‘But couldn’t you just try a line dance, Eddie?’ cajoled Lady Alice, the more buxom of the pair. ‘It’s mostly only walking and I really shan’t mind if you don’t feel up to doing the twirling around!’
‘Maybe later, Alice,’ he replied, giving her a gentle smile. ‘But, since the reason I agreed to bring you all here was so that you could all let off a little steam, I would feel happier to see you tripping the light fantastic with someone who is a little more sprightly than I am at present.’ Cocking his head at Maitland, he raised a questioning eyebrow, to which signal his friend gave an immediate nod. ‘I’m sure that Will here would be more than happy to twirl you around the floor.’
‘Nothing would give me greater pleasure, Lady Alice,’ lied Maitland, as he offered the girl his hand and led her across the floor to join the line of waiting couples. ‘Although, I have to admit that it is some time since I indulged in one of these.’ Groaning inwardly, he wondered why it had never occurred to him that country assemblies meant country dances.
‘I hear that it was all cotillions and waltzes when you and Cousin Eddie were in Belgium,’ said his young partner, as the fiddlers started up and the dance began. Looking across the room to find her cousin regarding her with a slightly wistful smile on his face, she added, ‘The poor lamb was always such a good dancer!’
‘And he will be again, I promise you,’ replied Maitland reassuringly, as he stepped forwards to twirl the lady opposite around before returning her to her partner, then collecting his own partner again and moving on to change places with the pair on their left, in accordance with the movements of the dance. Out of the corner of his eye, he had caught a glimpse of Georgianne, some four or five couples further down the line and, mentally crossing his fingers in the fervent hope that the music would continue long enough for him to reach her, he tried to convince himself that a couple of twirls with her was better than nothing!
Sadly, when that moment did at last arrive, there was barely enough time for the two of them to exchange more than the briefest of greetings before the music compelled them to move on again.
To his great relief, the dance reached its conclusion on the next change and he was able to return his flushed and laughing partner to her grandmother’s side.
‘Thank you so much, Mr Maitland,’ said Lady Alice, dipping her knee to him in a dainty curtsy. But then, as she turned to see her cousin rising stiffly to his feet, she cried, ‘Oh, Eddie! You really must try to stop getting up every time one of us comes anywhere near you. At this rate, you will be up and down like a Jack-in-the-box all evening!’
‘Can’t be helped, my dear,’ returned Catford, with a wry grin. ‘I’m afraid I’m far too long in the tooth to change my ways now.’
‘Then I shall stay here beside you and make sure that you do sit still,’ she averred, as she plonked herself down at his side.
‘I’m not a cripple, Alice,’ the viscount reminded her gently. ‘I wouldn’t have brought you if I had known that you intended to waste the whole evening sitting next to me. Apart from which, I need to have a word with Will. Look, I see young Berkeley signalling you. So, do run along and enjoy yourself, there’s a good girl.’
‘You wanted to speak to me, Cat?’ asked Maitland, unable to prevent a slight feeling of unease, as he lowered himself down on to the seat that Lady Alice had recently vacated. He could not help wondering whether Catford had taken offence at some aspect of the friendship that was developing between himself and Georgianne, but he need not have concerned himself, for the viscount merely wanted to thank him for all the time and effort he had put in that morning on his cousin’s behalf.
‘She was quite her old self again, when she got back,’ he declared gleefully. ‘I swear that it’s been some time since I’ve seen her looking so happy. Whatever you are doing to bring her out of her shell, old chap, I beg you to keep up the good work!’
Maitland’s eyes travelled sideways to where Georgianne was sitting, several places away, cheerfully chatting to her grandmother. Making up his mind, he rose quickly to his feet. ‘Then, if you’re sure you have no objection, Cat, I believe I might ask Miss Venables if she cares to take to the floor?’
‘Why on earth do you think I would have any objections,’ asked Catford, a puzzled frown on his face. But Maitland, his mind keenly focussed on the matter in hand, was already out of earshot.
