by Hale Deborah
Perhaps, if Morse had not retired for the night, she would invite him to join her at the pianoforte again. Or he might enjoy hearing her read aloud from an English translation of Don Quixote or one of those stirring tales by Mr. Scott.
The flesh of her leg warmed in anticipation of the contact between them as they shared the pianoforte bench or the chaise. Her pace quickened.
They had spent such a congenial evening the night before. As a result Morse had been far more attentive and manageable during today’s lessons. In her urgent need to win the wager, she was prepared to exercise every possible advantage. And that included Morse Archer’s dangerously flattering admiration for her.
Letting herself in the side door, Leonora laid her book satchel on a narrow table by the door. She pulled off her bonnet and gloves, listening of any sound that might betray Morse’s whereabouts.
She checked the drawing room, but found it empty. The library, likewise.
“Has Sergeant Archer retired for the night?” she asked Maudie, the parlor maid.
“I don’t believe so, miss.” The girl stared down at the carpet runner.
“He doesn’t appear to be anywhere on the main floor. Did he go out, by any chance?”
“No, miss. I’m quite sure he never went out.”
Was the girl simply being unhelpful or downright evasive?
“Not here. Not off to bed. Not gone out. You have given me a good account of where Sergeant Archer is not, Maudie. Now, if you know, will you kindly inform me where he is.” She spoke more sharply than she meant to.
The parlor maid took a step back, blinking rapidly. “Well, miss, he and Dickon may be up in the west wing. They sometimes go there of an evening when you’re off to the village.”
“Do they, indeed?” She would have to have a word with Morse about becoming too familiar with the servants. “I don’t know why you didn’t say so first as last. Thank you, Maudie.”
“You’re welcome, I’m sure, miss.” The girl bustled off below-stairs as though she feared further interrogation.
Leonora kept on her cloak and hunted up a candle to light her way in the chill darkness of the west wing. The rooms there had not been open for the better part of ten years, when Aunt Harriet was still a vital force at Laurel-wood, hosting house parties for her son and her niece.
Now, Leonora’s breath and her soft-slippered footsteps seemed to echo in the cold stillness.
Far down the corridor, light spilled out from an open doorway. The sound of male voices lured Leonora.
Until Dickon lured him up to the west wing, Morse moped about Laurelwood that Saturday evening. With Leonora off on her mysterious biweekly visit to the village, he’d been forced to eat dinner alone. For some reason the boiled beef had completely lacked savor. Even his favorite almond pudding had failed to rouse his appetite.
Afterward, he’d wandered into the drawing room and picked out a few tentative notes on the pianoforte. But it hadn’t been the same without Leonora’s company. He’d glanced at the pedestal clock beside the door, wondering what hour she would be home.
Morse caught himself in a sigh.
Was it one of contentment? In the past few days Laurelwood had become everything he’d envisioned when he’d first accepted Sir Hugo’s invitation.
Or was it regret that, one way or another, this very pleasant idyll would come to an end at last?
“Oh, there you are, sir.” Dickon ambled into the drawing room, a promising looking jug tucked into the crook of one arm and a small covered basket suspended from the other. “Have you forgot what night it is?”
“Not by a long shot, Dickon.” Morse forced a hearty note into his reply. True, he was well aware of it being Saturday. His rendezvous with the footman had slipped his mind, though.
“Cook let me have a brace of wee game pies for our tuck-out.” Dickon’s florid face positively glowed. “Got her fair eating out of your hand, Sergeant. I’ve never seen the beat of you for getting your way with contrary women.”
There was no question the young ox meant it as a sincere compliment. For some reason, it made Morse squirm.
“Rounded up something tasty to wash those game pies down?” he asked with a show of interest. In truth, an evening of drinking and carrying on with Dickon held rather less than its former appeal.
Dashed if he could cipher why.
“More of that good hard cider, Sergeant.” Dickon glanced down lovingly at the jug. “It did put you in a fine fettle last time. Fair cured you of sleeping in, too.”
