by Liz Carlyle
“I am sorry if my appearance offends your delicate sensibilities, ma’am.”
“Delicate? Ha! And your appearance isn’t the half of it! It is your stubbornness. But have we not discussed this time and again?” she asked archly.
“Well, ma’am, you have often discussed it. And I have often listened.”
“And yet you persist?”
Cam smiled. “I can only be grateful that you love me in spite of my faults, Aunt. I am a recalcitrant sort, to be sure.”
Mrs. Belmont exhaled sharply. “Like the devil who spawned you,” she remarked in a low undertone. “That unrepentant wastrel my sister wed! You did not get such ways from our Camden line, to be sure! Honestly! I often despair of your ever making anything of yourself!”
Out of deference to his aunt, Cam forbore to point out that he rather thought he had made something of himself. Aside from the title and estates that fate had bestowed upon him, he had all but tripled the output of his lands, and built a vast fortune out of nothing more than a shrewd mind and a hefty marriage portion.
But Mrs. Belmont was already aware of these successes. Still, they paled in comparison to his failures—foremost among them was his refusal to bend to her iron will. Indeed, his equanimity drove her to distraction. But it was his marked delay in announcing his betrothal that had incurred her flaming wrath of late.
Undoubtedly, Aunt Belmont had caught wind of his new governess. Perhaps she had even learned Helene’s identity. Cam harbored some faint hope that she had not, but discovery was inevitable, and he would deal with it. Even his haughty aunt dared not issue Cam an ultimatum on any topic.
Smoothly, Mrs. Belmont switched tactics. “I collect that your brother is again fixed at Chalcote.” She twitched her skirts irritably. “The rascal had the impudence to offer his assistance in my business at Cheltenham today. I take it he has been sent down from Oxford for good?”
“I fear so, ma’am,” admitted Cam, suddenly wondering what had become of his sibling. “Did Bentley not give you his escort today?”
“Oh, upon my word! What need have Joan and I of a fawning puppy?”
“And did you buy your matched grays, ma’am?” asked Cam conversationally, leaning against the door of her carriage.
“Lord, no! Dawson is either an out-and-out cheat or the most unenlightened judge of horseflesh I have ever had the displeasure of dealing with. Well-matched my eye! Both short in the withers and weak in the hindquarters, but otherwise—hmph!—they matched not at all.” She eyed Cam narrowly. “I fancy Dawson took me for as much of a fool as did young Bentham, but I daresay I’ve set ’em both to rights.”
Cam coughed discreetly into one fist, restraining a choke of laughter. The old woman might be a harridan, but she was far from a fool, a lesson which Bentley must have learned today, probably to his undying regret.
Unexpectedly, Mrs. Belmont assumed a mollifying tone, always a harbinger of danger. “Well, really, Camden, we have seen nothing of you. You shall dine with us tomorrow,” she directed, reaching out to give his damp locks a hesitant pat. “Indeed, you may even bring that scamp Bentley, if you wish.”
Swiftly, he stripped away his filthy glove, then took her hand and kissed it. “Ma’am, I thank you, but I must decline. Pressing business keeps me at Chalcote just now.”
“Does it indeed?” Mrs. Belmont’s next words confirmed his suspicions. “By the by, I am given to understand you have a new servant at Chalcote,” she said leaning a little farther from the depths of her carriage.
“Not a servant, ma’am,” Cam gently corrected. “A special sort of teacher who has come from the Continent to work with Ariane.”
“Hmph!” said Mrs. Belmont. “You waste your time in more ways than one, Camden! That child is some sort of changeling.”
“Much as it distresses me to risk your good opinion, ma’am,” said Cam in a deceptively quiet voice, “I must insist you have a care with your words. Ariane is your niece. And my daughter.”
Mrs. Belmont drew herself up again. “Is she?” his aunt asked softly. “I vow, I was never sure of it, given that raffish crowd Cassandra kept.”
“Your pardon, ma’am, but I observe that your tact has been exhausted by your journey,” said Cam stiffly, placing his hand upon the carriage door as if to shut it. “Otherwise, I am sure you would never say such a thing. Particularly when servants are about. I fear I must bid you good day.”
