It was him. I wasn’t dreaming. He had rescued me, just like in those dreams I had, but his eyes weren’t filled with tender concern and he wasn’t murmuring soothing words. He was glaring at me angrily, like I was to blame for what had happened. I hadn’t seen him since that day in the gardens, but I knew him at once, of course. Who could mistake that sullen, foxlike face, those wicked eyebrows, those glowing brown eyes? He was very tall, at least a foot taller than I, and I was far from short, and though still thin as a whip he no longer looked like a beanpole. He’d filled out, lean now instead of skinny, his body well-muscled and suggesting tightly coiled strength. He was wearing high black knee boots, but they were neither muddy nor scuffed, and while his snug gray breeches and the loosely fitting white linen shirt were hardly elegant, they were clean and smelled of soap, not stables. The shirt was tucked carelessly into the waistband of his breeches and open at the throat, the full sleeves gathered at the wrist.
“You all right?” he asked harshly.
“I—I don’t know—”
“Did you hurt yourself?” he demanded.
“The dogs—”
“I sent them home. You seem to have fainted.”
“I did not faint!” I snapped.
“No?”
He was still holding my arm. I pulled it free. “I merely tripped,” I said tartly. “I’m not one of those stupid girls who’re always swoonin’. Can’t stand that type.”
“Neither can I,” he confided. “When you—uh—tripped, did you hurt yourself?”
“Of course not,” I said, and then I put weight on my right foot and winced at the pain, almost crying out.
Hugh Bradford saw the wince and frowned. “Your ankle?” he asked.
“It’s all right. It’s none of your concern!”
“Better let me look at it,” he said sternly.
Before I could stop him he had dropped down on one knee and was reaching for my foot. He raised it up and took it in his hand and I tilted forward, wobbling dangerously. I had to rest my hands on his broad shoulders to keep from falling, and I could feel bone and muscle and warm flesh beneath the cloth of his shirt. I stared at the top of his head and saw how thick and black his hair was, black as a raven’s wing and smelling almost as nice as the new-mown hay, only different. He flexed my foot. I let out a shriek that must have been heard all the way in the village. Hugh Bradford put my foot back down and stood up, taking hold of both my arms as he did so, holding me steady.
“No real damage done,” he curtly informed me. “More than likely it’s just a light sprain.”
“It hurts like hell!”
“That’s what you get for trespassing.”
“I wasn’t trespassing!” I said hotly.
“This happens to be Meredith property.”
“Big bleedin’ deal! You think I was going to steal it? That why you turned the dogs loose on me?”
“I didn’t,” he said. “We were on our way back from one of the tenant farms and they saw you and bounded away before I could stop them.”
“In another minute I’d’ve been mincemeat!”
“They never bite unless I tell them to, just growl and hold intruders at bay.”
“I might have died of fright!”
“Big brave girl like you? I doubt it.”
“Let go of my arms!” I demanded.
He did. I toppled immediately, landing with a thud smack on my backside. Hugh Bradford chuckled, looming there above me tall as a tree, and I longed for a pistol so I could blow his bleedin’ brains out. I made no effort to get up. Angry tears brimmed over my lashes, and I was afraid I might start sobbing any second now. I gnawed on my lower lip and blinked away the tears, and he stepped back a few paces, thrusting his hands into his pockets and examining me with his head tilted to one side. Silhouetted against the clear blue sky from my vantage point, he was a detestable sight. My rump was sore as could be from the fall and I longed to rub it, but I was a young lady and rubbing one’s rump in the presence of someone else was definitely declasse. To hell with it! I pulled up my knees and shifted position and rubbed it anyway, wishing it weren’t so honey and flat. Hugh Bradford didn’t bother to avert his eyes. Sod like him wouldn’t. I rubbed briskly and finally eased my bottom back down on the ground and spread my skirts out.
“Feel better now?” he asked.
“Not much,” I snapped. “Why don’t you get back to your stables!”
“I don’t work in the stables any longer. I’ve come up in the world. Now I supervise the tenant farmers and tend to their needs. My father is too old to do it. My cousin is much too noble to soil his hands with any kind of work. So I do it. I’m actually paid wages.”
