by Jane Feather
"Easy." Sylvester patted the animal's neck as they moved through a stand of oak trees. As he emerged into the sunlight again, he saw a prone figure some way along the bank of the stream. There was something about the intent stillness of the figure that intrigued him.
He dismounted, tethering the horse to a sapling, and approached, his footsteps soft and muffled in the damp mossy ground.
He spotted the girl's sandals a few yards from where she lay on her stomach, her bare feet in the air, the hem of her unbleached linen dress lying against her thighs, revealing slim brown calves. Two thick black plaits lay along her back. Her sleeves were rolled up and both hands were in the brown water of the stream.
A gypsy tickling trout was Sylvester's immediate conclusion.
"We thrash poachers where I come from," he observed to her back. The girl's position didn't change, and he realized that his approach hadn't startled her. She must have heard his footsteps, soft as they were.
"Oh, we 'angs 'em in these parts," she said in a soft Dorsetshire drawl, still without looking around. "Less'n we're feelin' kind. Then we transports 'em to the colonies."
He couldn't help smiling at this cool riposte. Clearly this gypsy wasn't easily intimidated. He stood silently, affected by her intense concentration as she engaged in a battle of wits with the fish lying inert in the shadow of a camouflaging flat brown stone. Sunlight danced on the smooth surface of the water, and her hands were utterly still while her prey became accustomed to them. Then she moved. Her hands shot up from the water, flourishing a speckled brown trout.
"Gotcha, master trout!" She chuckled, holding the thrashing fish in the air for a second before tossing him back into the stream. The fish leaped out of the water, an agile flashing curve, sunlit drops of water along its back, and then it was gone, leaving a widening circle of bubbles on the surface.
"Why on earth did you throw it back? It looked big enough for a substantial dinner," Stoneridge asked in surprise.
"I'm not 'ungry," she said in the same cool tone as before. Rolling over, she sat up, squinting at him against the sun. "We shoots trespassers in these parts, too. An' you're on Belmont land… boundary's just beyond those trees." She gestured with an outflung arm.
"If I am trespassing, I'll lay odds I'm in good company," he said, his eyes narrowing as he examined her face. A gamine face, brown as a berry, with a pointed chin and small, straight nose. A fringe of black hair wisped on a broad forehead over a pair of large pansy-blue eyes. Quite an appealing little gypsy.
She merely shrugged and scrambled to her feet, shaking down the folds of her coarse linen smock, tossing the heavy black plaits over her shoulders. "Not your business what I do. You're not from these parts, are you?"
She was standing with her bare feet slightly apart, her hands resting on her hips, and there was a distinct challenge to her stance and the tilt of her head. He wondered if it was unconscious – her habitual way of viewing the world. It amused him. And she really was quite an appealing gypsy.
He stepped toward her, smiling, reaching out a hand to catch her chin. "No, I'm not, but I've a mind to become better acquainted with them… or rather with their Romanys." His hand tightened and he brought his mouth to hers.
The Earl of Stoneridge never fully understood what happened next. One minute he was standing upright, his lips pressed to hers, the sun-warmed scent of her skin in his nostrils, the firm line of her jaw in his palm, and the next he was lying on his back in the stream. Someone had instructed the gypsy poacher in the martial arts.
"Rat… cur…," she yelled at him as she stood on the edge of the bank, dancing on her toes, her eyes almost black with outrage. "That'll teach you, you filthy toad… tryin' to take advantage of an honest girl. You come near me again and I'll cut your -"
The rest of the tirade was lost in an indignant screech as he lunged off the bed of the stream, braceleting her bare ankles with finger and thumb. A violent jerk and she thumped onto her backside onto the hard ground. She yelled, grabbing at tufts of mossy grass, trying to save herself as he yanked her off the bank until she was sitting, hissing and spitting, in the thick mud of the shallows.
Sylvester stood up, glaring down at the livid girl. "Sauce for the goose, my girl," he declared. "Whoever taught you to wrestle omitted to teach you not to crow too soon." He dusted off his hands in a gesture that he realized was futile and squelched out of the stream, clambering onto the bank.
