by Sheila Walsh
“How can you talk of punishment? You know this child is not responsible for his actions.”
“Then he must be made to learn that responsibility the hard way, idiot or no,” he sneered.
“If that is how you feel,” Felicity insisted desperately, “then take him before a magistrate.”
The thin mouth twisted. “Before Stayne? What kind of justice would that produce, I wonder? No, Miss Vale—this is an affair between children; I have a fancy to keep it that way.”
“The idiot stole my ball,” smirked Geoffrey. “My father is going to let me beat him!”
Felicity stared at Hardman in disbelief. “But that is obscene! Surely even you would not encourage such sadistic brutality in your own son?”
One glance assured her that he would. His contempt flayed her like a lash. “Have a care, schoolmarm! You are trespassing on my land for the second time. I might yet be tempted to treat you in similar fashion!”
She flushed scarlet. Her eyes found Ester; anger mingled with terror in her face. Her own anger mounting, Felicity swung around on the crowd.
“Are you going to stand there and let this happen?”
Without waiting for answer she delivered a well-aimed elbow to her captor’s midriff. Caught unawares, he doubled up in pain; she pushed him aside and ran to scoop Willie from the grasp of the momentarily disconcerted keeper.
Willie regarded her solemnly and slowly held out his hands. “Ball,” he said quite distinctly.
For a moment everything stood still except her heart, which leapt with pride. She hugged him.
“Yes, dear, ball,” she said. “But let us put it down now.”
She took it from his unresisting fingers and let it drop to the ground.
“Fools! Dolts!” Captain Hardman was nearly speechless with rage. “Seize her! Seize them both! Must I do everything myself?”
It was the first time Felicity had seen him off his horse—a vain strutting little man—but dangerous. She held the boy tighter as he advanced and from the corner of her eye saw the man she had winded and the keeper moving in from the other side.
There was an angry murmuring among the crowd. Above it came Sir Peregrine’s voice, devoid of its customary geniality.
“Hold where you are, sirrah! Call off your bruisers if you value your miserable hide.”
Felicity had completely forgotten him. She was never so glad to see anyone; her knees grew treacherously weak as he ranged himself alongside her, an elegant silver-mounted pistol held in a rock-steady hand.
Captain Hardman looked down its barrel—and up into Sir Peregrine’s coldly cherubic face. He signaled his men to stand back.
“Who the devil are you?” His voice grated.
Sir Peregrine looked him over with an hauteur his nephew could not have bettered.
“I have not the least desire to converse with you, my man. Release these good people, and go about your business.” With superb nonchalance he addressed Felicity. “Will you come, my dear ... is this the young lad’s mother? Come, ma’am.”
The Negro released Ester. Behind them the Captain relieved his feelings by cuffing his son, who was shrieking with hysterical disappointment.
Coming upon Captain Hardman three days later in Stapleforth’s Market Square, Lord Stayne dashed any hopes he might have entertained regarding the Graham cottage.
“There is a written agreement between Mrs. Graham and myself. In the event of her wishing to sell Ivy Cottage, I have first refusal.”
There was a petulance about the Captain’s wrath. “Very clever, my lord. But I am not deceived. I perceive only too clearly whose hand is behind this turn of events. That Vale woman will regret the day she crossed my path with her radical arrogance and mischief-making! I don’t tolerate it in my foundries—I certainly won’t tolerate it on my doorstep from a soldier’s upstart brat!”
“That will do, Captain!” The Earl’s voice held the steely ring of authority. “The agreement is between Mrs. Graham and myself and no one else. Is that clear? Furthermore, I expect all pressures to cease forthwith!”
He saw the angry color creep up under the other man’s skin and added meaningfully, “I am sure we understand one another.”
When Felicity was summoned to the library she was uncertain what to expect. Lord Stayne had already expressed himself forcibly on the subject of the incident in Manor Court wood; she had only been prevented from taking issue with him by the intervention of Sir Peregrine.