‘I trust that you will give me the pleasure, Miss Venables?’ he said, holding out his hand and willing her to accept.
‘Off you go, Georgianne,’ ordered the dowager, pointedly digging her granddaughter in the ribs. ‘You didn’t come here to sit nattering to me all night!’
‘Don’t talk nonsense, Grandmama!’ laughed Georgianne, as she rose to her feet and placed her hand into Maitland’s. ‘You know perfectly well that I hang on your every word!’
‘Humph!’ retorted the old lady, making skilful use of her fan to hide her smile. ‘Take her away, young man!’
With a contented grin on his face, Maitland was only too happy to oblige her ladyship. It was, however, somewhat disheartening to discover, as he was shortly about to do, that the dance into which he was leading Georgianne was nothing more than an eightsome reel, a fairly boisterous dance that rendered conversation impossible. Nevertheless, it was better than nothing, he told himself.
Georgianne, for her part, had been delighted to find Maitland in attendance at the assembly for, as she had frequently heard her older cousins remark, ‘Most gentlemen are hardly likely to opt for dancing if they are faced with a selection of other manly pursuits!’ Therefore, she was more than gratified to be dancing with him, eightsome reel or no.
After her visit to the stables that morning, when Everton had assured her that Olympus was responding very nicely to her treatment, followed by the highly exhilarating gallop that had quickly restored any possible loss of self-confidence that she might have suffered, she had made up her mind to make the most of every one of the precious minutes in which she found herself alone with her cousin’s friend. For, if she were any judge, there were bound not to be that many left. Along with the rest of her family, she was well aware that he and his cousin had scoured the whole area and beyond for some clue as to his missing relative and, whilst she could not help but be sorry that all of Maitland’s hard effort had come to nought, her most pressing regret was that this failure to turn up any useful information would mean only one thing. His imminent departure!
With that rather depressing prospect now uppermost in her mind, she then proceeded to fling herself wholeheartedly into the dance, bestowing upon him the widest of smiles at every turn and retaining hold of his hand for the merest fraction of a second longer than was, perhaps, altogether necessary. All of which rather unexpected behaviour on her part being more than enough to render her already highly vulnerable partner into a state of utter confusion.
In truth, Maitland was finding that he could scarcely take his eyes off her, so completely mesmerised was he by her curving lips, her dimpling cheeks—not to mention the highly provocative swaying movements of her body as she chasséed gracefully across the circle! And what in God’s name was that challenging expression in her eyes all about? he asked himself in bewilderment. Had he not known better, he would have been prepared to swear that his good friend Catford’s future bride was actually flirting with him!
It was with a certain amount of relief that he heard the fiddlers executing their final tuneful flourish, signalling not only the end of that particular set of dances, but also the call to the supper room.
Unfurling her fan, Georgianne wafted it to and fro in an effort to cool her heated cheeks. ‘That was almost as invigorating as this morning’s gallop, Mr Maitland,’ she proclaimed breathlessly, as she tucked her hand into the crook of his arm and gave him another of her captivating smiles. ‘I can hardly wait for tomorrow’s run!’
‘You are still intent upon repeating this morning’s exercise, then?’ ventured Maitland, in a vain attempt to divert his mind fro
m the prurient fantasies that were presently taking shape therein.
‘Goodness me, no!’ she replied, with a gurgling laugh that did nothing to help Maitland’s struggle to maintain his composure. ‘I was rather hoping that we might take a run across the heath—Brandy proved not to be too bad, as it happens, but we can really put her through her paces out on the heath.’
‘You aren’t nervous about meeting up with this dreaded highwayman, then?’ he asked curiously. Every other female he had come across had blanched with fear at the very mention of the subject.
‘Well, I might be, if it were later in the day and if I were travelling in one of Gresham’s carriages, with a few hundred pounds’ worth of jewellery slung round my neck.’ She twinkled up at him. ‘But, in my opinion, no highwayman worth his salt is going to drag himself out of bed at sunrise to accost a couple of mere riders when some of this potential booty—’ she waved her hand around the room, indicating the large number of females present who were quite happily displaying their largesse upon their necks and fingers ‘—could well be his for the taking a couple of hours later.’