“Get back to work, then,” I said hatefully.
“And leave you stranded here? My conscience wouldn’t allow me to do that.”
“Sod like you wouldn’t have a conscience!”
He smiled. “Still as cheeky as ever, I see,” he observed. “Still as foul-mouthed, too. Someone ought to wash your mouth out with soap. Folks say that’s very effective.”
“Go to hell!”
His dark brown eyes gleamed with amusement, but somehow, even when he smiled, that lean, tan face still looked grave. Smiling was something he rarely did, I suspected, and I was livid that he smiled now, the smile rueful, resting lightly on his wide, thin lips. He remembered me. He still considered me a child, despite ample evidence to the contrary. I wished I were that cool, patrician young lady in cream silk gown and beplumed bonnet. Then I’d be able to snub him with frosty dignity. Hard to be dignified when you were skinny and gawky and sprawlin’ on your backside among a clump of wild daisies.
“How’s your ankle?” he asked, the smile gone.
“Throbbing,” I said.
“You’d better let me help you get home.”
“I don’t need your help!”
Hugh Bradford scowled. “Don’t be difficult,” he said, impatient now. “I’ve wasted enough time as it is.”
He took two long strides and reached down and took hold of my arms and hauled me to my feet. My bodice twisted, revealing half an inch more of my bosom, and I quickly adjusted it, then brushed a heavy chestnut wave from my cheek. I cautiously put a little weight on my right foot. My ankle throbbed something awful, but it wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle. I could get home if I took it easy. Might hobble a bit, but I could make it all right. I told him I wouldn’t require his help. He merely scowled, caught my wrist and slung my right arm up around his shoulders, curling his left arm tightly around my waist.
“This isn’t necessary,” I protested.
“Shut up!” he ordered.
“You—you’re just as nasty as you were three years ago.”
“Afraid so,” he replied, “and if you give me any more lip I’ll spank you soundly, just like I did then.”
“Sod!”
I didn’t say anything after that, didn’t dare, for I could see he was serious. His left arm was wrapped around my waist like a steel band, holding me up against his side, and he kept a strong grip on my right wrist so I couldn’t move my arm from around his shoulders. He took measured strides, altering his normal walk to accommodate me, and I put most of my weight on my left foot, hobbling carefully when I had to use my right. I felt smothered, crammed so close to him, felt uncomfortable and uneasy, felt something else as well, something I didn’t care to identify. I could feel the strength in his lean, muscular body. I could feel his warmth, smell the smell of him, and it made me all weak and trembly.
We slowly crossed the field and then another and then came to a wooden stile that spanned the low gray stone wall. He informed me that I would never be able to manage it like this and swung me up into his arms and carried me across, did it without effort, as though I weighed nothing at all, and then he set me down and wrapped me against him like before. We continued across another field and then started through the woods. Birds warbled overhead, darting among the leafy branches, and a hare scurried ac
ross our path. The woods smelled of moss and mud and lichen.
I was exhausted when we reached the lane, and my ankle was starting to hurt badly now. Hugh Bradford saw the pained expression on my face and set me down on the grass on the side of the lane. I rested my back against one of the tree trunks and began to rub my ankle. He scowled and tore a piece of bark from a trunk, impatient, sullen, no longer in the least amused. I told him he could go on back to his tenant farms, I could easily make it the rest of the way home without his gallant assistance. He gave me a surly look and propped his shoulders against a tree trunk, twirling the piece of bark in his hand, finally chucking it away.
Wavering rays of pale yellow sunlight slanted through the leafy limbs that met overhead and made a canopy over the lane. A hazy ray touched his face and bathed it with softly diffused light. It was so tan, so lean, so harsh and uncompromising, the mouth wide and thin, lifting slightly at one corner, the dark brown eyes moody, full of bitter reflections. It wasn’t a handsome face, far from it, yet it had plagued my dreams for three years. I found it fascinating and found myself longing to brush that heavy black wave from his brow and rub the ball of my thumb along the firm curve of his lower lip. He was gazing moodily into space, shoulders propped against the tree, hands jammed into his pockets, and I continued to observe him, remembering all that Father had told me. I felt a curious empathy for this tall, sullen man who, at nineteen, had nothing of the boy left about him.