“Let be, m’dear,” he had counseled, drawing her away. “No sense brangling with Max when he’s in a miff. Cuts up pretty nasty, I can tell you!”
She could divine little now from the Earl’s expression. He frequently looked down his nose in that beetle-browed fashion.
When he had allowed her ample time to grow uneasy, he observed with cutting sarcasm, “Strange. You do not have the look of a young woman bent upon self-destruction.”
She stirred, frowning. “My lord?”
“I have warned you on more than one occasion, have I not, to refrain from antagonizing Captain Hardman?”
“Yes, but...”
“Permit me to finish, Miss Vale. Perhaps I have been at fault in allowing you free rein. It amused me to indulge you, and in many ways the experiment has proved beneficial. But you are too impetuous by far, ma’am. Your dealings with Hardman appear to border on the suicidal!”
“That is unfair! At no time have I set out to antagonize Captain Hardman!”
“Then it will astonish you to learn that he lays blame squarely at your door.”
“And you?”
The Earl appeared to weigh his words. “I think you have been unwise.”
“Because I interfered the other day...”
“I have already spoken my mind on that head!”
“Ah yes! It was none of my business ... I should have passed by!” Felicity sprang to her feet and paced about the room. “Is that what you would have done, my lord?” When he didn’t answer, she finished bitterly, “Well, I thank God your uncle thought differently!”
The candlelight threw up shadows and brought the scar on Stayne’s cheekbone into sharp relief.
“Don’t attempt to turn the argument, Miss Vale. By interfering in a purely domestic dispute—a squabble between children upon private land—you placed yourself unquestionably in the wrong. Had Sir Peregrine not been on hand to intervene, you might have found yourself facing a very ugly situation.”
Felicity swung around to face him, grasping the back of a chair.
“Domestic dispute?” she cried, ignoring his censure. “Is that how you see the obscenity of setting one boy on to beat another?”
“Oh, come now! You are overdramatizing the whole thing. I doubt any lasting harm would have resulted.”
Felicity met his eyes steadily. “If that is what you truly believe, my lord, then I am sorry for you.”
The reproach disconcerted him. He said abruptly, “Sit down, Miss Vale.”
“I thank you, sir, but, with your permission, I had far rather leave.”
Exasperation flared anew. “Oh, for God’s sake, girl—come down off your high ropes! Sit down. I have not done with you.”
Felicity glared—and sat. The Earl watched her with a curious expression.
“Why do I bear with you, I wonder?” he murmured at last.
She supposed the question to be purely rhetorical, yet a sudden quirk moved her to remark, “I understood that you saw my refusal to be cowed as a challenge, my lord?”
“Did I say that? I must have been in my cups!” His look grew brooding. “If it is so, then I have served you a back-handed turn, I think—and must take some measure of responsibility for your subsequent handling of Captain Hardman.”
“No, sir,” she said firmly. “With respect, I cannot agree. I’ll not hide behind you or anyone else. I shall always oppose people like Captain Hardman who assume that they have a God-given right to make their own rules and trample all resistance underfoot!”
The Earl sighed. “I see that I am wasting my breath. You are clearly destined to meet an untimely end.”
Felicity smiled, uncertain of his mood.
“At least give me your word that you will stay out of Hardman’s path. I did not exaggerate when I said that he blames you for his misfortunes. I have warned him off, but it is by no means certain that he will comply. He is not, as you will have realized, a rational man.”
“No, indeed,” she agreed readily. “I will certainly engage not to provoke him. But neither will I be silent if I see a need to speak.”
Stayne grunted. “I suppose I must be satisfied with that.”
She stood up. “May I go now, my lord?”
“Yes, Miss Vale—you may go,” he said with a strong touch of irony. He moved to open the door for her. As she passed him, he restrained her for a moment more.
“Pray, do have a care,” he urged in an odd sort of voice. “If anything were to happen to you, I have a curious notion that we should all be the worse for it.”
8
Sir Peregrine’s going seemed to entail an even greater upheaval than his arrival.