With the reluctance of one who has been trumped, Mrs. Belmont stiffly inclined her head. “My apologies,” she said, her expression now carefully veiled. She looked past his shoulder for a moment before returning her sharp, calculating gaze to his. “Of course, you must do your duty by the girl, just as you will do your duty by all of us. Whatever else I may say of you, Camden, you were ever a dutiful son and nephew. I know you will not fail the family in any way.”
“No, ma’am,” he soberly replied. “I shall not.”
As if an unspoken agreement had been reached, his aunt gave a smile of satisfaction, then lifted her hand in a queenly gesture, signaling that their conversation was at an end. “Walk on!” she cried to the coachman. Cam gratefully thumped shut the carriage door.
Helene was pleased to see that, true to Cam’s prediction, the November chill had given way to a bright afternoon sun. By two o’clock, the day was almost warm. Despite her rather pointed admonition to Cam, Helene was perfectly content to spend her afternoons with Ariane, and the pair of them were happily engaged in kicking a ball about in the rear gardens when the butler appeared.
“Good afternoon, Milford,” said Helene, panting ever so slightly as she pushed a lock of hair away from her forehead.
Milford, his face even paler than normal, clutched his hands neatly behind his back and hesitated. “Mr. Lowe has called for you, ma’am,” he said, just as Ariane sent the ball skittering across the grass to Helene.
“Oh, excellent!” said Helene, returning the ball with a swift but misplaced kick, which sent it flying into the topiary garden. “Would you be so obliging as to ask him to join us here?”
Ariane darted into the shrubbery to retrieve the ball. Again, Milford wavered. “Well, ma’am—it is hardly my place to say, but you need to know that the young miss is not fond of visitors. And there are some whom she dislikes a vast deal more than others.”
“What are you saying, Milford?”
“Miss Ariane does not like strangers of any sort.” He cleared his throat uncomfortably. “But it has always been apparent to me that she particularly does not like men. Indeed, she dislikes some of them excessively, including the rector, I am sorry to say. And there is also his young cousin—”
“Miss Rutledge does not like the rector’s cousin?” asked Helene, not entirely sure that she was following Milford.
“The curate, Mr. Rhoades,” he reluctantly explained. “Miss Ariane took quite a dislike to him. And then there is that solicitor from London, Mr. Brightsmith—”
“Miss Rutledge dislikes Mr. Brightsmith?” she interjected. In this, Ariane had Helene’s sympathy.
“Oh, no ma’am!” Milford shook his head. “Pays him no heed! It’s his clerk, young Mr. Kelly. The child throws a fit when he calls. And there is the magistrate who lives near Coln St. Andrews. She bit him once.”
“Bit him?” echoed Helene hollowly. “With her teeth?”
“Oh, indeed! Poor man bent down to chuck her under the chin—as brash, cheerful fellows are wont to do with a pretty child. And she just clamped right down.” Milford made a ghastly face. “Drew blood, too.”
Helene winced at the image. “Well, we cannot very well send our village parson packing, can we, Milford? But neither can we have him bitten. Fetch Martha to play with Miss Rutledge, and show the rector into the yellow parlor. I shall join him there shortly.”
Milford still hesitated. “Well, ma’am, the rector is accompanied by some ... er, young persons.”
“Young persons? Do you mean his children?” Strangely enough, Helene had simply assumed
Thomas Lowe was unwed.
“Oh, no, ma’am!” answered the butler, as if it were obvious. “Mr. Lowe is not yet wed. I believe these particular young persons to be his nieces, aged about six and eight years. I collect that they are making an extended visit to the rectory.”
A low rustle in the shrub nearest her elbow made Helene very keenly aware that Ariane had not reappeared from the hedge with the ball. “Well, Milford,” she said, in a loud voice, “I am excessively fond of Mr. Lowe. And I should like very much to meet these young ladies. Why do you not show them into the conservatory? That way, I shall be able to observe Ariane in the gardens. It will be left to her as to whether or not she chooses to come inside and pay her respects to our guests, or remain outside.”
Milford inclined his head stiffly. “Very good, ma’am.”