“Good medicine, that.” Morse feigned a chuckle as the pair of them headed upstairs. Oh, well, at least it would provide him with some way to pass the time this evening. And perhaps Dickon’s cider would prove effective medicine to treat whatever was ailing him of late.
They made themselves at home in a deserted sitting room not much bigger than a cupboard. While Dickon got the coal fire burning, they alternated swigs from the cider jug to ward off the cold. Before long a feeling of warmth crept through Morse’s flesh, though he was not certain whether to credit the fire or the drink. This particular batch had been well fermented.
Dickon leaned back in his chair and took a long pull from the jug. “Ah, that’s good stuff! There’s them as say cider drinking is bad for a body and I’ll own cider drinking killed my grandsire.”
Before Morse could croak out an expression of sympathy, the young footman leaned toward him and landed a solid nudge in the ribs with his great elbow. “Mind, it took all of ninety years to do it!” He threw back his big, blunt head and roared with laughter.
Morse joined in, though his ribs protested. He glanced toward the window, wishing it overlooked the driveway, so he could watch for Leonora’s return.
Dickon broke out the game pies, which were the last word in savory pastry. Lieutenant Peverill had often sung their praises to Morse during the Peninsular campaign, always with an edge of longing in his voice. In some strange way, Morse felt it his duty to relish this one, on the lieutenant’s behalf. Hard as he tried, he could not work up an adequate pitch of appreciation.
“What’s this?” exclaimed Dickon. “Can’t eat it all, sir?” His own pie was now only a pleasant memory.
Morse flashed an apologetic grimace. “I must have eaten too much beef at dinner.” A bald lie, that. He’d scarcely worried down a slice. “If you have room for the rest of mine, go ahead and clean it up.”
“I do hate to see it go to waste.” Dickon devoured Morse’s leavings in two great bites, perhaps to forestall a change of heart in the matter.
They drank until the cider jug became perilously light to heft. When Dickon urged him to recount more of his soldiering exploits, Morse obliged, though with rather less enthusiasm than on previous occasions. They sang a song or two, though Morse’s voice rang out less lustily than it once had.
“Ye know, Morse,” confided Dickon at last, in the slow, earnest manner of an inebriate confidence. “I thought ye had her dancin’ to yer tune, but now I see ye’re in a bad way yerself.”
“Wha’ bad way?” Morse bristled. “I’ll have ye know, I’m in right fine fettle, I am.”
Dickon gave his big head a ponderous shake from side to side. “No ye ain’t neither. Off yer feed. Jumpy as a wet cat. Why, ye can’t even prop’rly enjoy gettin’ drunk. I’ve seen them signs before an’ I know what they mean right enough.”
“Yer daft.” Morse drained the cider jar dry. “Or drunk.”
The feeble jest made him laugh immoderately. His head was spinning and his loins ached with the need for a woman. Though what he might be capable of doing with one in his present condition, he could not answer for.
Just hold her in his arms perhaps. Or lay his head upon her bosom and be lulled to sleep by the gentle rhythm of her heart and the cherished melody of her voice.
“I ain’t that drunk,” protested Dickon. “And I know what’s what as well as th’ next fella. Ye got a fancy for Miss Le’nora, Morse Archer. Ain’t no use denin’ it, neither. I
’ve seen the way ye make calf eyes at her, an’ how ye hold her chair. Ye mus’ be hard up for a woman, is all I can say.”
“Get it through yer thick skull, Dickon.” Morse pulled himself erect in his seat and tried very hard to not slur his words. “I do not have a fancy for Miss Leonora High-and-Mighty Freemantle. If I act p’lite around her it’s just ’cause I’m tryin’ to act like a gen’leman.”
Dickon only laughed. “Pull the other one, Morse! Ye plaster yerself up against her ev’ry chance ye get. Bet ye’ve kissed her, too, haven’t ye?”
Morse opened his mouth to deny it, but the words would not come. Instead he fell into a reverie of kissing Leonora’s hand, and what it might be like to kiss her elsewhere.
