by Carola Dunn
“I must warn you that Miss Whitton has broad shoulders, Sir Aubrey.”
“You mean she is an antidote?” asked the baronet in alarm. “I confess I had hoped to find a fashionable female with looks to equal my . . . ahem, of tolerable appearance. However, I daresay I shall soon come to overlook any minor defects of person in a young lady of amiable disposition.”
“I feel sure you will, in view of the rewards to be gained thereby. I was riding about the estate this morning and it looks to be a very pretty property, and in excellent heart. It is a great pity that Miss Whitton’s disposition is managing and quarrelsome.”
“‘Pon rep, my lord, I believe you are gammoning me. Can it be that you have an interest there yourself?”
“No, no, not I!” disclaimed the viscount hurriedly. “Pray excuse me. I must remove some of the dust of the fields from my person before luncheon.” He closed the door behind him before he said aloud, “Mercenary man-milliner!”
“I beg your pardon, my lord?” said Bannister, startled. “Luncheon will be served in the dining room in fifteen minutes, my lord.”
“Will Miss Whitton be down?”
“I believe not, my lord, though I understand the headache is much improved. If I might make so bold, my lord . . .”
“Yes, Bannister, what is it?”
“Young Jem says your lordship brought the labourers up to the mark in prime style this morning, and we was hoping you might think to stay, my lord, till the harvest’s over. For we don't like to see Miss Selena in such queer stirrups and that’s the truth.”
“Stay? Good heavens, I had not intended to stay so long as I have already!”
“I suppose your lordship has engagements elsewhere,” said the old butler sadly.
“Not exactly. No one knows I am back in England, you see. I have to admit I enjoyed this morning, but I don’t believe Miss Selena would appreciate my staying.”
“Miss Selena’s got plenty of sense in her cockloft, my lord, for all she’s a trifle hot to hand. It’s not a bit of use coming down heavy but if you was to explain as how it’s a rare treat to you to go a-harvesting and you wish she’d tell you what needs doing, well, then she’d have no reason to nab the rust. Begging your lordship’s pardon.”
“I’ll think about it,” promised Iverbrook, and went upstairs wondering why he should feel disposed to assist the cross-grained Miss Whitton.
At luncheon, the viscount was dismayed to learn that the hired chaise had been dismissed and Lady Whitton, always hospitable, had invited Sir Aubrey to stay at Milford Manor. However, his annoyance at the prospect of enforced intimacy with the demi-beau was tempered with amusement at Miss Delia’s rapture. The Lost Heir had evidently eclipsed the Absent Guardian as a figure of romance, and the baronet played the part of hero much more convincingly. Delia, ignorant of the ways of the Polite World, found no fault with his foppish dress and swallowed indiscriminately his tales of high adventure in the Spanish Main.
Lord Iverbrook caught his hostess’s eye. The twinkle in it told him that she, at least, was not taken in. Whether Miss Whitton would be as full of admiration as her sister remained to he seen.
Selena came down to afternoon tea, looking much better. She curtseyed politely to her cousin and bade him welcome, but her mind was elsewhere.
“Is Iverbrook still out, Mama?” she asked.
“Yes, he rode out again after lunch. He left a message for you, that the reaping you had ordered was nearly done and he awaits your instructions as to what comes next.”
“I must go and see what he has been doing.”
“Miss Whitton—Cousin Selena, if you will permit—I had hoped to have a private word with you on a serious matter of some import.” The baronet, having inspected his intended through his quizzing glass, was relieved to find that she had no greater defects than excessive height and slenderness and a hint of a snub nose. He wondered why the viscount had mentioned broad shoulders.
“You will have to excuse me, Cousin. Nothing can be more important than the farm at present, for there is no knowing when this dry spell will break. Where is Peter, Mama?”
“Delia took him with her to the Russells’. She wanted to see Jane.”
“To gossip about our new cousin, no doubt. You will be a nine days’ wonder in the neighbourhood, Sir Aubrey. I shall see you at dinner. Now don’t fuss, Mama, I assure you I am right as a trivet, as Peter says. Your prescription worked wonders, as always.”
