An Extraordinary Flirtation

by Maggie MacKeever

  Thoughtfully, he brushed dog hair off his breeches. “Perhaps I’ve been a trifle hasty. Maybe Mannering’s interest has been piqued.”

  Cara flung down the nettle. “You’re as mutton-headed as Ianthe if you think Zoe may bring such a man to heel.”

  Mutton-headed, was he? Exposure to the sunlight, and his unusually short-tempered sister, had not helped Beau’s headache one bit. “I’ll tell you what I think! You’re jealous of your own niece.” Before Cara could recover sufficiently from her astonishment to reply, or box his ears, he set out in search of his valet, and a soothing tisane.

  Cara scowled at her brother’s retreating back, then turned away and wandered farther along the path until she came to the neatly arranged vegetable garden, which lay near the kitchen door. This area, at least, had been tended, most likely by the cook. Potatoes, Jerusalem artichokes, French beans, and spinach and carrots grew in neat rows, the beds bordered by tidy ranks of herbs. Cara knelt down and ran her fingers over slender stalks of barge and lavender, hyssop and rosemary and chervil, parsley and rosemary and sage. Marjoram, which when made into an oil warmed joints that were stiff. Lovage, when fried with a little hog’s lard, encouraged the breaking of a boil. Chamomile, “the doctor,” good for almost every ailment known to man.

  Almost any ailment. Cara spied some lurking fennel, and gave it a good yank. Daisy stopped digging in the garden to plop down beside her mistress and give her cheek a companionable slurp.

  Could she be jealous of Zoe? Cara plunged her fingers into the rich earth. Once it had been she who admirers flocked around like bees to the honey pot. Now any flocking done would be around Norwood’s fortune. His fortune, and all that lovely property. Flocking there would be, Cara knew, for she was hardly a naif. She slapped her fist on the dirt, startling Daisy. “Damn, damn, damn!”

  Only then did Cara become aware that she had an audience, because Widdle cleared his throat. The butler didn’t know what to make of the lady kneeling, cursing, in the garden dirt. Not that he knew what to make of any of this household, except that he didn’t think highly of the quality of their silver plate.

  Energized by the sight of the butler, Daisy leapt up and knocked him down. “Squire Anderley come to see you, Lady Norwood,” Widdle announced from his bed among the herbs. “He said you wouldn’t mind if I brought him into the gardens, but I thought I should ask you first.”

  Cara scrambled hastily to her feet and discouraged Daisy from bathing Widdle’s face. Then she pulled the butler upright, and brushed him free of dirt. “It’s all right, Widdle. Squire Anderley and I are old friends.” Widdle looked uncertain. “You may leave us alone together, you know.”

  Widdle was uncertain. The lady didn’t look happy to see her visitor, and he disliked the expression in the gentleman’s eye. However, it wasn’t Widdle’s place to argue with his employers. Not that the lady was his employer, precisely, but he didn’t think he should argue with her either. Struggling with his indecision, Widdle walked back down the path toward the house.

  Cara studied her visitor, who appeared travel-weary and cross. “Sit!” he snapped. Daisy sank down, panting, at his feet. Cara assumed he had been talking only to the dog. “Business has brought you to town?”

  “Unfinished business.” Paul moved toward her. “I’ve brought your mare with me. I assumed you would wish to ride.”

  “How kind of you.” How presumptuous. Cara took a prudent step backward. “Mortimer told you where we’d gone?”

  Mortimer had not, despite threats, bribes, and all other manner of persuasion. “I am perfectly capable of adding two and two together and arriving at four.” Paul was further irritated to see that Cara’s hands were again grimed and her hair awry. She looked so impossibly lovely that he wanted to shake or kiss her. Since he could do neither, he looked around the garden instead.

  If Norwood House was a prime example of the noble art of picturesque gardening run amok, this place was a horticulturist’s version of the nether regions. “Your gardener would succumb to an apoplexy on the spot.”

  Barrow would be pleased, thought Cara, that Paul had followed her to town. She was uncertain how she felt about the matter herself. “I’ll grant that Beau’s gardens are a somewhat overwhelming task.”

  Daisy reappeared, with her stick. Absently Paul took the thing and flung it. He doubted that the condition of her brother’s gardens, deplorable as they were, had brought Cara here. He doubted also that he would accomplish anything by shaking—or kissing—her.

