The Forthright Lady Gillian, The Fickle Fortune-Hunter

by Amanda Scott

  He smiled ruefully. “I know that, and I make no such threat to you, but you need not tell her as much. Let her think me unreasonable and perhaps she will come down.”

  Casting a worried glance up at the bookroom door, Felicia decided she would do better to attend to Sir Richard and Theo before attempting to deal with her father, and said, “Come along then, sir. I will see what I can do.”

  Not until they were halfway up the stairway did she recall her mother’s collapse. Seeing that Lady Adlam’s woman and Miss Ames had taken her to her sitting room, she made a mental note to go to her as soon as she had settled Vyne and spoken to Theo.

  Peters, approaching from the direction of the service stair, said, “Miss Adlam, please, if I might suggest that—”

  “Not just yet, Peters,” Felicia said, interrupting him ruthlessly for the simple reason that she did not think she could cope with any other crisis just yet. “Please take Sir Richard into the drawing room and fetch him whatever refreshment he requires. I am going up to Miss Theo.”

  “But, Miss Adlam, I do think you ought to—”

  “Peters,” Felicia said, controlling anger with difficulty, “please, do as I ask you and see to Sir Richard. I will return directly, but I simply must attend to one matter at a time.”

  The footman bowed and turned away, and she hurried up to Theo, finding her still in a lachrymose state. Not until Felicia had exerted herself to the limits of both tact and patience did she realize that she had utterly misunderstood Theo’s distress.

  “You don’t think he meant them to laugh at you?”

  Theo wailed, “Oh, no, how could he? He is truthful, not cruel. But that he should have been put into such a position is all my fault. I hated him for daring to make me see the truth. How ridiculous! But oh, Felicia, how he must hate me now!”

  “Nonsense, dear, you are shouldering the blame for something that was not your doing. And you must not be so foolish as to take all the guilt upon yourself, for he is equally guilty, and he knows it. He does not hate you. In point of fact, he is in the drawing room at this very moment and has threatened to take up residence there until you agree to speak with him.”

  “In the drawing room?”

  “Yes, and I would have you know that it took skilled diplomacy to convince him that he could not simply rush up here to confront you where you stand.”

  Theo chuckled. “Do you advise me to speak with him then, Felicia, for I must warn you that you might not like what comes of it? I daresay, you know, that everyone will think he is more interested in my fortune than in my person.”

  “On the contrary. Do not be so quick to attribute motives to people without foundation, Theo. Why, I believe most people will think he is marrying you for your beauty in order to keep his best subject all to himself.”

  Theo’s expression darkened. “A collector’s piece? Will he think of me like Papa does, Felicia? I could not bear that.”

  “Stop assuming things, I tell you, without first talking to the man,” Felicia said sharply. Then, astonished at herself, she added in a gentler tone, “You must discover for yourself what he thinks of you, my dear, but I believe you would be gravely mistaken to think he looks at you as Papa does. I will leave you now to tidy yourself, but I will tell him you are coming down.”

  Theo nodded and Felicia left her to attend to her appearance while she descended to inform Vyne of the success of her mission. Just outside the drawing-room door, however, she was intercepted by Miss Ames.

  “Miss Felicia, her ladyship is resting comfortably now, so I must return to Sara Ann, but do you think you might come up with me to speak to her? You always have such a calming effect.”

  “Pray, go explain to Sara Ann that she must learn not to borrow trouble, and I will come up in a few minutes to add what I can to that,” Felicia said, moving toward the drawing room. She reached for the door handle.

  “Miss Felicia!”

  Turning, she saw Peters hurrying up the stairway, and said wearily, “What is it now?”

  “Begging your pardon, miss,” he said, “but when Lord Crawley arrived, I noticed something mighty peculiar about—”

  “Lord Crawley?” Anger warred with relief, and Vyne was temporarily forgotten. “Do not bring him up, Peters.”

  “Well, miss, I was going to put him in the parlor, but—”

  “Excellent,” Felicia said, thinking she could say all she wished to Crawley there, and not be interrupted. She realized that she had interrupted Peters, and that he was looking extremely frustrated. “Is there something more?”