Selena found Jem in the stables.
“His lordship di’n’t need me this arternoon,” explained the groom, “and I c’d see Orion wou’n’t come to no harm with him.”
“He’s riding Orion? How dare he!”
“Well now, miss, that’s the only horse up to his weight. You can’t expect a lordship to ride a carriage horse, and Miss Delia's Lyra is too small.”
"I suppose so, but doubtless I shall have to ride her. I hope Delia walked to Bracketts!”
“Yes, miss. I’ll saddle Lyra and Pippin in a jiffy.”
“You need not come, thank you, Jem.”
“The gypsies is still about, miss.”
“I’ll watch out for them. I expect Lord Iverbrook will protect me against all the perils of a summer afternoon in Oxfordshire.”
“If he don’t, miss, he’ll have me to reckon with, lord or no lord!”
Tom Arbuckle was sitting nearby, polishing a harness. “Miss ain’t going to come to no harm,” he said scornfully, “no more nor her horse, you young nodcock.”
Foreseeing a battle royal, Selena intervened. “Saddle Lyra, Jem, and then you may go at it hammer and tongs, when I am well away.”
She trotted down the lane on her sister’s mare till she came upon the viscount, leaning on a gate, while Orion nibbled at the hedge beside him. Lyra’s hooves made little noise on the dusty track, but his lordship looked up when Orion whickered a welcome.
“Good afternoon, Miss Whitton. I have been puzzling over this meadow. Unlike the rest of your land, it seems to be in a state of disgraceful neglect.”
If he had expected to provoke her, he missed his mark.
“It is not mine,” she said. “It belongs to Lord Alphonse Sebring and he will neither lease nor sell it to me. That is, he has never deigned to answer when I have written with offers.”
Iverbrook shouted with laughter.
“You plainly do not know Addlepate Sebring if you propose to do business with him. It is common knowledge that he tosses all his correspondence in the fire without opening it, even invitations. He just turns up at whatever function his bosom-bows are gracing with their presence, invited or not. Being the younger son of a duke, he is rarely refused admittance, except at Almack’s when he turns up in pantaloons.”
“What am I to do then? These fields have been a thorn in my flesh for years. All they need is drainage and regular mowing, and they would soon be excellent pasture.”
“Addlepate’s brother George is a friend of mine. I’ll see if he can do anything in the matter. At the least I will find out who handles his affairs and you can address yourself to him.”
“Thank you, Iverbrook. And also thank you for helping with the harvest, though I mean to see for myself what has been done before I sing your praises! Shall we go on?”
He swung himself into the saddle and they rode side by side up the lane. Queen Anne’s lace grew tall on either side, and honeysuckle perfumed the air; overhead swallows darted and swooped, catching insects to feed their insatiable young.
Selena decided that her companion was not, after all, without redeeming features. He guided her precious Orion with a gentle hand, and in spite of his casual dress she could find no fault with the way he sat the black gelding. She herself had put on a new habit of russet cloth, and had darkened her eyebrows with walnut dye. It would not run in the cool of the evening, she hoped.
“I owe you an apology too,” she admitted. “I ought not to have snapped at you this morning when you offered me sympathy.”
&nbs
p; “I think you were too unwell to be held responsible, though I confess I was hurt when you called me a fribble!”
She looked at him in surprise. “Is it not true?”
“Tell me how you define ‘fribble.’”
“Oh, a man-about-town. Someone who has no useful occupation and lives only for amusement. A Bond Street beau.”
“No, that I am not!” he said in revulsion.
“Perhaps not. I do not precisely know what a Bond Street beau is. You cannot deny, however, that your life has been spent in the pursuit of frivolity.”
“I have sowed my share of wild oats,” he acknowledged, “nor do I promise that I am an entirely reformed character. But I do intend to embark upon an occupation generally considered useful. In the autumn I shall take my seat in the House of Lords.”
“And add your mite to the weight of Tory repression!”