The girl picked herself up out of the mud. "Don't you call me 'your girl'!" she yelled, gouging a lump of mud from the bank and hurling it at his retreating back. It caught him full between his shoulders, and he swung round with a bellow of anger.
She had scrambled onto the bank, and there was murder in her eyes. He looked at the sodden, mud-smothered figure all set to do battle in whatever fashion presented itself, and suddenly he burst out laughing as the absurdity of the situation hit him.
He was soaked to the skin, his boots full of water and probably ruined beyond repair, all because that bedraggled bantam took exception to a kiss. How was he to have guessed that a gypsy girl would react with all the outrage of a vestal virgin?
He threw up his hands in a gesture of appeasement. "Let's declare honors even, shall we?"
"Honor?" she spat at him. "What do you know of honor?"
The laughter died in his eyes and his body became rigid, his hands dropping to his sides, curling into fists.
You stand accused of dishonoring the regiment. How do you answer, Major Gilbraith?
He stood again in the crowded courtroom at Horseguards, heard again the dreadful hush from the benches of his fellow officers of His Majesty's Third Dragoons, felt again the gimlet eyes of General, Lord Feringham, presiding over the court-martial. How had he answered? Not guilty, my lord. Yes, of course: Not guilty, my lord. But was he? If only he could remember those moments before the bayonet struck. If only Gerard had testified to what Sylvester believed had happened: He'd been holding an impossible position at Vimiera; Gerard was to come up in support; but before he could do so, they'd been overwhelmed and suffered the greatest military disgrace to befall a regiment – they'd lost the colors. Gerard, his boyhood friend, said he'd been on his way in support. He hadn't been aware of a renewed French attack on the isolated outpost… but whatever had happened, they'd arrived too late. Major Gilbraith had been taken prisoner, his men left for dead, the colors captured.
Major Gilbraith's head wound had kept him lingering between life and death in a foul French prison for a twelve-month, until he'd been exchanged and brought home to face a court-martial. Had there been a renewed French attack before Captain Gerard could come to his aid? Or had he yielded his colors prematurely?
No one had an answer. Sylvester could remember nothing of the minutes before the bayonet had driven into his skull. Gerard said he'd seen nothing and could have no opinion on the issue of honor. And there the matter lay. There was no concrete evidence to convict… but neither was there concrete evidence to exonerate.
And people believed what they chose. It was clear enough what Gerard believed. His shoulder had been the first to be turned.
That ominous feeling crept up the back of Sylvester's neck, the little prickles, the weird surge of unfocused energy in his head, tightening his scalp. His hand went to his forehead, to the slash of the scar, as he tried to relax, to will the promise of pain to disappear. Sometimes he could divert the coming agony if he caught it at the very beginning and was able to be still, close his eyes, change the seething thoughts, defeat the rise of this hideous panic.
But he was standing in hot, bright sunlight, far from the cool darkness he would need. A jagged flash of light appeared in the corner of his vision, and he knew it was too late. He had perhaps twenty minutes before the ghastly, degrading pain took over… twenty minutes to reach his room at the inn.
Theo Belmont stared. What was happening to him? He looked as if he were standing in a graveyard alive with spirits. His face was deathly white, his eyes suddenly d
ulled, his shoulders sagging. It was as if muscle and sinew, his very life-blood, had been leached out of him. Abruptly he turned from her and stumbled over to his horse tethered at the stand of trees. He mounted clumsily and rode off, slouching in the saddle, his head lowered almost to his chest.
Who was he? Not that it mattered. Strangers passed through Lulworth often enough, rarely causing a ripple on the surface of tranquil village life. Generally, though, they kept to the roads, not straying onto other people's property.
She shrugged and bent to wring out the dripping folds of her smock, thrusting her feet into her sandals. Absently, she rubbed her backside… it had been a very hard fall. The stranger clearly made no concessions when it came to avenging himself – but then, he'd had a pretty hard fall himself.
She grinned, remembering the neatness of her maneuver. Edward would be proud of her.
Theo made her dripping way along the bank toward the stone bridge. She crossed and hurried up the hill toward the house, shivering as a stiffening sea breeze pressed her wet clothes against her skin.
