turned to gray and then to blinding white and my eyelids fluttered and I opened my eyes to see long blades of greenish-tan grass and merry white and gold daisies. My cheek was resting on the ground. My body felt bruised. A strong tan hand seized my arm, jerking me to my feet.
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