by Amanda Scott
She watched as, taking her reluctant nod for encouragement, Rory spurred the mare and sped to meet him. He turned his mount when she reached him, and Nell was thus left nearly a quarter mile behind. It did not worry her particularly, because it was fairly open country, and she did not fear losing sight of them.
Upon hearing a halloo a few moments later, she turned in her saddle and saw a horseman approaching at speed. She had no difficulty whatsoever in recognizing the broad-shouldered, loose-limbed gentleman atop the large roan-colored stallion moving with such liquid speed through gorse and over small shrubs as if he were on the prince’s own grassy racetrack. Reining in, she half-turned her mount and waited for him to draw even with her. A sudden thrill of pleasure shot through her, speedily replaced by dismay as she glanced back over her shoulder to discover that the major and Rory had disappeared over a small rise. As she looked back again, Huntley waved, and she marveled at how he seemed to be part of his mount. Like a centaur, she thought, watching him draw closer. The stallion was still moving at great speed, and she could hear his hooves pounding the hard ground. By all rights, she ought to have been terrified at the possibility of being ridden down, but the thought never so much as occurred to her, and she seemed to sense the very moment when he would draw rein, the very moment when the stallion would come to a plunging halt only feet from her. Both grooms, having drawn up a short distance behind her, sat their horses, gaping.
“What a magnificent animal!” Nell breathed. “He is truly splendid, Philip.”
“Never mind that,” Huntley snapped. “What the devil are you doing out here alone?”
She looked at him then. She had been so intent upon his beautiful horse that she had not realized he was angry until he spoke. But if she was to go by the look of him, he was very angry, indeed. Nell drew in a long breath, watching him much as if by doing so she hoped to calm his temper as well as her nerves.
“I am not precisely alone, my lord.”
“I can see that, girl. I’m not a ninny. But I am not referring to two sapskull grooms who would be of little use to you if you were to encounter ruffians of either the military or civilian variety. However, I was informed that Aurora would be with you.”
“Who …” Then she remembered Kit, and realized he had probably mentioned that Rory had been dressed for riding. In that case, of course Huntley’s anger was nothing more than annoyance that she had seemed to misplace Rory again. The notion restored her normal presence of mind, and hoping to divert his attention until they should at least come in sight of the other couple, she glanced at him quizzically. “I do hope you have not seen fit to murder my brother, sir.”
A reluctant smile lit his eyes then, and he relaxed in his saddle as he drew the huge stallion in closer. “I didn’t. I like him. But I did get a round tale and gave him some good advice, so I daresay Aurora will find it a bit more difficult to get ’round him next time.” The smile touched his lips. “This little tangent will not answer, you know. Where is she? Don’t tell me she has been naughty enough to give you the slip.”
“No, but I fear you will not like what I have done, and so I did not like to tell you straight away.”
“Thought you weren’t afraid of me.”
“Don’t be nonsensical. ’Twas merely that I didn’t wish to incur your censure, and I do fear that by allowing Rory to speak privately with Major Talcott, I may have done just that.” He said nothing, and she stared at him fixedly. “Well, you might say something,” she said at last. “Are you vexed?”
“No, Nell, merely surprised. That Talcott fellow seems mighty stubborn, doesn’t he?”
She nodded, but then her conscience pricked her. “It was not his notion to meet us here, Philip. I am afraid Rory sent him a message. In fact, I think she had it in mind originally to come here in search of him. I scotched that by insisting that she must not ride anywhere alone. But though I realized she was up to mischief, it truly never occurred to me that she might arrange an assignation or that he would come to meet her if she did.”
“You underestimated them both, it seems.” But he smiled down at her, and she knew he was not angry. She smiled back. The two grooms had dropped back some distance, and Rory and the major were still beyond their range of sight, so she felt quite alone with him again and conscious of that odd feeling of shyness.
“I am glad you are not angry, Huntley,” she said at last, rather briskly. “Rory wanted to tell him she was sorry about her behavior yesterday. It seems she told him the whole last night, expecting him to be amused by the tale. He was not, and that is why she was so subdued on the way home and so apologetic later.”
