Regarding him with fond amusement, Yolande said, “I see you still become pure Scots when irked, sir.”
“All Scots are puir!” he asserted.
“Their whisky, at least,” his irreverent granddaughter chuckled, winning an immediate answering grin. “It would seem, Aunt Bella, that Socrates has been partaking of the servants, and Grandpapa’s chef has threatened to leave. You really will have to muzzle him, if—”
“Muzzle him!” exploded the General. “I’d a sight sooner shoot the wretched pest oot o’ hand!”
This, it developed, Mrs. Drummond did understand, for she uttered a shriek and clapped handkerchief to tearless eyes. “Oh! How could you be so—so unkind?” she sobbed. “My d-dear little Socrates! All—all I have left in the … whole, wide world!”
The wiles that worked so well with Lady Louisa did not so much as check the General. “Then,” he said dourly, suddenly becoming punctiliously English, “do you wish your worldly goods to remain intact, madam, I would suggest you confine your pestilent pet to a leash!”
“Cruel!” wept Mrs. Drummond. “Cruel!” And wailing, departed.
“Whisht!” the General erupted as the door closed behind her. “How do you abide that caper wit, Yolande? I’d have thought you could have delayed your visit until one of your brothers could escort you. Or at least, that young scapegrace, Devenish—though I canna abide the boy!”
A frown shadowing Yolande’s eyes, she said, “Papa would have come, save that poor Rosemary is miserably ill with measles and Mama draws so much support from him at such times, you know. As to Aunt Arabella, why, I suppose the poor soul needs to be needed. And I needed a chaperon.”
“At your age?” he snorted, tactlessly. “Gammon! Besides, you’d that fella Garvey to escort you, in addition to the outriders and your abigail. I’d have thought ’twas an ample sufficiency.”
“We met Mr. Garvey quite by accident, sir, and it was indeed good of him to stay with us for the rest of the journey. Although he denied it, I suspect we took him out of his way.”
“Very likely. Young Hamish MacInnes told me he saw the man bowling along north of Kilmarnock, so he canna have stayed long with his retired servant, if indeed there is such a creature. He probably told you he was to visit there purely to set your mind at ease. He seemed a well-bred sort of man, for all he cries friends with that Germanic clod who’ll next usurp the throne.”
Yolande threw up her hands in mock horror. “Heavens! Treason!”
“Fiddlesticks! Well, miss? Well?” He glared ferociously at her, even while thinking how pretty she was, gracefully disposed on the green damask sofa, wearing a morning dress of palest lime muslin, and with her hair arranged into glossy curls, soft about her face. “I suppose I’ll next be forced to play host to your would-be spouse, eh? Chances are he’s hot after you, as usual!”
“Perhaps not, sir,” Yolande answered quietly. “We had a small—er, difference of opinion and Dev seems to have gone off in a huff.”
“Good! You’re well rid of him. He’s no more ready to settle down than Brummel would be to wear Petersham trousers!”
She smiled. “You make it all sound very simple, Grandpapa.”
“Aye. Well, so it is. If ye dinna care for the laddie, ye shouldna wed him. And—if ye do care for him, ye shouldna wed him. Hoot-toot, whar’s the hair-tearing in that?”
Laughing, Yolande reached out her hand to him and, as he came to take it and sit beside her, scolded, “Alain is truly a fine young man, dearest. Why do you so dislike him?”
A frown tugged at his bushy brows. “Partly,” he said softly, “because he is all frivolity and foolishness, and has never stuck to, nor accomplished aught in his ne’er-do-well life.”
“I shall be so bold as to pull caps with you on that score,” she argued in her gentle fashion. “Alain is, and I know this for a fact, a brave and fearless fighter, who stood by Tristram Leith when they were hopelessly outnumbered in Brittany last year. When he was hurt, he endured a great deal of misery with no complaint, so Leith told me. He is full of spirit, and if he has not yet settled down to managing his estates and—and setting up his nursery, why, it is for no worse reason than that I have made him wait so long.”