Following his aunt’s departure, Cam had returned to his fence with a renewed vigor. It was much later—long after the heat of his wrath had been spent on yet another layer of fieldstone—when Cam realized that, other than a perfunctory greeting, he’d said not a word to his prospective bride, nor she to him. Indeed, the lovely young Joan seemed to shrink ever deeper into the shadows, both literally and figuratively, every time he saw her.
Cam knew that other than his title and wealth, he had little to recommend him, particularly to a girl who was a dozen years younger. He was handsome enough, or so he had been told, but certainly not in the fashionable way, for he was big and dark, not lithe and fair, as was the style. Certainly, he possessed little elegance. His hands were rough and his arms were thickly corded with tendons.
Worse still, he was pensive and studious; some might even say a little dull. Cam’s idea of a splendid evening was to settle by the fire with a bottle of wine, a book of verse, and a fine, fat cat—not dance until dawn with a horde of people he cared nothing about. Perhaps Joan was no longer eager to wed him, if ever she had been. But that hopeful thought brought Cam no comfort. Joan, too, would do her duty. His mind still unsettled by thoughts of Helene, Cam realized he was prodigiously tired, and that the afternoon had grown late.
Now, sprawled beneath a spreading oak tree, Cam was in the middle of a comfortable cose with his field hands, puffing some fine tobacco and enjoying the cool jug of cider which was making the rounds. Across the patch of grass, young Jasper leaned eagerly forward and passed the jug along to the man who sat beside him.
“What di’ye have in your pockets today, m’lord?” asked the boy eagerly, tossing a sidelong glance toward his master. “A book or a verse, mayhap?”
Laying aside his smoldering briarwood pipe, Cam smiled and began rummaging through the pockets of his discarded coat. “Perhaps just a small one,” he admitted, pulling out a slender volume of verse. Then, to a chorus of encouragement, he leafed through the dog-eared pages, ceremoniously cleared his throat, and solemnly began:
“The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd wind slowly o’er the lea,
The plowman homeward plods his weary way—”
“Och! Nae sa fast, m’lord!” interrupted Old Angus, waving a gnarled hand in censure. “That ‘un sounds tae much like wark! I dinna wish to hear aboot some ploddin’ auld plowman when I’m already fair fagged!”
“But I like Thomas Gray,” protested Jasper. “We ain’t listened to that’n in e’er so long!” But after glancing at the tired old Scotsman, the lad shrugged his narrow shoulders. “Oh, I reckon Angus is right, m’lord. ’Tis been a long day. Let’s have some more o’ that lively Byron, aye?”
With a shake of his head, Cam thumbed through the pages again. He had no wish to read Byron, for it made him think of Helene. Finally, he found what he sought. “Ahem!” he announced, looking up at the crowd with a wink and a grin. “In honor of Old Angus’s discerning literary tastes, I give you something which is guaranteed to stir the blood of even the weariest Caledonian!
Scots, wha hae wi’ Wallace bled,
Scots, wham Bruce has aften led,
Welcome to your gory bed,
Or to victorie!
Now’s the day, and now’s the hour;
See the front o’ battle lour;
See approach proud Edward’s power—
Chains and slaverie!
Wha will be a traitor knave?
Wha can fill a coward’s grave?
Wha sae base as be a slave?
Let him turn and flee!”
The rousing poem went on for several stanzas, and as Cam finished, the fellow seated on the ground beside Angus leaned over and punched the old Scot soundly in the shoulder. “Now, take that and hush, ye auld bugger!” he teased in his best Scottish brogue.
“Aye, and I’ll be glad of it!” insisted Angus, in mock indignity. “Tis nae aften I ha’ a fine English lord gi’me Bruce’s March to Bannockburn!”
As the crowd roared with laughter and started the jug around once more, Cam stretched out against the tree, and laid aside the verses. Thumping his now-dead pipe soundly across his boot heel, he watched the ashes skitter across the grass and wondered what Helene was doing at this moment.
He snorted aloud and gave the pipe another whack. Pouring tea for the overbearing parson, most likely. And Lowe would fawn and charm his way into her good graces, just as he did with every woman from eight to eighty. Oh, he was a nice enough fellow, if you liked that sort; overly personable and rather too handsome ...