‘That’s quite true,’ he acquiesced, as he shepherded her into the crowded supper room where, upon looking around, he perceived that Catford had already commandeered a table for his party. ‘But the man would be a fool if he chose to strike tomorrow. I believe that the local watch committee has already drafted in the militia. As a matter of fact, I have it on good authority that there is a troop of dragoons quartered around the town.’
‘Well, that’s settled it, then,’ replied Georgianne, taking her seat, with a satisfied nod. ‘And, since it is highly unlikely that any of this present company will rouse themselves from their slumbers much before ten o’clock, we will have the heath to ourselves and be back home long before the rest of the world is even stirring!’
‘I look forward to it,’ returned Maitland, with a slightly forced smile, not entirely sure whether, in fact, he did or not. However, he was more than certain that the feeling of utter helplessness that had threatened to engulf him not five minutes earlier was not an experience that he cared to repeat. And if, on the morrow’s outing, Georgianne chose to continue her pitiless bombardment on his fragile emotions, he might well find himself to obliged to disregard the fact that he was a gentleman and teach her a lesson that she would not easily forget!
Chapter Fifteen
Despite the thoroughly depressing pall that hung over the sky, doubtless heralding a bout of heavy rain at some point in the not too distant future, it was a determinedly cheerful Maitland who rode into Gresham Hall’s stableyard at precisely five minutes to seven on the following morning. Having spent a decidedly restless night pondering over Georgianne’s far from usual behaviour during the assembly, he had reached the conclusion that, in all probability, his earlier over-indulgence with the brandy bottle might well have caused his imagination to run wild. He hadn’t felt tipsy, it was true—not until she had flashed him one of her bewitching smiles, that was—but, nevertheless, the whole extraordinary experience had been, in many ways, not a great deal different from partaking of one too many shots of strong spirit!
Upon his arrival, an equally cheery Georgianne greeted him with a welcoming smile. ‘Everton reckons we might be due for a shower or two,’ she called, as the groom hoisted her up on to her saddle.
‘Would you rather not go?’ asked Maitland, a sudden disappointment washing over him.
‘Good heavens, no!’ Georgianne laughed. ‘Do you take me for some sort of milksop? I won’t melt, I promise you—a little spot of rain never hurt anyone!’
‘So be it.’ He grinned. ‘But don’t blame me if that perky feather of yours gets ruined!’
‘Well, I dare say a feather can easily be replaced,’ she said, complacently fingering the flaming red cockade that decorated the front of her jaunty shako and thanking Providence that she had allowed her aunt to talk her into having Madame Henri design her this dashing new habit which, to her immense satisfaction, had been delivered late yesterday afternoon. Quite severely cut and based upon the prevailing fashion for all things military, the midnight blue jacket clung to her curves like a second skin and she was sure that she had not imagined the flash of admiration in Maitland’s eyes when he had first caught sight of her. On the previous morning, she had been obliged to wear the shabby old habit that she had worn on the day of the accident, but the unpleasant memories it had conjured up had left her feeling quite uneasy and she had been only too glad to instruct her maid, Emily, to finally dispose of it. After all, she reasoned, if one does intend to indulge in a little harmless flirtation, one might as well look one’s best whilst one is at it!
‘Off to the heath, then?’ she called back to him, as she headed out of the gate in front of him. ‘We can cut across the fields and skirt around Dunchurch.’
They rode off in a companionable silence, Maitland holding back slightly, to allow her mare to keep pace with his own mount. By the time they had reached the fringes of the heath, however, the ominous rumble of thunder could already be heard in the distance.
‘Looks to be moving in this direction, I’m afraid,’ declared Maitland, pointing over to the heavy bank of clouds on the low horizon just ahead of them. ‘Are you sure that you want to carry on? We could be in for a jolly good soaking, you know!’