He turned his head to look at me. I quickly averted my eyes, suddenly absorbed in the weave of my lavender skirt. I could feel those eyes on me and was afraid I might blush.
“I hear your father no longer teaches at the school,” he said.
“That’s right. He—he retired a year ago because of his health. He isn’t really ill,” I hastily added, “but—the doctor said he needed to take it easy and the classes were becoming a strain. He—he has lots of time to work on his history now. It keeps him very occupied.”
“He’s a fine man,” Hugh Bradford said.
“Thank you.”
“How’s your ankle?”
“Much better now. Rubbing helped. I’m sure I can walk on it.”
“We’d better not take any chances.”
He helped me up and I put weight on my foot and took a couple of steps and found that I could indeed walk on it, albeit with considerable discomfort. He made me put my arm around his shoulders again and then curled his arm around my waist as before, holding me close, holding me tightly. As we continued on down the lane I was acutely aware of his body next to mine, of that strong arm supporting me. I recalled the dreams and tried to put them out of my mind. He was already a man. He seemed much more mature than his cousin Clinton, who was three years his senior. I was a mere child in his eyes, the same cheeky brat he had spanked in the gardens. I frowned, wishing I were older, wishing I weren’t all tongue-tied and ill at ease. As we passed the rhododendrons Hugh Bradford took a deep breath, finding this all very tiresome.
“How are your stepsisters?” he asked.
“They’re fine,” I said.
“Still unmarried?”
“No one around here is good enough for them. Their great-great-great-grandfather was the Marquis de Valois, you see. My stepmother has ambitions for them. They’re much too beautiful to waste away in a dreary country village like she has.”
“I see.”
“She keeps after Father to move us all to London. Never gives him a minute’s peace. She’s convinced that once we’re in London Janine and Solonge will take it by storm and both nab wealthy, aristocratic husbands.”
“Shouldn’t doubt it,” he said. “What about you? I suppose you want to find yourself a rich husband, too.”
“I’m not interested in husbands!”
“No?”
“I’m going to make something of myself,” I told him. “I don’t need a husband.”
Hugh Bradford didn’t say anything, but his lips curled in a wry smile and I could tell he thought I was a silly, prattling child. That irritated me immensely. The cottage was in sight now, mellow amber stone brushed with shadows from the oak trees, the thatched roof a deep tannish-gray in the sun. The shabby flower beds were in full bloom, a patchwork of violet, blue, purple, pink and pale golden-orange. I pulled away from him when we reached the flagstone walk leading up to the porch. He thrust his hands into his pockets again, slouching as he stood, observing me with indifferent brown eyes.
“You’re too big to be roaming about the countryside alone like that,” he said in a bored voice. “A pretty girl like you could get into bad trouble.”
Pretty? He was mocking me. He must be.
“There are a lot of rogues around these parts nowadays—gypsies and vagrants, thieves and country toughs looking for excitement. You’re lucky it was me who happened upon you today.”
“I can take care of myself,” I said frostily.
“I doubt that. Stay at home, Miss Howard. Read your books. Take up needlepoint. I wouldn’t want your father to have any more worries than he already has.”
I flushed, trying to think of a demolishing reply, and Hugh Bradford looked past me, gazing at the cottage, his brown eyes thoughtful now.
“By the way,” he said, “does Solonge still have that turquoise silk dress?”
I stared at him, horrified, and then I slapped him across the face as hard as I could. He caught my wrist, twisting it, glaring down at me with a murderous expression. I was afraid, really afraid, but I fought valiantly to hide it, wincing as his powerful fingers squeezed my wrist, twisting it even more. A long moment passed, and then he frowned and shook his head and let go of my wrist. Hugh Bradford looked down at me and scowled darkly and finally shook his head again and left. I watched him stride back down the lane, tears in my eyes now. I sobbed and hobbled to the porch and sat down on the steps, hating him fiercely, hating Solonge, too, hating myself as well as the tears spilled down my cheeks.