Would Helene find Lowe handsome? Probably. And as for the rector, any man—of the cloth or otherwise—could not but be enchanted by Helene, had he an ounce of red blood in his veins. And the rector was of an age when men thought seriously of making a match. Indeed, Lowe was always friendly toward Chalcote’s governesses. But then, he was friendly toward everyone.
Nonetheless, with a sick feeling of dread, Cam shoved the old pipe deep into his coat pocket and took up his book. It was time to go home. Time to face Helene’s lovely, daggerlike eyes, and the ensuing mélange of desire and guilt that burned beneath his breast. Thomas Lowe was, in truth, the least of Cam’s problems.
“Why, this is cozy indeed!” announced the rector, waving an expansive hand about the conservatory. He turned his warm countenance upon Helene and strode across the tiled floor, wading through the potted palms and ferns, two pretty, yellow-haired girls at his heels.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Lowe,” said Helene, going swiftly toward him.
“My dear Miss de Severs!” he returned, making a neat bow. “I observe that I have been needlessly worried for your health! Indeed, you are in great good looks, ma’am.”
Helene murmured her thanks as Lowe brought forth his nieces. “Lucy and Lizzie Fane, my sister’s girls,” he declared, as Helene motioned them toward chairs.
Just as Milford had predicted, the young ladies were aged six and eight, respectively, and both possessed of riotous blonde hair and impudent grins. They were dressed alike in a shade of blue muslin which perfectly matched their eyes. Indeed, they greatly resembled their uncle, whom Helene did not doubt had his hands full with two such energetic-looking girls.
The uncle in question settled back into his chair and laid one of those hands gracefully across his knee. “And how is Miss Ariane Rutledge today?” asked Lowe. “Shall we see her at all? I own, my nieces would very much like to make her acquaintance, if, of course, you think it perfectly all right?”
Helene paused to carefully consider the rector’s question. On the surface, it seemed a wonderful idea. But had Ariane any experience with other children? It was not something she and Cam had discussed. Across the expanse of the rear garden, Helene could see Ariane lingering among the shrubbery, desultorily tossing the ball into the air. She would not, Helene was convinced, come into the conservatory, despite the fact that she had almost certainly been eavesdropping on Helene’s conversation with Milford.
After a moment of consideration, Helene decided that having friends was an essential part of growing up, and gave the girls a quick lecture about Ariane’s shyness. The girls nodde
d cheerfully, and Helene escorted them out into the gardens. Ariane looked nervously at Lucy and Lizzie, but she jerked her head in faint acknowledgment when Helene instructed her to share the ball with their guests. Uneasily, Helene returned to the conservatory, determined to keep a close watch.
“In truth, Miss de Severs, how does the child go on?” asked Lowe quietly as she stepped back through the door. “Will it be perfectly all right for the girls to play with her? I would not wish Ariane to suffer any discomfort at our expense.”
“I think all will be well,” murmured Helene, settling into a chair that held an unobstructed view of the lawn. “Let us see how Ariane does. Perhaps they shall become friends.”
Lowe smiled again. “Lucy and Lizzie would be so pleased. I confess, they have been a little bored since coming to the village. And you must know what a challenge bored children can present.” The rector spread his hands wide, a helpless look upon his face.
Helene found herself laughing at the charming, perplexed expression. “The girls have come to stay with you for a time, I understand?”
The smile slipped away. “Yes, but through no happy circumstance, I regret to say. My sister is newly widowed. She and the girls are to make their home with me for a time.”
Helene easily understood the words which were left unsaid. The rector’s sister had undoubtedly been impoverished by her husband’s death. How fortunate she had a brother; one who seemed perfectly willing to take her and her children in. Thomas Lowe rose in Helene’s estimation.
Helene smiled. “I hope that your sister has found friends here?”
The rector smiled a little shyly. “Well, as to that, Miss de Severs, I should very much like her to meet you. Would you do us the honor of taking tea with us Sunday? I hope you don’t find my invitation forward.”
“Not at all,” answered Helene, pleasantly surprised. “I should account it a great pleasure. It must be wonderful to have family living with you.”