"Theo, whatever happened to you?" Clarissa appeared on the long stone-flagged terrace outside the drawing room. "I saw you coming up from the stream."
"I fell in, if you must know," Theo said, for some reason reluctant to give a full account of the encounter. She hadn't exactly come out of it bathed in glory, and honesty forced her to admit that she had been playing a game that could have given the stranger the wrong impression.
"Fell in?" Clarissa persisted. "How?"
Theo sighed. Her sister never let go until she was satisfied. "I was leaning over, trying to tickle a trout, and I lost my balance." She stepped through the open doors into the drawing room.
"Theo!" Emily squeaked. "You're dripping all over the carpet."
"Oh, sorry." She looked down at the puddle forming at her feet.
"Theo, dear, I'm not going to ask how you come to be in that condition," her mother said, laying down her embroidery. "But I think it would be best if you were to go out again and come in through the side door. This carpet is not ours to ruin."
"Of course… it belongs to a Gilbraith now. I was forgetting. Forgive me." Theo turned on her heel and marched out again.
Lady Belmont sighed. There was no point ignoring the facts. They were going to have to get used to it eventually – and the sooner they were reconciled, the happier they would be. But she was under no illusions about Theo, who was going to have the most difficulty. The house and the land were in her blood. A most powerful spiritual legacy from both father and grandfather to the girl child they'd adored.
Chapter Two
"A messenger came from the village, my lady."
"Oh, thank you, Foster." Lady Belmont smiled absently at the butler as she took the envelope from the silver tray. She didn't recognize the hard black script and frowned, having expected a message from one of their neighbors – an invitation to some quiet function, probably. The late earl's dictates on mourning were known to everyone, but the countryside, nevertheless, knew she would accept only discreet invitations.
"Ask Cook to come for the day's menus in half an hour, would you, Foster?" Elinor took the message into the small parlor where she dealt with household matters and her own correspondence. She broke the wafer with a slim paper knife and unfolded the single sheet.
Lord Stoneridge would do himself the honor of calling upon Lady Belmont this afternoon. If it was inconvenient, perhaps her ladyship would suggest an alternative time. His lordship could be reached at the Hare and Hounds.
Well, it had to come sooner or later. Elinor folded the sheet again, unaware of her restless fingers repeatedly pressing the crease. The move to the dower house wouldn't take more than a day or two… they would have plenty of help. She would go down to the house this morning and walk through the rooms again. They were furnished pleasantly enough, but she would need to decide where to place her own personal pieces that she'd brought with her to Stoneridge Manor on her wedding day…
Elinor blinked rapidly and stiffened her shoulders. The sense of loss was always with her – the futile anger that she'd had so little married life, that Kit's life had been snatched from him so violently and so early… too, too early! That French monster bore the blood of half a generation on his hands.
"Mama, we're walking to the vicarage. Do you have any messages for Mrs. Haversham?" Emily came in, looking fresh and elegant in a walking dress of crisp cambric, a chip-straw bonnet on her glowing brown curls, jean half boots on her narrow feet.
"I asked Cook for the calves'-foot jelly you promised Mrs. Haversham," Clarissa put in, peeping over her taller sister's shoulders. Her eyes sharpened suddenly as she saw her mother's face.
"What is it, Mama? Has something upset you?"
Elinor smiled and shook her head. Clarissa was the most sensitive of her daughters, quick to feel and respond to her mother's moods.
"Nothing really, but I'm afraid we must be prepared for a difficult interview this afternoon. Lord Stoneridge is to call."
"Oh, why can't he leave us alone!" Clarissa wailed. "Why does he have to come and call? He could just say he wanted to move in and we could move out… and we'd never have to see each other."
"Don't talk nonsense, Clarissa," Elinor rebuked sharply. "The proprieties must be observed, as you well know. We shall be neighbors, and we shall be courteous at all times. Is that clear?"
"Yes, Mama." But Clarissa's eyes were mutinous, and her soft mouth hardened.