“There! Ye see?” insisted Dickon, vindicated. “It ain’t a crime, Morse. Bit foolish is all, her being so much above ye.”
Dickon’s words lit a fire of indignation in Morse. He jumped from his chair, then staggered. Grabbing the mantelpiece to steady himself, he glared at the footman. Surely, Dickon could not be right? He was not some amusing young yokel smitten to the heart with a woman far beyond his grasp.
Not any more. Never again.
“Ye got it all back’ards, dunderhead.” He marshaled his most contemptuous look with which to skewer Dickon. “I’m not struck on her. What fella with sense would be? No, I’m jus’ jollyin’ her along, the way I do with ol’ Cook, so she’ll forget that damned Latin and ’rithemtic once in a while.”
Dickon’s eyes widened and his mouth rounded into an admiring little circle. “Ye don’ say.”
“I do say.” Morse warmed to his explanation. This would shut Dickon up about him fancying Miss Freemantle. “Matter a fact, when I’ve had my fill of the lessons, all I have to do is put an arm ’round her waist or give her a little kiss on the hand. She bolts like a hare and lessons are over for the day.”
As those words left his mouth, Morse thought he heard a noise in the corridor.
A mouse, perhaps. They were rare around Laurelwood, but he’d seen at least one. Morse took a staggering step toward the door to investigate.
“Ain’t ye the scoundrel, though.” The admiration in Dickon’s tone belied his words. “An’ here all this time ye had me hoodwinked.”
“That’ll teach ye to underes’tmate a Rifleman.”
Pulling open the sitting room door, Morse looked out into the darkened corridor. A flash of something caught his eye as it turned the corner, but that was all.
With a shrug, he turned back to Dickon.
Then he heard the distant noise of a slamming door.
Chapter Seven
Slamming her door with a fury that rattled its hinges, Leonora flung herself onto the bed, where she erupted in a volley of sobbing.
That scoundrel! That bounder!
Had she learned nothing from her mother’s miserable example? All men were the same. At least all the handsome, charming rogues who set lady’s hearts so easily aflutter.
How could she have been so foolish as to suppose Morse Archer any different from the rest of his duplicitous ilk?
To think she had dismissed her class early and hurried back to Laurelwood to spend time with him. His absence from the library and the drawing room should have alerted her that something was not right. That and the stricken look of the housemaid she’d questioned.
Still, she’d been more curious than alarmed or suspicious.
Why had she stolen upon them so silently? Eavesdroppers never overheard any good of themselves, it was said. Perhaps she had hoped to hear something good, in spite of the old saying—a declaration of Morse’s feelings for her. A drunken one, to be sure, but no less heartfelt for all that.
Well, she had heard Morse Archer’s declaration. His confession that he’d been callously leading her on as a means to shirk his studies. Leonora wasn’t sure which enraged her more—his deception or his indolence.
With balled fists she hammered at her pillow, wishing Morse Archer’s face could feel the sting of every blow.
What galled the most, Leonora admitted to herself, was that she had been so easily duped, so naively carried away by her adolescent infatuation. She, above all women, should have known better than to trust such an attractive, engaging rascal of a man.
By degrees her sobs subsided, though the crushing weight on her heart and the vague nausea in her belly persisted.
It was not as though she wanted Morse Archer to fall in love with her.
Leonora tipped a measure of cold water into her washbasin and dabbed a handkerchief in it.
She had seen too much to ever believe in the fantasy of romantic love. Besides, he clearly disdained her world and the things she held most dear. Had an honest physical attraction, man to woman, been so very much to expect?
Apparently so.
Catching a glimpse of herself in the glass, Leonora winced. Her eyes were bloodshot and swollen. Her face an ugly patchwork of snow white and livid crimson blotches. Strands of her fine dark hair had come loose and straggled about her face in a decidedly unbecoming fashion. And she had been witless enough to delude herself that a man like Morse Archer genuinely fancied her?
A hiccup of bitter laughter broke from her lips.
What ludicrous irony—all these years she’d labored to maintain a dowdy facade, when she hadn’t needed it at all. Leonora Freemantle at her best was still in no danger of attracting a husband.