  With an unfootmanlike sigh, the young man said, “Indeed, there is, miss. I can’t put him in the parlor because his lordship—the master, that is—came out of the bookroom just as I was about to do so and demanded that his lordship—Lord Crawley, that is—come straightaway up and talk to him. And he did. He’s in there now. But that’s not the worst,” he added in a rush. “It’s Master Freddy, Miss Felicia. I’m afraid he’s ...”

  “He’s what?” Felicia demanded. “Good God, Peters, don’t stop. Tell me at once what he’s done now.”

  “Well, I don’t rightly know what to say it is he’s done. I tried to tell you before that you ought to send someone to look after Sir Richard’s horses besides Master Freddy, but he did look as if he knew what he was about, so I held my tongue.”

  “Sir Richard’s horses? Oh, good heavens, Peters, why did you not tell me?” At his look of silent reproach, she pushed a hand distractedly through her curls and said, “Oh, very well, I suppose you did try, but go and find someone to look after the team at once and tell Freddy I said he is to come inside.” She glanced at the drawing-room door, inclined to tell Sir Richard to see to his own horses. However, matters were moving well there, and she did not want to put a rub in Theo’s way. She decided to attend to the matter herself now and tell Sir Richard later what she thought of him. But Peters had not moved. “Well?”

  “He’s not there,” the footman said bluntly. “Saw he wasn’t when his lordship tied his horse to the railing and came inside.”

  “Not there? But of course he must be there!” Without another thought for Vyne or Crawley, or indeed for anyone else but Freddy, she pushed past the footman, snatched up her skirt, and hurried down the stairs to the front door, yanking it open and stepping out onto the step to see for herself.

  A single black horse stood placidly, tied to the area railing at the foot of the steps, half on the flagway, half in the street. To the south, she saw only the little gray mongrel, sitting at the top of the area steps. But turning to the north, she beheld a yellow and green phaeton behind a team of bright chestnuts, moving rapidly toward her. She sighed in relief.

  “Just wait till I get my hands on him,” she muttered.

  Freddy, seeing her, waved his whip and cried, “Look at me, Aunt Felicia! I’ve been all round the block without a single bit of difficulty. Aren’t they a bang-up team?”

  Finding it impossible to shout out to him in such a way in a public street, she merely waved and smiled, hiding her anger and distress. Showing off, he flicked the whip lightly, and then everything seemed to Felicia to happen at once.

  The offside leader, feeling the whip, tossed its head and whinnied. The gray mongrel, barking excitedly, darted from the areaway to greet his favorite friend. Both leaders plunged in alarm, startling the wheelers, and one promptly nipped his leader’s flank. The phaeton leapt forward. As it passed Felicia, standing frozen on the top step, she saw Freddy sawing madly at the reins in a futile attempt to halt the runaways.

  Behind her, Peters cried, “I’ll get his lordship!”

  “Tell him to hurry,” Felicia called, collecting herself in an instant. “I’m going after Freddy.”

  “Miss Felicia, you can’t!”

  Hurrying down the steps to the big black horse, she called back over her shoulder, “Nonsense, Peters, I must!”

  With that, she untied the reins, pulled the horse nearer the steps, hitched up her muslin skir
ts, and flung herself onto its back, all quicker than thought. Realizing, even as she gathered the reins together that she could not maintain her balance in the saddle without sitting astride, she yanked her skirt up higher and threw her leg over. Ignoring the fact that she could not reach the stirrups properly, she kicked the horse’s flanks hard. The huge black exploded in pursuit of the phaeton, impelled as much by the pummeling stirrups as by her kicks, and Felicia clung tight both to the reins and to his flying mane.

  Inside the library Crawley was doing his best to disengage himself from Adlam without offending him, for the man had welcomed him in a much more friendly manner than was his normal custom to greet guests who did not bring wine, Vernis Martin, or other new oddities to add to his collection. Adlam had confided that he thought his entire family was going crazy and had welcomed the company of another sensible man.