"I don't suppose he'll be here much, anyway," Emily said with practical reassurance. "He's bound to be in London during the season… and I'm sure he'll be at the hunting box and in Scotland a lot of the time. Lulworth's too sleepy a place for an out-and-outer."
"Emily! Such vulgarity," her mother protested, but she was laughing. "How do you know his lordship is an out-and-outer, as you so inelegantly put it?"
"I don't," Emily said. "But I'll lay odds he is." Her lip curled. "Probably a dandy, like that awful cousin Cecil."
"All Gilbraiths are awful like cousin Cecil," piped Rosie's voice, and Elinor realized she hadn't seen the child behind her sisters.
"That will do… you're setting Rosie a shocking example. Come here, child."
Rosie appeared from behind Emily's skirts, and her mother scrutinized her appearance with a frown. "Your stockings are wrinkled, and you have jam on your smock. You really are too old to go around looking like a haystack. I don't know what Mrs. Haversham will think."
Rosie rubbed at the sticky smudge, peering through her glasses, her lip caught between her teeth. "I wasn't going to see Mrs. Haversham. Robbie promised to show me his pickled spider. He says it has ten legs, but I know it can't. Spiders only have eight."
"You can't go to the vicarage without greeting Mrs. Haversham," Emily pointed out, bending to straighten the child's stockings.
"Is Theo going with you?" Elinor adjusted the sash at Rosie's diminutive waist.
"No, she's riding the estate with Beaumont. They have to decide which fields to leave fallow for the autumn sowing."
"And do something about Squire Greenham," Clarissa added.
"Oh, yes, the Master's been complaining again about the way we maintain our coverts," Emily said. "He's bellowing that the hunt will never be able to draw the coverts if we don't maintain the rides properly. And the Belmont game-keepers aren't marking the fox earths either… and how can the huntsman stop the earths if he doesn't know where they are?"
"That is so cruel!" Rosie exclaimed, her cheeks pink, her eyes blazing behind her glasses. "It's horrid of them to stop the earths so the foxes can't get away when they're chasing them. Theo said once when she was hunting, she saw a fox running all over the covert, trying every opening to its earth and they were all blocked… and then the hounds caught it and ripped it apart. It's disgusting and it's not fair!"
Her voice quavered, and her mother and sisters knew a bout of noisy, heartfelt tears was imminent.
"It's not hunting season for ano
ther four months," Clarissa said swiftly. "And I promise that you and I will go out at dead of night before the hunt and unstop all the earths."
Lord Stoneridge might have a word or two to say on that score, Elinor reflected, since it was now his land. However, there was no point upsetting Rosie further. She said mildly, "You will be sure to be here when Lord Stoneridge calls, won't you?"
Her elder daughters glanced at her, and she saw that the same thought had crossed their minds. But they merely nodded.
"Of course, Mama. Come along, Rosie. We have to hurry, you'll have to come as you are. Robbie and the pickled spider won't notice, and I daresay Mrs. Haversham will turn a blind eye." Emily took the child's hand and hustled her out, Clarissa on their heels.
Elinor passed a hand wearily over her eyes. The next few days were going to be a trial, but once they were settled in the dower house, surely they could maintain a civilized distance from the new earl. The social engagements offered in the neighborhood couldn't possibly appeal to an out-and-outer. Whatever that might mean.
She rang the bell and when Foster appeared said, "When Lady Theo comes in, will you ask her to come to me, please?"
"Certainly, my lady." Foster bowed. "Cook is waiting."
"Send her in… oh, and, Foster, Lord Stoneridge will be calling this afternoon. I will receive him in the drawing room. Bring up a bottle of… of…"
"I believe Lady Theo would suggest the eighty-nine claret, my lady."
Elinor smiled, despite her heavy heart. "She would know, of course. Her grandfather took her round every rack in the cellar until she could lay hands on a particular bottle blindfold."
Foster's eyes grew a little misty, but he said only, "I'll bring up a bottle, ma'am." He turned to the door, then paused, coughed. "Forgive me, my lady, but I imagine Lord Stoneridge's arrival means that you and the young ladies will be removing to the dower house shortly."
"That is so, Foster."
He coughed again. "I trust your ladyship will not wish to dispense with my services."