Huntley was silent long enough to make her fear that she had annoyed him after all, but when she looked up at him, she saw that he was only deep in thought. It seemed a long time before he turned his gaze toward her, and there was a look in his eyes that she could not decipher when he did. It was gone seconds later, replaced by a rueful gleam.
“It appears likely that I shall have to have another talk with that young man before we are any of us much older,” he said. But for once his tone was not grim. Indeed, Nell thought he sounded much as if he regarded the prospect as a gloomy one.
XII
WHETHER OR NOT HUNTLEY did speak to the major, Nell had no way of knowing, but she suspected that he must have done so, for during the week that followed the excursion to the Downs, although she and Rory chanced to meet Major Talcott on more than one occasion, his attentions seemed less particular than those of Rory’s other countless admirers. Huntley made good his promise to escort them whenever Nell pressed him to do so, and as time passed, she found that less and less persuasion was necessary. Indeed, he had a tendency to meet them at functions even when she had neglected to request his escort.
The one factor that nearly convinced her that he must have said something to the major, however, was that the latter, unlike the myriad of others, did not pay morning calls in Upper Rock Gardens.
Huntley himself came often, though he spent most of his time conversing with Lady Agnes or Nell. Harry Seton came nearly every day, and so did a number of other fashionable gentlemen. And not all of the others came merely to visit the Lady Aurora. At least two showed a decided preference for her aunt.
Some ten days after their excursion to the Downs, the two ladies found themselves entertaining no fewer than six gentlemen callers. Four of these were gathered about the Lady Aurora, nearly overwhelming her with their compliments and maneuverings. But if she hoped for assistance from her aunt, she was to be disappointed. Nell had her hands full.
She was seated upon the low sofa in the window bay, flanked by her two most recent admirers. Upon her right sat Mr. MacElroy, precise to a pin in buff pantaloons, shining Hessians, a gaily embroidered rose-colored waistcoat, and a coat of bottlegreen kerseymere so tight-fitting that it must have necessitated the efforts of at least two hefty footmen as well as his valet to squeeze him into it. His neckcloth was intricately tied and so stiffly starched that he could scarcely move his head. Therefore, he had been forced to sit on the very edge of the settee with his whole body skewed toward Nell in order to converse with her.
Her other visitor, by comparison, was relaxed to a point that her father would certainly have castigated as behavior unbecoming a gentleman. He was Sir Thomas Maitherstone, who, somewhat to Nell’s dismay, had proclaimed himself a poet and requested her permission to dedicate his latest set of odes to her beauty. Sir Thomas had presented himself in Upper Rock Gardens attired in a loose-fitting drab coat, buckskin breeches, riding boots, and—worst of all—with a checkered handkerchief knotted around his thin neck. His appearance was such, in fact, that Pavingham had declined to show him into the drawing room without first seeking permission from Nell. She had granted it willingly, for Sir Thomas amused her, but she could scarcely help being startled by his appearance.
Her expression must have given away her thoughts, for he promptly began to defend himself on the grounds that a man ought to be va
lued for more than the clothes he wore. Since Mr. MacElroy had been enjoying the pleasure of having Nell’s attentions all to himself until Maitherstone’s entrance, his reaction to this statement—utter sacrilege in his opinion—was perhaps more pointed than it might have been. Despite Nell’s attempts to guide the conversation along civil lines, she soon decided that no effort of hers, short of expelling them both from the drawing room, would prevail. They were extraordinarily polite to one another, but a constant stream of verbal thrusts ensued, continuing until she might cheerfully have knocked both their heads together.
The opening of the drawing room doors provided a welcome diversion, but Nell was conscious of a sharp stab of disappointment when it was merely Kit and Lady Agnes who entered. Her brother shot her a quizzical look and she responded by lifting her brows in mock helplessness. Kit grinned but turned away toward the group surrounding Rory.
“Good gracious!” exclaimed Lady Agnes as she followed him and took the seat reluctantly offered to her by one of her granddaughter’s admirers. “What a crush! Nell, dear, have you ordered refreshment? I am persuaded these gentlemen would appreciate some of your papa’s Malaga.”