  Though Crawley wanted to encourage his host to like him, he wanted much more urgently to speak with Felicia, and when he thought he heard her voice on the gallery landing, he said pointedly that he had come to speak to Miss Adlam.

  “Busy,” Lord Adlam had said. “Whole place like Bedlam, and she’s in the thick of it, like always. Very managing female, you know. Next thing you know we’ll have my sister-in-law, Augusta, down upon us, demanding to know why I don’t keep better order here. As if anyone could. Like pottery, do you?”

  “My mother has some pretty pieces,” Crawley said, glancing toward the door again. “I prefer wine to pottery, sir.”

  “So does that fellow Dacres, I’m told. Trying to winkle his way into Oakley’s good graces. Can’t say I like that.”

  Crawley smiled at him. “I think it’s Oakley’s daughter who draws Dacres, sir, not his wine.”

  “Prefers a woman to wine?” Adlam shook his head. “Always thought he was peculiar, but if that’s the case, at least he won’t be wanting to make up to my Theo. Let me pour you some of this Madeira. Special shipment Oakley got for me. Man’s going to be knighted one day, mark my words.” He turned toward a side table that bore a number of bottles and glasses.

  Crawley was watching him and wondering how he would react to being told that men other than Dacres were interested in his younger daughter—and in his elder daughter, for that matter—when they were interrupted by Peters’s precipitate entrance.

  “Sir!”

  “Good God,” Adlam exclaimed. “What are you about, man?”

  The footman said directly to Crawley. “You are needed, sir, immediately, if you please. It’s Miss Adlam and young Freddy.”

  Crawley, about to demand a clearer explanation, saw a pleading look in the footman’s face that caused him to say instead, “I will come at once. You will have to excuse me, sir. It appears that my presence is required elsewhere.”

  “Bedlam,” said Adlam, picking up the glass he had already filled and turning with a dismissive shrug toward his desk.

  “That was well done of you, sir,” Peters said the minute they were safely alone in the hall.

  “Never mind about that. What the devil is this all about? Where is Miss Adlam?”

  “She jumped on that black horse of yours and rode off down the street after Master Freddy?”

  Crawley stared at him blankly. “She what?”

  “She jumped—”

  “I heard you. I just don’t believe you. Where the devil is Master Freddy that she must needs ride Thunderbolt after him.”

  “In Sir Richard’s phaeton.” Peters, spreading his hands defensively, said, “I ought to have made her listen to me. I know that, but the lad looked as if he could manage the team, and when everything else was in such a coil—”

  “Which team?” Crawley’s stomach had clenched.

  “Why, chestnuts, sir. He was holding them for—”

  But Crawley rushed out the door. “Which way?”

  “South, sir, toward Hertford Street and Piccadilly.”

  “Good God! Get me a horse!”

  Peters started to turn, then said in bewilderment, “A horse, sir, from the stables?”

  “Damn you, of course not. Get—Never mind, I’ll get it myself. Here you!” He shouted to a man riding a bay gelding out of the park gate across the way. “I need that nag of yours.”

  The man looked at him as if he were crazy. “Not my Cricket, you don’t,” he snapped.

  But Crawley had run into the street by then and grabbed the horse’s bridle. Looking up, he said with enough menace in his voice to quell a much larger and more determined man than the one he faced, “I need this horse. A child’s life is in danger, and a woman’s as well. Get down at once.”

  The man hesitated only a moment before sliding to the ground. “Then of course you may have my Cricket,” he said, doffing his hat, “and I hope you find them safe and sound.”

  “So do I,” Crawley retorted, leaping to the saddle, “because when I do, I’m going to strangle them both!”

  Felicia kept her eyes riveted on the speeding phaeton and gave thanks that there was no more traffic than there was. A slower-moving carriage had been ahead of Freddy but the driver had turned into Stanhope Street, and the way was clear beyond Hertford Street to Piccadilly. By the time they passed Hertford Street, her heart was in her throat, for Piccadilly was a main thoroughfare. For a moment she hoped the cross street would stop them, and when the team scarcely paused before lurching left down the hill, she did not know whether to be glad or sorry that they had not turned toward the Hyde Park turnpike. With the echo of the huge black’s hoofbeats pounding at her skull, she wondered if the keeper would have been able to stop them.