His genial, good-natured presence was sorely missed. Amaryllis soon fell into a fit of the blue megrims; she sighed a lot and complained incessantly of the inclement weather and of the drafts. In this, at least, she was justified, for in spite of numerous fires kept halfway up the chimneys, the drafts whistled persistently through the vaulted hall and up the grand staircase; they wheezed through the window cracks and under bedchamber doors to flirt with the hangings.
Her complaints embraced Stapleforth’s lack of amenities—no assembly rooms, no theater, not so much as a lending library. Her headaches became more frequent, and when the Earl finally lost patience and spoke sharply to her one evening, she burst into tears and fled the table.
Behind her, an uncomfortable silence reigned. Felicity, uncertain whether to follow her cousin or stay, was impatient with both parties; with Amaryllis for carrying on in a manner calculated to irritate her brother-in-law, and with the Earl for his easily provoked intolerance.
He said austerely, “I apologize for precipitating one of my sister-in-law’s tantrums, Miss Vale. It was clumsy of me, when I am well aware what must be the object of these frequent displays of histrionics.”
“Do they have an object, my lord?” Felicity feigned innocence and received a hard stare for her pains.
“I am fully aware that before my uncle departed he fostered certain aspirations within Amaryllis ... that she might, in fact, go to London for the season. Since I hold the purse strings, I imagine she is hoping to convince me that she is in sore need of a change.”
“Then put her out of her misery, my lord, and tell her she may go.”
Stayne raised a haughty eyebrow. “I beg your pardon?”
“Oh, forgive me. Of course, it is not for me to presume to offer an opinion.”
“I don’t recall you have ever let that stop you!” he said dryly.
“Well, you obviously mean to let Amaryllis go to London...”
“Do I? Why should I?”
“Because she is a fish out of water down here in the country. And because it will make her very happy,” she finished simply.
The Earl paused, his glass halfway to his lips, and surveyed her over the rim. “And that seems to you sufficient reason?”
“I cannot think of a better one, sir. Can you?”
He raised the glass to her with the ghost of a smile. “No, Miss Vale. Offhand, I cannot.”
And so, before the Earl set out for Ascot two days later, he informed Amaryllis that she might go to London in the spring and that she might charge all expenses to him.
Amaryllis, overcome by his sudden generosity and mildness of manner, began to stammer incoherent thanks, but was cut short with the recommendation that she direct any thanks toward her cousin.
Headaches forgotten, she rushed up to Felicity’s room where she grabbed her startled cousin by the waist and waltzed her recklessly around until, in the confined space, they collapsed in a heap on the bed. Amaryllis disentangled herself first and sat up.
“Only think of it, Fliss! London! For the whole season! Oh, I cannot believe it!” She fell at once to planning her wardrobe. “I shall need new dresses ... I declare, I haven’t a stitch to wear! What a happy coincidence that I had those new French journals from Lucinda ... they have the very latest fashions!”
Felicity, still catching her breath, protested that she had whole cupboards full of beautiful clothes, an observation which drew a charming moue.
“Oh, but they are all quite old! A fine thing it would be an I appeared as a frump!”
Felicity gurgled with laughter. “A physical impossibility, my dear. You could never look other than wholly ravishing!”
Amaryllis accepted the compliment without demur. “Well, I am determined to be of the first stare. Max has been quite astonishingly generous! What did he mean about directing my thanks to you?”
“Did he say that? What an extraordinary man he is! I simply suggested that it would be a good idea for you to go to London, with little hope that he would take note.”
“Well, he has—and I do thank you, dear Fliss. Will Ester help with the sewing, do you think? She is so much busier these days.”
“I’m sure she will. I’ll help, too.”
“You are much too good to me,” said Amaryllis, with unusual perception. “I daresay you are quite as much in need of a change as I.” Her eyes brightened. “Come to London with me. You spend far too much time slaving over those wretched children—it really isn’t necessary, you know. I’m sure Ester could run the school ... and you’ve made your point with Stayne—he has long since ceased to think of you as hanging out for favors.”