Since nearly every gentleman present had been there for at least twenty minutes by then, and several had been there a good deal longer, Nell had hoped that the lack of refreshment would recall them to their senses and send them on their way. But to a man they expressed approval of Lady Agnes’s suggestion, and so Pavingham was soon treading his stately measure from one to another with a tray of glasses and a sparkling decanter. In the midst of this cheerful scene, Jeremy pushed open the drawing room doors again and announced Lord Huntley.
Startled, Nell glanced up, an involuntary smile of welcome lighting her eyes. Huntley looked swiftly around the room, his gaze sliding over Rory and her entourage, past Lady Agnes, until it came to rest upon Nell herself. She rose to greet him, and her quick movement brought her two companions scrambling to their feet. Huntley glanced from one to the other, and when his gaze met Nell’s, it was brimful of amusement. Her own eyes twinkled in response.
“You know, Mr. MacElroy, of course, sir, but I do not know if you are acquainted with Sir Thomas Maitherstone. This is the Earl of Huntley, Sir Thomas.”
“We haven’t met,” Huntley admitted, holding out a hand to the younger man, “but you are Lord Edgbaston’s nephew recently down from Cambridge, I believe. His lordship mentioned you only last evening.” He lifted his quizzing glass.
Sir Thomas, blushing under such open scrutiny, acknowledged the relationship. His discomfiture seemed to be caused as much by Huntley’s mention of his noble relation as by his lordship’s slow examination of his person. Nell took pity on him.
“Sir Thomas is a poet, my lord,” she said, preserving her countenance with difficulty.
“Is he indeed?” Huntley polished the quizzing glass with his handkerchief. “I daresay that accounts for it, then.”
“Accounts for what, my lord?” Sir Thomas inquired with a hint of defiance in his tone. Mr. MacElroy hid a smile behind a lace-edged, monogrammed handkerchief.
“Why, for that certain air of otherworldliness which seems to enfold you,” replied Huntley in a bland drawl, lifting the glass again. “I am informed that such an air is de rigueur among poets. Have you written an ode to Miss Lindale’s eyes yet? I am persuaded they deserve to be preserved in rhyme.”
“I have,” replied Sir Thomas warily. “Comparing them to dark liquid sapphire pools. And another to her lips. They are like—”
“Rosebuds or ripe cherries, if your previous display of originality is anything by which one might judge the matter,” Huntley said, ruthlessly interrupting this discourse. “Insolent puppy,” he added moments later when Sir Thomas had taken a hasty departure. “Did he actually have the effrontery to make you the object of such dismal stuff?”
“I’ll have you know, my lord, that he has written separate odes to my eyes, my lips, my hair, my chin—”
“Good God! As bad as that? I’ve a mind to speak to that young cockerel. Bad enough that he should appear in a lady’s drawing room dressed all by guess, but—”
“Just what I said myself, Huntley,” put in Mr. MacElroy, lisping slightly as was his unfortunate habit. “Not that the young cub would see reason. Actually said a man’s clothes were unimportant. Unimportant! Did you ever hear the like?”
“You still here, MacElroy?” Huntley inquired gently, raising his quizzing glass again as if he had only just noticed the other gentleman.
Undaunted, Mr. MacElroy assured him that he was indeed still there, and even preened himself a bit beneath the moving glass. “Was enjoying a comfortable coze with Miss Lindale until that demmed popinjay imposed his company upon us. Matter of fact, my lord,” he confided, “I’d consider it a kindness if you was to take yourself off and leave us to finish our conversation.”
“Daresay you would at that,” Huntley agreed. Suddenly the movement of the glass halted, and he peered at his victim more carefully. “I say,” he said, much concerned, “do you know you’ve got smut on your waistcoat? Good thing I chanced to notice. Only think how you’d feel when you discovered it yourself, very likely after visiting any number of people who wouldn’t care to direct your attention to it.”
“Yes, by Jove!” Dismayed, MacElroy looked down at his stomach. There was indeed a tiny smudge of some sort, but not one that would be readily apparent to any but the sharpest eye. The discovery seemed to overset him entirely, and after stammered apologies, his speedy departure left Huntley in sole possession of the field.