  Rather, he might accomplish something, but nothing that would advance his suit. “I know you a little too well to stand on ceremony with you. Won’t you tell me what’s amiss?”

  Cara plucked an especially frothy dandelion. She understood that Paul was feeling outmaneuvered, which made him cross and out of charity with her. However, were she to reveal family problems, then Beau would be cross and out of sorts.

  Beau was already cross and out of sorts, and Cara felt in need of a confidante. “You’ve come a considerable distance to become embroiled in our difficulties. I warn you that you’d be better advised to return home.”

  Paul might have grasped her hands, were they not so grubby. He settled for a smile. “What fustian you are talking. You know I consider myself part of your family. What can I do to help?” He looked critically around him. “Perhaps arrange to have some bat guano brought to town?”

  Cara sighed. “If I had some bat guano with me, I’d put it in my niece’s bed. Zoe has been spoilt all her life, and expects admiration from all the world, which for the most part she receives, for she is truly lovely as well as impetuous, spontaneous and gay.” She gave the dandelion an absentminded puff, scattering it to the wind. “Now Zoe has taken a fancy to a gentleman of whom her father can’t approve. At least he couldn’t approve yesterday! I can’t help but wonder if any gentleman will prove worthy enough to satisfy Beau, not that it will make the slightest difference when my niece falls madly and passionately in love.”

  If only Cara would fall madly and passionately in love with him. Paul reached out and plucked a piece of vegetation from her hair, which led Cara to wonder if the squire felt freer in Beau’s wilderness of a garden than he did at Norwood House, and why; and if he would try and kiss her now, and if she wished him to.

  “So there it is!” she said brightly, and stepped away a little farther, lest the squire decide he felt freer than she liked. “My trouble is Zoe, and I don’t see how you can help with that.”

  Zoe sounded like a typical Loversall. Thank God Cara didn’t fit the mold. Surely it wouldn’t be difficult to find the chit a husband if she was the nonpareil that Cara claimed. And then Cara would return to the country where she belonged.

  Before he could comment, footsteps sounded on the gravel path, accompanied by a volley of wild barking, and female voices raised in argument. For all the privacy afforded her in this ruined jungle of a garden, Cara reflected, she might as well have been at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew.

  Zoe tripped into view, looking especially enchanting in a muslin dress with full sleeves and a high neck and a hem of colored ribbon headed by a broad lace border, its low neck filled in with a blond fichu. She eyed Paul with frank interest. “Widdle said you were here with a gentleman, Aunt Cara. Now we know why you didn’t come shopping with us, you sly thing! Barrow picked out the nicest gown for you, not that I would wish to wear purple, but it should do quite nicely for a person of your age. We have come to act as your chaperones, because you know it isn’t proper for you to be out here alone.”

  Zoe knew how to make her presence felt. As well as how to make her aunt feel so ancient that it was miraculous she could get around without a cane. Cara performed introductions, reluctantly.

  “Charmed,” said Paul, insincerely. This young woman was no more charming than an ill-mannered pup. Interpreting his expression as one of admiration—after all, what else could it be?—Zoe went on to entertain him with a description of a dinner dress that was being ma
de for her, with a worked muslin body, half-high, and a sarcenet skirt trimmed with patent net and ribbon disposed in draperies.

  How Paul must dislike this chatter, thought Cara. To have to listen to it served him right. Another time he would perhaps think twice before he burst uninvited in on her. And perhaps he wouldn’t, for he was a man who knew what he wanted and pursued it with assurance. Cara might admire his singleness of purpose more if only it were not directed at herself.

  Daisy bounded into the clearing, tail wagging ecstatically, a snapdragon trailing from her mouth, and one ear turned inside out. Ianthe followed, out of breath. She was even more than usually eye-catching today, wrapped in a bright green and gold Indian shawl that had been made into a dress, its wide border forming the hemline. Around her shoulders was draped a large shawl of muslin worked at the border and ends with embroidery, looped down the back with a ribbon bow. Her hair was pinned up in a large chignon, atop which she had placed a frivolous straw hat.

  Another member of the family, decided Paul. Hopefully the intrepid Barrow had chosen new clothes for her as well. She greeted him with a brief nod before drawing Cara aside.

  “I’m so sorry!” Zoe twitched her skirts fastidiously away from a trailing runner-bean. “I’ve never known my cousin to be so impolite. Not that anyone will scold her for it. Considering how she and Cara are always ringing peals over me, it seems monstrous unjust!”