She pressed the cold, moist linen to her eyes, hoping it might relieve the sting of more tears than she’d ever cried all at one time.
As she mulled over the events of this week, knowing what she knew of Morse Archer’s despicable scheme, her passionate anguish slowly congealed into cold wrath. How dare he have used her so badly after the opportunity she’d offered him and the effort she’d expended to help him improve himself?
Well, no more. She was done with him.
As soon as Uncle Hugo returned, she would inform him of Morse’s conduct and ask him to call off their bet. If he refused, she would even capitulate and accept her penalty. Nothing could be worse than having to continue tutoring Morse Archer, knowing what he truly thought of her.
Bad enough that she would have to continue until her uncle got back from London.
As she readied herself for bed, knowing the hope of sleep was futile, Leonora made grim plans for that odious interval. Until he could be properly ejected from Laurel-wood, she would make Morse Archer’s life hell.
And if he should try any of his counterfeit wooing on her?
The Rifleman had better be prepared to take cover!
What had come over Leonora? Morse asked himself for the hundredth time in the past two days. He’d seen nothing of her on Sunday—not that he’d been in much condition to enjoy her company, he admitted sheepishly.
Monday morning he’d hastened to the library, eager to begin lessons. Only to discover the congenial Leonora of the previous week had been supplanted by his old nemesis. The relentless, humorless, thoroughly heartless General Freemantle.
“Elbows off the table if you please, Sergeant Archer. This is not a mess hall.” Even from the far side of the library, the look of disdain she cast him could have flayed the skin off an army mule.
“The Battle of Hastings did not end the War of the Roses. It began the Norman Conquest, a good four hundred years before that.” The asperity of her tone left Morse without doubt that she had never encountered such a dunce.
If he hadn’t known better, he’d have sworn she was retaliating for some wrong he’d done her. But that was absurd. If anything, he’d gone out of his way to be amiable of late.
Though Morse shrank from admitting it, even to himself, this sudden unwelcome change in Leonora puzzled and grieved him.
Had she decided he was too coarse and stupid to win her silly wager? Had she grown offended by his familiarity, considering him socially beneath her?
By Wednesday noon he’d had quite as much of General Freemantle as he could stomach.
“Kindly r
edo this translation from Tacitus.” She crushed his painstakingly copied paper into a ball and tossed it onto the fire where it blazed to ash before his eyes. “I can make nothing of these chicken scratches you pass off as writing.”
Morse sat back in the chair and crossed his arms before this chest. “If you want a fresh copy, you can go whistle for it.” He cast her a forbidding look that would have sent the men of his command running for cover.
Leonora stood her ground and shot back one of equal venom.
Taking a clean sheet of paper from the corner writing desk, she held it out to him, speaking in clipped, precise tones. “You will make a new copy, Sergeant Archer. One that is legible and accurate. Furthermore, you will stay in this room until it is finished. If dinner is over by then, it will be your own lookout.”
Her spectacles had slipped down her nose to reveal those intriguing eyes, and a becoming flush had crept into her cheeks. Damn, but she could be a fine-looking filly when she chose. And a spirited one.
Her obvious contempt for him smarted all the more because he had foolishly let himself care for her opinion. He’d given her a weapon to use against him and she had exercised it without mercy.
Well, two could play at that game.
Making as if to snatch the paper from her, Morse clamped his fingers around Leonora’s wrist and pulled her toward him. Stifling his anger, he flashed her a wicked grin. “Come now, pretty teacher. If we must dawdle in the library and miss supper, let’s make it for a worthwhile purpose.”
Caught off balance, Leonora lurched into his lap. Though part of him would have liked to throttle her, another part thrilled to the sensation of her in his arms. In a deft motion that would have done credit to a trained pickpocket, he plucked the spectacles from her nose and the combs from her hair, tossing them onto the table.
“I’ve worked hard for you this week, Miss Freemantle. I think I deserve a reward.”
He hushed her inarticulate sounds of protest with a forceful application of his lips.