For the briefest of moments, Georgianne hesitated, torn between the prospect of getting her smart new outfit wet and losing out on this precious hour or so alone with Maitland. Then, reminding herself that new riding habits were far easier to come by than once-in-a- lifetime opportunities like this one, she gave a decisive nod.
‘There’s an old shepherd’s bothy by the quarry over there,’ she said, indicating the direction with her crop. ‘If we set off now, we would be sure to reach it well before the storm hits—I dare say that we could shelter there until it blows over.’
‘How far?’ he asked, still eyeing the ever-darkening clouds and trying to gauge the speed at which they were moving.
‘Oh, about three to four miles or so, I should think— are you game?’
Poised to spring her mare, she tilted her chin at him, a challenging gleam in her eyes and her lips curved in a beatific smile and, even though Maitland was vaguely aware of the sound of alarm bells echoing through his brain, signalling to him that what he was about to do was not at all wise, he chose to ignore the warning.
‘I’m game,’ he answered, with a grin, as he gathered up his reins. ‘Off we go, then!’
Heads bent and bodies crouched well down in their saddles, the pair set off at a gallop. Pointing their horses’ noses in the direction that Georgianne had indicated, meeting up only with the occasional group of sheep, they sped across the heath, with the occasional shallow stream they encountered posing no difficulty and the frequent clumps of gorse that grew in random confusion about the place merely providing them with an added challenge to their horsemanship.
Unfortunately, Georgianne’s rather casual estimation of the distance to the shelter turned out to be somewhat on the optimistic side. Added to which, the band of murky weather appeared to be moving towards the two riders at a much greater rate than Maitland had originally anticipated. The disused shelter was still several hundred yards ahead of them when a blinding flash of lightning, followed almost instantly by a tremendous thunderclap, announced that the impending storm was now almost directly overhead.
‘Can you make it, do you think?’ Maitland yelled at Georgianne, as the pair raced towards the bothy. Having already been obliged to cut back his speed, in order to allow the little mare to keep up with Pegasus— who was well used to headlong charges of this sort— he was afraid that the wetting he had predicted was about to become an uncomfortable reality.
Since the first spatterings of the promised deluge were already lashing against her face and running down the back of her neck, Georgianne did not bother to reply. Instead, she determinedly applied her crop to Brandy’s rump, urging her, ‘Come on, girl—you ca
n do it!’
Less than five minutes later, both horses skidded to a halt outside the windowless bothy, the walls of which were constructed of stone that had been roughly hewn from the nearby quarry a good many years earlier. Having long outlived its original purpose of providing shelter for sheepherders, it was now used only by the odd passing vagrant—apart from its recent use as a bolthole for occasional highwaymen!
Leaping from his own mount, Maitland bounded to Georgianne’s side where, without further ceremony, he proceeded to haul her out of her saddle in a far from gentle manner and, thrusting open the cabin’s still solid oaken door, he hustled her inside.
‘Get your jacket off!’ he ordered her, hurriedly stripping off his riding gloves and easing his shoulders out of his own. ‘No point in letting the damp seep through to our shirts! We can hang them over there,’ he then added, having spotted a series of nails sticking out of the wall on the far side of the cabin. ‘Luckily for us, much of the gorse thatching seems to have survived intact.’
He had been so occupied with investigating their surroundings that, apart from his instruction that she remove her jacket, he had not paid Georgianne a great deal of attention but now, turning to face her, with the intention of relieving her of her damp garment, he stood momentarily transfixed at the scene in front of him.
Having removed both her jacket and her hat, Georgianne had unfastened several of the buttons on her blouse and was now in the process of unwinding her neckcloth, intending to use the article to towel off her face and hair.
‘I found a nail of my own,’ she said complacently, nodding to where her own jacket now hung on the wall beside her. ‘You were right about the feather, though— I fear that it is sadly ruined!’
The Major and the Country Miss Page 15