Watching her narrowly, he said, “Which brings me to my other reason. I collect you must care for him very deeply, lass. And I’ll own I’ve heard a few things of late to his credit. Yet, I’ve a wee suspicion that you have been pushed into this promise because my son and Louisa wish it. And that is an utter folly that I’ll no—” He checked, glancing with irritation at the door as it opened and his stocky little butler entered to announce, “Mr. Devenish, Mr. Tyndale, and Mistress Storm, General.”
Yolande started, and her heart began to pound in a most ridiculous way. “Mistress Storm…?” She turned, gave a gasp, and came instinctively to her feet as she saw the signs of battle on the faces of the two young men.
Standing also, General Drummond welcomed Devenish with cool dignity. Upon being introduced to Tyndale, he stared, frowned, and said, “Tyndale? Strange, I’d not even known of your existence until my granddaughter told me of you. Yet I feel we’ve met before. Gad, but I know we have! Wasn’t it—”
“At the Horse Guards, I believe, sir. Though I was presented to you as—”
“Winters! Major Craig Winters! Right you are!” The General extended his hand. “Heard great things of you, young fella, but never dreamt you was a Tyndale! Don’t use the family name, eh?”
Tyndale smiled, his eyes very empty, and moved to shake hands with Yolande.
Quite bewildered by these disclosures, she said, “Why cousin! I’d not the faintest notion you were in the army.”
“And at Waterloo, m’dear,” said Devenish, coming up jealously to claim her hand and press it to his lips. “I was fairly bowled over when Montclair told me of it. Never heard such wicked deceit!”
Sir Andrew’s sharp glance at the Major surprised a wistfulness in the lean face. “Oho!” he thought. “So that’s the way the land lies!”
Yolande was still striving to recover from the all too familiar lightning bolt that had again struck her the instant Tyndale touched her hand. She said in pretty confusion, “Well, well—never mind that now. How glad I am to see you both! But how naughty of you, firstly to have vanished, and now to come here!”
“You never thought to keep me away?” Devenish grinned, squeezing the hand he still held. “The fact is, Tyndale and I were set upon. Robbed, carried off, and dumped miles from anywhere!”
“By Jove!” fumed the General, his whiskers bristling alarmingly. “Do not just stand there, laddie! Set ye doon. You too, Major. Yolande, never loiter about with your mouth at half-cock! Pour these fellows some cognac! Now, Alain, tell us of it!”
Devenish obliged in his usual exuberant fashion, Tyndale inserting an occasional quiet remark of his own. Listening with indignant incredulity, Sir Andrew variously smothered oaths, snorted his outrage, or applauded the cousins’ resourcefulness. Just as intent, Yolande was soon very pale, her horrified gaze darting from one young gentleman to the other. Devenish was only halfway through his tale, however, when the General suddenly flung up a hand. “Lord! Where is my mind? Devenish—do we not neglect someone?”
Devenish blinked. “Eh? Who?”
“The child!” Tyndale exclaimed in dismay. “By gad! What’s become of her?”
“I be here,” came a scared little voice, and Josie, her eyes huge and fearful, peeped from around the back of a tall wing chair.
“Jupiter, but I forgot her,” cried Devenish. “Come here, elf, and make your curtsy to Miss Yolande Drummond and General Sir Andrew Drummond.”
Trembling with nervousness, Josie crept out and essayed two clumsy curtsies.
“Really, Dev!” Yolande scolded. “You could at least tell us the poor child’s name.”
“Enderby announced her,” he said defensively.
Josie flushed. “I be Josie Storm now,” she piped. “I was Tabby, but Mr. D
ev found me and when I grow up I going to be his—”
“Housekeeper!” Devenish inserted, in the nick of time.
Tyndale chuckled, and a corner of the General’s stern mouth twitched appreciatively.
“Found you?” echoed Yolande, much intrigued. “Dev, whatever have you been about? You’ve never kidnapped the child?”
“’Course he hasn’t!” said Josie scornfully. “I followed Mr. Dev because I don’t want to be sold to no Flash House. He didn’t want me, but he’s going to train me for a abigail if he don’t want me when I be growed.”
Devenish sank his head into his hands. The General gasped. Tyndale turned away, smothering a grin. Yolande, her warm heart touched, stroked the child’s dusky curls and, not deigning to pretend unawareness of such horrors as Flash Houses, said gently, “Poor little girl, what a dreadful time you have had. Are your parents living?”