Felicity winced at the unfortunate choice of words.
“Thank you, but I would rather not trade on his lordship’s good nature. Besides, I enjoy my school—and now that Ester is become so adept, I am able to devote more of my time to the backward children.”
“Oh well, as you please.” Amaryllis gave an impatient shrug, unable and unwilling to understand such odd compulsions. The boy of Ester’s, for instance. The child was repulsive! How could Felicity bear to have him follow her around with his peculiarly vacant stare! She shuddered.
While Lord Stayne was away, Jamie’s tutor arrived to take up his position. The Reverend Aloysius Burnett was a shy, angular young man whose boney nose and finger ends seemed to be forever pinched bright pink by the cold. He came with the highest references and settled into the household with such gentle unobtrusiveness that Felicity at first doubted his ability to handle a boy as high-spirited as Jamie. However, it quickly became apparent that his gentleness cloaked a firmness of purpose allied to a keen intellect, which soon proved more than a match for the most determined small boy.
It was unfortunate that almost within days of his arrival Jamie went down with the measles. The disease started in the school and spread rapidly. When Lanny Price succumbed, Felicity knew it must only be a matter of time before Jamie followed suit.
Dr. Belvedere insisted that the school be closed and Felicity wasn’t sorry, for Jamie as a patient proved to be a fulltime job—and one that devolved almost entirely upon her, with Rose Hibberd’s help.
To give Amaryllis her due, she did try, but her nerves did not stand up well to the rigors of the sickroom; her tearful ministrations had an unfortunate effect upon the invalid, and more often than not culminated in the onset of a migraine, when only one of Felicity’s tisane’s would bring comfort.
Most afternoons Felicity did manage to get a little fresh air. She usually rode into the village with a few delicacies begged from Mrs. Hudson for the worst-hit families.
After one such visit Felicity encountered the Lipscombe carriage coming away from Cheynings. Her heart sank as Mrs. Lipscombe, muffled to the eyebrows in sable, let down the window and beckoned.
“Miss Vale! We have left cards.”
Felicity reined Starlight in alongside the carriage. The young horse, with the fidgets scarcely shaken out of her legs, shied nervously at the high, querulous voice. Felicity ran a soothing hand along her neck and mustered a smile.
“Mrs. Lipscombe. I am sorry to have been out. Cavanah will have told you of our troubles, I daresay. Will you not come back with me now? You will find Amaryllis a trifle indisposed, but I am sure she would be much cheered by a visit from Miss Lipscombe.”
The atmosphere cooled. Mrs. Lipscombe was not pleased to find this upstart girl so much in charge; even Cavanah, it would seem, took his tone from her.
“I cannot permit it, Miss Vale. Indeed, I am astonished to hear you suggest such a visit.”
There was amusement in Felicity’s voice. “It is only the measles, ma’am—a simple childish ailment, nothing more.”
Lucinda leaned forward, clutching her reticule. “I have not had the measles, Miss Vale.”
Felicity examined the empty, flawless features framed exquisitely in ruby velvet, and felt a momentary pang of sympathy.
“My dear Lucinda has a most delicate constitution,” her mother was saying in quelling tones. “I could not think of exposing her to the risk. Were Lord Stayne here,” she added meaningfully, “I feel sure he would endorse my decision!”
Felicity almost snorted aloud. If Stayne were home, the old dragon would be pushing her daughter in at the door! She swallowed these unladylike sentiments and said mildly: “I hardly think a few words with Amaryllis likely to endanger Miss Lipscombe’s health, ma’am, but of course you must do as you think fit.”
She made light of it to Amaryllis.
“Well, I’m sure I don’t care!” Amaryllis said crossly. “I don’t think I could have listened to Lucinda boring on forever about her latest stay in Norfolk and all the balls she will have attended! That sort of thing is very well if one has no responsibilities!”
These observations were so totally out of character that Felicity was hard put to it not to laugh. But there were dark circles under the gentian blue eyes. “I daresay you will think that a very strange remark for me to be making?”