  Ianthe clutched at Cara’s hand, distracting her from the interesting spectacle of Paul’s expression growing more and more appalled. Ianthe’s own expression was even more than usually anxious. Cara patted her hand. “Has Beau ripped up at you again, Ianthe?”

  “No! Although surely he would, if he found out about it." Ianthe bit her lip. “There is no telling what he might do. Fight a duel, perhaps—or worse!”

  Whatever had put her cousin in such a fidget? “Don’t fret. I won’t tell Beau if you think I shouldn’t. Whatever it is!”

  Ianthe pressed the handkerchief to her reddened nose. “You think I’m being a goose, and perhaps it’s true, but what if I’m not? Aggravating as Beau is, I don’t wish to see him killed. Because of course he would be killed in an affair of honor: you know as well as I that he has no ability whatsoever with weapons of any sort. Oh, I cannot bear it! This was given to me in error.” She thrust a note into Cara’s hand.

  Chapter 7

  “Smitten, that’s what he is!” said Barrow, and tugged the brush through Cara’s hair. Daisy, who had already endured her own brushing, lay sprawled before the fire. “To come all the way to London after you! I told you his affections had become fixed.”

  Lady Norwood was seated at her dressing table, across which marched silver-topped jars and bottles. Barrow stood behind her, watching her mistress in the oval looking glass. “Hunting season is over in the country,” Cara retorted. “Therefore, the squire has followed the spoor to town. A man can hardly ride to hounds if the fox isn’t there.”

  Barrow brandished the hairbrush. “You and your foxes! The squire is a fine man. What if someone else should catch his eye while you’re shilly-shallying, miss?”

  Only to Barrow was Cara still a miss. “Can you be a little less vigorous? Should the squire’s fancy stray, I wouldn’t care a fig.”

  “Poppycock!” retorted Barrow. “You’d care more than a fig if you saw the squire dangling after someone else. You like the attention of the gentlemen every bit as much as your flibbertigibbet of a niece.”

  Cara had already been treated, several times, to Barrow’s opinion of Zoe. The gentlest of the abigail’s comments had been “hell-born babe.” “Gentlemen don’t dangle after me anymore. Or if they do, it’s Norwood’s fortune they want. Just as it’s Norwood’s fortune Paul Anderley wants, and the Norwood property. I don’t know why you refuse to see that for yourself.”

  Barrow saw many things, among them that it was unnatural for a woman to hold property, her mistress being a perfect example, for no sooner had Miss Cara become a widow than she’d begun behaving with pertinacious obstinacy. Although to say the truth, she’d been pig-headed before, but not to this degree. Barrow set down the brush and began to braid the long red-gold hair, muttering dire warnings about being at one’s last prayers and left on the shelf.

  If Cara was praying for anything, it was that Barrow would leave her alone so that she could get on with what must be done. “I’m a widow, remember? I’m already off the shelf. But if it’s on the shelf you’ll have me, I am quite happy there.”

  Barrow didn’t believe a word of it. Her mistress hadn’t been happy for a long time. She tied a neat green ribbon at the end of the thick braid. “Squire Anderley has a decided partiality for you. You’re an ungrateful girl if you don’t appreciate what a singular stroke of good fortune that is.”

  Cara picked up a silver jar, and unscrewed the lid. “A good mount must be serviceably sound as well as good-mannered. Beauty being in the eye of the beholder, those are the qualities at the top of a prospective buyer’s list. And if she turns out to be a kicker, then he must put a red ribbon in her tail.”

  Barrow eyed the ribbon she had just tied, which apparently should have been red. “Take care lest you bungle it, my fine lady! The squire is a prize.”

  “The squire is a man!” Cara retorted in exasperation. “Much like any other, as near as I can see. Enough, Barrow. Leave me in peace.”

  “Hoity-toity!” muttered Barrow, under her breath. Aloud, she suggested various remedies for the headache that had kept her mistress at home.

  “No!” protested Cara. “I don’t want water of white poppies, or a poultice of violets, or to have my temples and forehead anointed with oil of roses and juice of sicklewort! Nor do I wish to endure any more lectures. Do go away, Barrow, and leave me to my bed.”

  Barrow narrowed her eyes. She knew her mistress well. Appearances to the contrary, Lady Norwood had as queer a kick in her gallop as any other Loversall.