Kindness was a blessing Josie had known but seldom, and at this, tears blinded her. Dashing them away, she blinked up at this fairy princess of a lady and divulged huskily that she had been stole and didn’t, if you please, know who her parents had been.
“The devil!” muttered Drummond. “You did perfectly right, Devenish. What d’you mean to do with her?”
“I was hoping Yolande or Lady Louisa could advise me, sir.”
Yolande, whose grave regard had not left the child, said, “Did you and Cousin Craig buy her this dress, Dev?”
“Yes,” he answered proudly. “Jolly good—what?”
Yolande shook her head at him in the time-honoured sympathy of a woman for a helpless male, and asked, “Josie, would you really like to be an abigail?”
“I’d like to be a lady, like you.” The child sighed wistfully. “But I’d a sight liefer be an abigail than be sold to some bloody Flash House!”
Tyndale and the General dissolved into mutual mirth. Devenish groaned and clutched his locks. Yolande, her face scarlet, was momentarily struck dumb. Horrified, Josie threw both hands to paling cheeks, and her gaze darted to her god. “Oh,” she wailed, “I said something drefful again! Don’t ye be cross with Josie, now! Don’t ye!”
“Of—of course he will not,” stammered Yolande. “It is only, er—you will soon learn. Dev, excuse me, please. I will hear the rest of your tale later. Come, Josie, we will see what we can do about that—dress.”
She extended one dainty and exquisitely manicured hand. Staring from it to Devenish, Josie demurred, “If you please, ma’am, I’d like to stay with Mr. Dev.”
“Castle Tyndale,” cautioned the General softly, “is no place for a child, Devenish.”
“No, sir,” Devenish agreed. “And what’s more, my elf, you’ll be a sight better off with Miss Drummond than jauntering about the countryside with two rogues like Tyndale and me.” He threw up one hand, silencing the forlorn attempt at a plea. “Do as you’re told! Lord, but I am surer than ever that I should have left you in Cricklade! Which reminds me—Yolande, where is that reptile, Garvey? Still trying to fix his interest with you?”
She frowned. “Oh, never start that again! Mr. Garvey was the essence of courtesy, which is more than could be said for you, Dev! Only see how you have made the child weep! Truly, you should be spanked!”
“Don’t you never cut up stiff with him!” sobbed Josie, turning on her in a flame. “He can make me cry if he wants. He don’t mean it. It’s just—he don’t want me. And why should he? I ain’t got a pretty face, and I’m just—just a nuisance to … to him.…” Her voice broke, and she stood there in choked silence, the tears coursing down her gaunt little face.
With a muffled cry, Yolande pulled the child into her arms. “Of course he wants you! We all want you!” Over Josie’s shoulder, she flashed a fuming glare at the hapless Devenish, then murmured, “Come, dear. We’ll visit the kitchen first, for I’m sure you would like a glass of milk and there may be some cheese tarts left. Then I’ll take you down to see our new filly—should you like that?”
Her woes forgotten, Josie dragged one skinny arm across her eyes, and said eagerly that she would like that very much, adding an anxious, “Providing Mr. Dev do not go off without me.”
Devenish, his own eyes rather inexplicably moist, promised gruffly that he would not desert her.
“All right,” said Josie sunnily, accepting Yolande’s hand. “I’ll go with you, miss. I loves animals. Though I ain’t got the way with ’em like what Mr. Dev has. Did you know,” she went on chattily, “that he’s got the Rat Paws?”
As an amused Tyndale closed the door behind them, Devenish turned to find the General’s fascinated gaze upon his hands.
“Be dashed if I ever noticed it,” said Sir Andrew. “Let us have a look—poor fellow.”
Chapter IX
THE CLOUDS HAD LIGHTENED, but a brisk wind blew Yolande’s pelisse and tumbled her hair as she leaned against the paddock fence, watching Josie romp happily with the two-week old filly. She could scarcely wait to see Devenish and hear the rest of his adventures. From what she had heard, Tyndale had been quite brutally beaten. Her heart turned over as a picture of his pale bruised face came into her mind’s eye. Whatever must he think of England, being so newly arrived and so savagely dealt with? But, he was not newly arrived, of course. He was a major, and had survived the terrible Battle of Waterloo. She thought with a sudden surge of irritation, “Oh, how I wish they had not come here! I wish Dev had not brought Craig!” But in the next breath she was wishing that Devenish would hurry to her.