“Far from it, Miss Whitton. I am going to join Mr. Wilberforce in his fight against slavery in the colonies. After the sights I saw in the West Indies, I can think of no endeavour more worthy of support.”
Again Selena looked at him in surprise, but this time her face, always a tolerably exact mirror of her emotions, showed respect as well.
“Was it so very dreadful, then?”
Since she neither berated him, like his lawyer, nor hushed him, like his friend, Iverbrook elaborated.
“What decided me that freeing my own slaves was not enough was a trial I attended in Tortola, in the Virgin Islands. A man called Arthur Hodge had settled there on an estate some twenty years ago. In 1803 he owned a hundred and forty slaves. Since then it seems he murdered over one hundred of them, in the most hideous ways, until a free negro woman who had worked for him laid information with the local justices.”
“No one had tried to stop him?”
“His overseer, and even his sister, were witnesses against him. One must suppose they had thought that since he owned them he could do with them as he wished.”
“And the justices?”
“They sentenced him to be hanged. Had the letter telling of my brother’s death not reached me at that time, after long delays, I’d have stayed to see the hanging, though it is not a spectacle I find edifying.”
“A horrible story.” Selena’s voice trembled. “I perfectly understand why you will join the struggle against slavery. I had never considered that it might lead to such crimes, never thought on the subject at all, in fact.”
“Nor I, nor most people. Perhaps I was wrong to tell you. I hope you do not suffer from nightmares!”
“My nerves are not so delicate, I assure you. Very well, when you make your maiden speech I will withdraw the word ‘fribble’!”
“I thank you, ma’am. And now you may pass judgment upon my abilities as a farm bailiff.”
They turned in at an open gate. Before them lay a field patterned with stooks of corn in neat rows. Already gleaners with rush baskets foraged for spilled grain, the kerchiefs of the women bright against the pale yellow stubble.
Selena studied the scene as Lyra and Orion picked their way up the slight slope. There was a dip in the ground near the top of the hill that was difficult to mow. If the viscount had managed to persuade the men to do it properly, then he was of more use than she had thought possible.
The hollow was clean cut.
“Beautiful,” she said with satisfaction. “Thank you, Iverbrook.” She held out her hand and he raised it to his lips.
“Delighted to be of service, ma’am. Now if you will just explain to me what is to go forward tomorrow?”
“I cannot suppose that you wish to concern yourself any further, sir.”
“But I have been enjoying myself immensely. I was used to go harvesting with my father when I was a child.”
“Yet you have chosen not to occupy yourself with running your estates.”
“I had little choice in the matter, Miss Whitton! My father died when I was sixteen. Mama would not hear of my leaving school to learn how to manage Iver, and before I was of an age to decide for myself, she had remarried. Mr. Ffinch-Smythe having turned the place into an excessively profitable pig farm, I set foot in the place as rarely as possible thereafter.”
“Does not your step-papa own his own land? Surely he and Lady Lavinia could remove thither and you could return Iver Place to mixed farming.”
“It is obvious you are well acquainted with neither Iver nor my mother. It is poor land, with sour soil, better suited to raising swine than to anything else. The first viscount bought it to be near Windsor. He and his son and grandson made their fortunes at Court, and it was not farmed at all until my father tried. He spent a fortune on enclosures, to no avail.”
“And Lady Lavinia?”
“Lady Lavinia has palpitations at the thought of removing even to the Dower House. Her health is not strong, has never been strong, and her nerves are easily overset.”
“And you were brought up always to give in to her, lest she become seriously ill. I see how it is.”
“No, you do not, Miss Whitton! You cannot possibly guess at the depth of my aversion for pigs!”
Selena laughed and dropped the subject. They were approaching the fields she wanted to inspect, some barley, some wheat, and some clover for fodder. She decided in what order they should be cut, and they turned homeward.
“Do you really mean to oversee the rest of the harvest?” she asked anxiously. “I am sure there must be a hundred things you had rather be doing.”
Lord Iverbrook thought of Amabel Parcott and Brighton, but neither seemed as attractive as before. He consigned them to oblivion.