“For shame, sir,” Nell scolded as he took his seat beside her and crossed one elegantly clad leg over the other. “I’ll have you know you have robbed me of my two fondest admirers. I am Sir Thomas’s inspiration,” she added soulfully.
“The devil you are,” Huntley replied, grinning. “And MacElroy? Do you inspire him as well?”
“Goodness, I hope not,” she chuckled. “I should dislike very much to have been the inspiration for that outrageous waistcoat.” He made no response, and she regarded him searchingly. “Did you have something you particularly wished to discuss with me, sir, or did you merely desire to clear the room?”
“Nothing of vast importance,” he replied, eyeing the group around Lady Agnes and Rory. “It is merely that I have seen little of you these past few days and wondered if all was going well.”
“She has been up to no mischief that I know about, sir, which is not to say there hasn’t been some.” She grinned at him. “We met the good major on the Steyne yesterday, but when he only bowed in passing, her air of disappointment was enough to convince me that there have been no more assignations, though we are forever running into him at parties, of course.”
“Well, that’s all right. I was afraid she might be fretting you to flinders.”
She twinkled at him. “I do not fret so easily, sir. Besides, we have been too busy. There was a riding party yesterday, and we have been sea-bathing and to several private parties. Rory had not been into the sea since her last visit, you know, and she was so astonished to discover that old Martha Gunn is still operating the ladies’ bathing machines that she quite forgot her sulks.”
“Well, I daresay she will soon forget the major, too,” Huntley said comfortably. “They both know, after all, that nothing can come of their relationship. Even if Aurora were not contracted to me, her parents would never consider such an alliance, you know. Talcott is a younger son, I believe, and your sister would never countenance giving her daughter to a man without solid prospects.”
Nell did not question his reasoning. Though it was inconceivable to her that a man who could afford a majority in the Prince’s Own Regiment could have been born without a shirt, she knew the major’s claims could never rival Huntley’s in her sister’s eyes. So, instead of debating with him she turned the subject to one she considered more suitable to the time and place.
“I have been wanting to thank you for your kindness to Kit, sir
. I know you said you had not been harsh with him, but I certainly never expected you to exert yourself so much on his behalf as he assures us you have.”
“Nonsense,” he replied, coloring a little beneath his deep tan. “I’ve done very little of consequence and nothing at all out of the way, I assure you.”
“Oh, of course not,” she agreed promptly. “It must be quite a normal thing for you to take a green young man under your wing and to provide him with the entree to a club he’d not have dared to set foot in on his own.”
“Well, that may not have been such a great service,” he confessed with an apologetic smile. “The play there is nearly as deep as any at Brook’s or even White’s in London, but it is better for him to drop his blunt in an honest game than a dishonest one. And those clubs he’s been frequenting with young Seton are little more than hells that specialize in separating unwary young chubs like Kit from their brass. He’ll come to no great harm at Alcott’s.”
“Well, it was kind of you, sir,” she insisted, “and you can scarcely say it was to save his groats that you presented Kit to the Prince of Wales.”
He chuckled. “I daresay you’ll come to wish I’d never done that, either. But at least I can see to it that he acquires friends of a different stamp than those rattles I’ve seen him with. Someone ought to have introduced him about long before now.”
“I cannot think who might have done so,” Nell replied, wrinkling her brow. “Crossways might, of course, only I daresay it wouldn’t occur to him unless Kit asked him, which he wouldn’t, not being in the habit of applying to him for anything. And it would never occur to Sir Henry to do so, because he still thinks of Kit as a schoolboy, despite all Kit’s attempts to prove how grown up he has become. Perhaps it would be different if he had gone up to Oxford or Cambridge.”
“He ought to have gone. It would have been good for him.”
“But he is not at all inclined to be bookish,” Nell explained, “and he has no interest in a military career either, though both Mama and I can only be glad of that. He prefers a sporting life to anything else, and I daresay that once Sir Henry places his affairs in his own hands, Kit will retire to the property Papa left him near Patchem and settle right down. Until then, however, he is bent upon cutting a dash, and Sir Henry is bent—with Mama’s encouragement, of course—upon seeing to it that he has as little of the ready to waste as possible. You have had a beneficial influence in that quarter as well, I’m pleased to say.”