  A mere servant, however, could hardly voice her misgivings. Or she could, but it would only put her mistress further out of temper. Wearing a martyred expression, the abigail left the room.

  Blessed silence. Cara put down the little pot she had been holding, and rubbed her temples. Daisy ambled over from the hearth to drop down at her feet. Cara stroked the setter’s silky back with one bare foot.

  Outside, darkness had fallen. Candlelight flickered on the satinwood dressing table, and firelight on the hearth. At this very moment, Beau and Ianthe and Zoe were displaying themselves at Covent Garden during a performance of Macbeth. Cara had pleaded a headache to avoid accompanying them. Beau thought she was sulking. Ianthe thought her very brave. Zoe patently thought of nothing but herself.

  Brave? She was an utter coward. But Ianthe had been correct in predicting Beau would do something dashing and dramatic and foolhardy if he knew his precious daughter had been offered an insult. Cara stared moodily at her reflection, then got up from the bench. Daisy rose also. “No!” said Cara. “You’re not going with me.” Not especially disappointed—it was dark outside—the setter stretched out on the hearth and went back to sleep.

  Cara dressed quickly and simply in one of her old gardening gowns, and for the difficulty of lacing them, left off her stays; twisted up her long braid atop her head and secured it there with pins. Then she wrapped herself in a dark cloak. No one would mistake her long for Zoe, for she was taller and more fully formed, but she should pass briefly in the dark, at least long enough to deliver a crushing rejection, a denunciation of ignoble motives, and a demand that paths should never again cross.

  And if the deception were discovered, then what? Cara didn’t know. Ianthe’s suggestions had been vague on that point. Before she left the room, Cara rearranged her pillows, pulled the coverlet over them, and extinguished the candles. Anyone who checked on her—Cara knew well that Barrow’s suspicions had been aroused—would think that she slept.

  She opened the door and glanced out into the hallway. This was not the first time Cara had
crept out of her brother’s house. His servants would not dare try and stop her, but she wanted no report of her strange behavior to get back to Beau, who might fairly ask where she had gone, and why, after vowing that she wished to stay indoors. Cara made her way unchallenged down the dark back staircase, and almost to the little-used side door. There, however, luck abandoned her, not because she was rusty in the practice of sneaking about, which naturally she was, but because Widdle had taken to keeping a jealous eye on the silver plate, inferior though it might be.

  The butler squealed as if he’d tripped over a ghost, then peered fearfully about, and relaxed to find Daisy nowhere in sight. “I thought you was a housebreaker, my lady!” he gasped.

  “So I see.” Cara eyed the candlestick that the butler held poised above his head. “I’m going out, Widdle. I wish that no one should know about this but ourselves.”

  Widdle lowered the candlestick, which to his knowledgeable eye was of significantly higher value than the silver plate. A person might rightly wonder why he was carrying about a candlestick at such an hour. He suspected the lady did wonder, from the shrewd look she gave him. Tit for tat, as they said. Widdle announced that he would be as quiet as the grave.

  Cara slipped out the side door, and into the street. The night was dark, foggy, and quiet, save for the occasional night-coach and carriage and watchman calling out periodic descriptions of the weather to anyone who hadn’t the eyes to see it for himself. Cara drew her cloak more tightly about her and stayed as close to the houses as she dared.

  A scrawny dog darted out from a dark alleyway, startling her so badly that she almost stumbled. Men’s voices echoed out of the fog. Cara ducked between the buildings as two drunken bucks staggered out of the mist. She should have brought Daisy along for company.

  No, on second thought she shouldn’t have, because Daisy would have been even more skitterish than she was. To bolster her flagging courage, Cara recited a litany of various past Loversalls. Gwyneth, who had run off with Gypsies and dwelt among them in their encampments in the woods, quite happily from all reports. Leda, who had been seduced by a Russian ambassador, went at length to Moscow, and became a favorite of the Tsar. Ariadne, who had consumed young lovers with an appetite that shocked even the members of her own family, among them a shepherd, a strolling musician, and the son of a coppersmith. In comparison, it seemed extremely poor-spirited of Cara to be starting at the merest sound while merely out, unaccompanied on a late-night stroll. Instead of imagining a bogeyman, a true Loversall would go and investigate, for the creature lurking in the shadows might be one’s own True Love.