  She paid no heed to pedestrians, certain there was nothing they could do, and others on horseback seemed only to glare at the speeding phaeton, to notice only its pace and not that its single passenger was a small boy. There was, in fact, very little traffic along this broad stretch of Piccadilly, bordered as it was by the Green Park on the south and quiet residences on the north, but ahead, once they had passed Devonshire House and neared St. James’s corner, it would be a different matter altogether. The street narrowed, and there would be more traffic. All her dependence was on the black, and on Freddy’s ability to keep from being flung out into the road.

  The black carried her at last to within arm’s length of the phaeton but not before they had come perilously near to Devonshire House. Two blocks ahead lay St. James’s Street.

  Only when Felicia had pulled up alongside them did she realize that she might have trouble stopping such a team. But the sight of the blowing, wild-eyed chestnuts frightened her only until she saw Freddy’s face. The little boy’s visible terror instantly recalled her to her senses. Forcing her mind to focus itself on the nearest leader’s bridle and nothing else, she urged the black nearer and nearer until she could reach out to the leader’s cheek and grasp the straps where they crossed, just above the bit. To her dismay, the chestnut tossed its head free, nearly yanking her from her precarious perch on the saddle, and seemed to increase its pace. Kicking the black hard, Felicia leaned from the saddle again, praying for the strength she needed to stay mounted while she did what seemed to be the impossible.

  St. James’s Street was just ahead now, and the traffic on Piccadilly was accordingly much thicker. The phaeton took a path of its own down the center, between lanes of traffic. Frantically, hoping the black would not shy from oncoming traffic, Felicia grabbed the straps again and tugged, nearly heaving herself into the roadway in her effort. Again the chestnut tossed its head, but this time she managed to cling to the bridle strap. She was leaning into the black’s neck now, her right hand, with the reins, clutching hard at its mane, her arm and elbow tight against its neck for leverage. She had little control over the horse this way, and had to trust it not to betray her, but she could not spare a thought for herself, or for anything but holding on to the chestnut.

  She wanted to close her eyes. The traffic was terrifyingly near, all around her, and there was some sort of slowdown ahead with no opening to be seen. Shouting, �
�Whoa,” at the top of her lungs and tugging with all her might, she realized that though the team was slowing a little, it would not be enough. She would never be able to stop them in time to avoid a terrible crash. Gritting her teeth, so absorbed in her task and the noise of the horses’ hooves on the pavement and cries of alarm from helpless spectators that she did not hear anything else, she was nearly sobbing when the team began more noticeably to slow and finally to stop. Only when she sat upright and saw that they had stopped just sort of another carriage, was she able to relax, breathe a sigh of relief, and even to feel rather pleased with herself. It was then that she saw Crawley on the other side of the team.

  She was glad to see him until he began shouting.

  “What the devil were you about, woman?” he demanded with uncontrolled fury as he swung down from the gelding and went to the leaders’ heads. “Have you no concern for your own safety, for the sanity of others, for your precious proprieties? Damn it all, you not only made a spectacle of yourself, riding down Piccadilly with that damned flimsy gown bunched around your hips and your bare legs waving for everyone to see, but you might very well have been killed! What on earth were you thinking?”

  She opened her mouth to tell him of her terror for Freddy, but she had no time to speak before he went on, saying a good deal more than she had any wish to hear, his voice increasing in volume until he was bellowing at her as though she had been deaf.

  Freddy sat perfectly still, but it was not long before Crawley’s attention came to light on him. “And what the devil were you about, young man, to try such a damned fool thing as to drive Sir Richard’s horses?”

  Freddy blinked at him, glanced at Felicia, and then said, “I thought they needed walking. He was gone a long time.”

  “You took it upon yourself to make that decision when you had been given no permission to do so. Is that not right?”