The child did not look so scared any more, poor mite. And they would soon find some decent clothes for her. That awful dress! How could those two great moonlings have thought it became her? It was at least three sizes too large, and that hideous red-and-white check was downright ghastly! Already Peattie and Sullivan were quarrelling happily over an ell of cambric and several pattern cards, and if she knew those two redoubtable women, their nimble fingers would have fashioned a far more attractive frock for the little girl by morning.
“Here you are, my delight!”
She jumped and, relieved to see that Devenish was alone, reached out both hands in welcome.
Devenish took them strongly and kissed each. “Lord, but I’ve missed you!” he said with unusual fervour. “Are you ready to go home yet?”
“I just arrived, silly boy,” she laughed. “And you have no business to have come!”
Deliberately misinterpreting, he said a blithe, “Oh, I slipped away as soon as I could in good conscience do so. Luckily, Tyndale’s taken your grandfather’s fancy, and they’re jawing like a couple of old campaigners.” His merry eyes slipped past her. “Josie found a friend, I see. Gad! What a fine filly! Who’s the dam? Is she—”
“Never mind the filly, sir,” said Yolande, trying to look stern, while thinking how hopeless a case he was to take it for granted so breezily that they had nothing more important to discuss than that Molly-My-Lass had dropped her foal. The marks of combat were very evident upon his classic countenance and, touching his perfectly straight, slim nose, she murmured, “It never ceases to amaze me that through your many battles you’ve managed to keep this article from being broken.”
“Tactics,” he asserted, seizing her finger and kissing it. “I was born to be a general, but the Horse Guards lacked the sense to snap me up.”
Despite his light manner, she thought he looked tired and said gently, “Poor Dev. What a dreadful time you have had.” And then, teasing him, “Are you quite sure it is not all a hum designed to cover up the fact that you and Craig fought all the way up here?”
“You’re not so far out, at that,” he chuckled, reluctantly relinquishing her hand. “Though not one another. We’ve both—more or less … er, taken vows not to—to come to blows. Ever.” As always when he was in earnest, he stumbled and flushed, and darted a self-conscious glance at her. “Curst n-nuisance, ain’t it?”
“Indeed not! I think it splendid! And splendid that you rescued the child. Did you ride Miss Farthing all the way up here?”
“Oh, no. She and Lazzy grow fat in St. Albans. I fancy we will have a very large reckoning at the posting house.”
Dismayed, she cried, “But—Dev! Your horses were taken from there. Did not you and Craig call for them?”
“Devil we did! What d’you mean—taken?”
“Well—oh, heavens! We all thought— Oh, you never think they were stolen? Craig thinks the world of that queer animal of his, and Miss—”
“That slippery rogue!” raged Devenish. “I’ll call him out, by God! Where is he? Not too far from you, I’ll warrant!”
“What? Who? If you mean Craig—”
“Not Craig, m’dear! Not this time!”
“Then— Dev, do you know who is responsible for these dreadful things?”
“Assuredly! Your gallant, conciliating escort! And as for—”
She stiffened and stepped back a pace. “James … Garvey?” she whispered, staring at him incredulously. “Oh, but … you cannot be serious?”
“Oh, can I not!”
“Then you must be all about in your head! No, really—you allow jealousy to go too far. My aunt and I—”
“Were properly gammoned,” he rasped, flaming with wrath over the loss of his beloved mare.
“I was not ‘gammoned,’ as you so crudely put it,” she declared angrily. “I am truly sorry you were set upon, but since you were last seen in the tap you were probably very well to live, and—”
“Well, if that don’t beat the Dutch! Here I’ve been lured into an ambush, drugged, robbed, tossed into a ditch and left to wander over half England with not so much as a groat in my pockets. And every moment half out of my wits with worry for you! And you meanwhile, allow that treacherous scoundrel to—”
Her chin lifting haughtily, Yolande countered, “Since you are so sure Mr. Garvey is a treacherous scoundrel, one must presume he introduced himself before clapping the drugged rag over your face.”
The Noblest Frailty Page 17