Chapter Four
Summer seemed endless, each day dragging on, empty of sensation or splendor or spectacle of any kind. It was unusually warm, and I was almost as indolent as Janine, seeing little of Eppie, reading without enthusiasm, filling each lengthy day as best I could and trying not to think of the loathsome Hugh Bradford who had slept with my stepsister. Solonge had probably instigated it, I knew, but somehow it still seemed like … like a betrayal of sorts. I hated him, I really did, and I never wanted to see him again. He was vile, almost as vile as his cousin. I could understand why Lady Meredith detested the sight of him and wouldn’t allow him inside the Hall. Although, according to Eppie, the tenant farms were prospering mightily under his supervision, he still stayed in his old room over the stables. Serves the sod right, I told myself.
Autumn came and the leaves turned and the air grew crisp and the days were shorter but as empty as ever. I did quite a bit of sewing, refurbishing my stepsisters’ winter wardrobes, even sewed some for Marie who be-grudgingly admitted that I was an absolute marvel with needle and thread. I had to alter several of my own things, too, for, wonder of wonders and at long last, I was gradually beginning to fill out in other places besides my bosom. My straight, bony frame was taking on flesh and the flesh was shaping itself into soft, pleasing curves. I was still too tall and far from voluptuous, but at least I no longer felt such a freak. Gazing out the window at the vividly hued leaves, my lap full of sewing, I wondered if I might finally be growing out of “that awkward age” Marie referred to so often. It was certainly high time, I thought wryly.
For Christmas my father gave me a complete set of the works of John Dryden, including those scandalous plays generally kept under lock and key. He said he assumed I knew all about those things anyway and Dryden was a masterful writer, even when pandering to the tastes of Restoration theatergoers. Solonge and Janine got splendid new cloaks, Marie a bottle of very expensive perfume from her native France. Hair newly dyed, face vividly painted as always, she sniffed disdainfully and said she’d have no reason to use i
t here in this dreary outpost. Father merely shrugged, admiring the ivory-handled magnifying glass I had bought for him and wrapped in red paper.
January was very cold, icicles hanging from the eaves, snow covering the ground, and I worried about Father. He seemed to be even thinner now and his cough was much worse. Once, in his study, I saw thin red flecks on his handkerchief after one of his coughing spells, and he hastened to tell me it was nothing, nothing at all. Doctor Crandall had given him a potent new medicine and it was working wonders, he’d be as fit as ever once this cold weather was over. I tried very hard to believe him, but the worry was always there in the back of my mind, niggling away, and I was always bringing a lap rug for his knees and making sure there were plenty of logs on the fire. Father shook his head at my concern and called me his silly pumpkin.
I turned sixteen in February and no one remembered my birthday except Solonge. She gave me a bolt of exquisite sky blue muslin sprigged with tiny violet flowers and tiny green leaves and told me it was time I made myself something really fetching. I was sad that day, not because Father didn’t remember, he was much too busy with his history, but because I was growing older and life seemed to have no direction. Day followed day and nothing happened and I saw nothing ahead but more of the same.
I made the dress and it was fetching indeed, with short puffed sleeves worn off the shoulder, a modestly low neckline, formfitting bodice and full, flaring skirt that belled out over my petticoat. Modeling it in front of the mirror as the March winds roared outside, I was amazed at the transformation I saw in the glass. The tall, slender young lady with the rich, abundant chestnut hair and violet-gray eyes certainly wasn’t beautiful, not even pretty with those high, sculpted cheekbones and that wide mouth, but she bore little resemblance to the skinny, gawky adolescent who was all elbows and legs. My breasts were full, yes, but they no longer seemed terribly out of proportion now that I had filled out elsewhere.
I tied the violet velvet sash around my waist and turned to make sure the ends trailed properly in back, looking over my shoulder into the mirror. Sunlight angling through the window gave my long, wavy hair a luxuriant sheen. I sighed and turned back around, examining the young lady anew. Not the lovely, demure young lady in cream-colored silk and plumed bonnet I had imagined when I was strolling across the fields almost a year ago, but not … not entirely plain either. I wished Hugh Bradford could see me now. Wouldn’t be so quick to treat me like a child. I’d snub him royally, I would, and he would scowl and look at me with those dark brown eyes and they’d be filled with desire and … I made a face at my reflection.
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