“Nothing,” he assured her. “Besides, I could not reconcile it with my conscience were I to allow you to make yourself ill again. What I do not understand is why you employ a bailiff like John Peabody, who is so ineffectual he cannot control your labourers.”
“John is extremely knowledgeable about farming. He and Mr. Russell taught me all I know, for Papa was never in the least interested. Papa hired him, not I. In fact, they were very alike in a way, knowledgeable but not practical. My father was a brilliant Classicist and an amateur astronomer of some renown. Hence our names.
“Names? Selena, Phoebe, Delia—ah, Greek names for the moon goddess! Artemis, Diana—you must consider yourself lucky not to be Hecate or Trivia, if I remember my mythology aright.”
“Yes, and also that Papa had no son. I could not bear with equanimity a brother called Apollo!”
“True,” be said, much struck. “Sir Apollo Whitton does not even bear contemplating! Selena suits you well, however, for one might suppose your hair spun from moonbeams."
Selena blushed. “That is the prettiest compliment I have ever received,” she said, then looked at him with laughing eyes. “But I think any compliment from a Bond Street beau must be taken with a pinch of salt.”
“Since we agreed that I am not a Bond Street beau, you may accept it as sincere, Miss Whitton. Fribble though I am, I do not offer Spanish coin.” His eyes laughed back at her. “At least, not to young ladies as accustomed to plain speaking as you are!”
Chapter 6
“My lady, my lady, come quick! Mrs. Tooting’s fallen into a fit and there’s a blackamoor in the kitchen asking for his lordship!” Polly, her pretty face scarlet with excitement, burst into the peaceful dining room.
Bannister surged forward.
“Now what is this, my girl? You just beg her ladyship’s pardon for interrupting dinner and I’ll have a word with you outside.”
“Nonsense, Bannister,” said Lady Whitton firmly. “Polly is quite right to tell me at once about Tooting, though her manner might be improved upon. I’m coming, child. Delia, pray go to the stillroom and fetch me the vervain. And Hugh, dear boy, you had best come and deal with this blackamoor. One of your Jamaicans, I expect?”
Selena jumped up. “Stay here, Delia, and entertain our cousin. I will fetch the vervain. I have been longing all week to meet one of Hugh’s blackamoors and I’d not mi
ss it for the world.”
“It must be Joshua,” said Iverbrook, puzzled. “I wonder what brings him here.”
In the kitchen two housemaids clutched each other hysterically while the housekeeper lay on the floor drumming her heels, her eyes rolled back into her head. Cook, a tall, spare, phlegmatic woman, was standing at the stove, calmly stirring her sauces.
“I couldn’t let the custard burn, my lady,” she explained. “Mr. Arbuckle took the African outside, seeing as how he was causing such a commotion. That Polly’s the only one with a grain of sense, and she don’t have much.”
The viscount left Lady Whitton to deal with her staff and went to the back door. Outside, in the dusk, his servant was talking to a tired-looking young black man, watched from a safe distance by Jem and the gardener.
“Mr. Joshua’s come to see you urgent, m’lord,” said Tom. “He took the stage to Oxford but he’s walked all the way from there.”
Limping badly, the ex-slave approached his lordship.
“I must speak to you, my lord.” He spoke perfect English in a sonorous voice, with just the hint of an exotic accent. “But I do not wish to frighten the good people within.”
“Yokels!” snorted Tom Arbuckle, from the vantage point of a world traveller.
“A moment, Joshua. Let me consult the lady of the house.” Iverbrook turned back to the kitchen just as Selena entered it, carrying a brown glass jar.
“Mama, here is the vervain. What is the matter, Iverbrook? Is it Joshua?”
“Yes,” he said in an undertone. “He has some urgent news for me but will not come in lest your people take fright again.”
“Fools! Bring him in through the side door, to the library. I will go and light some candles there.”
She was just finishing this task when the viscount and his protégé came in.
“Have you eaten, Joshua?” she asked, turning from the candlestick on the mantelpiece. “Oh, you have hurt your leg! My mother will be able to help it, I am sure.”
