Then the drawing room door was flung open behind them, and everyone whirled. Lydia, still feeling somehow removed from the room, marveled at the dramatic effect. Surely this was a play, all staged for their amusement?
But no. Mr. Fawkes stood in the entrance, panting, his clothing disheveled. There was a long tear in his riding coat, and dirt marring the fine white buckskins he took such pride in. No one seemed to know what to say.
Then his face crumpled in a way Lydia had never seen in a man’s before. He looked at her once, longingly, his heart in his face, and Lydia thought her knees would crumple beneath her with the pain of it. She had come so close, and she had lost him forever! How could life be so unbearably cruel? And then he looked at Grainne with a pain no less instense. “My lady,” he breathed, in a tone full of hurt, though his words were unusually formal. “I regret everything that has come to pass today, and am sorry to inform you that your mare Tilly has been shot.”
Grainne leapt up from the divan, her eyes full of shock. Her face swept white in an instant, making her dark brows and eyes a bold contrast. “Shot! What in God’s name is going on here? First Sutton is here to tell me he is going to do the right thing with Miss Dean, and now you tell me my old mare is dead? Has the whole world gone mad?”
Sutton looked nearly as surprised, though not half as concerned. “Good God, man, what happened?” he inquired in a more conversational tone. “The old girl fell in a ditch?”
“So she did, and splintered her near foreleg,” Mr. Fawkes spat, casting Sutton a look of pure hatred. “I could not move her, and had to walk back to the yard to fetch Wilkes. He did the deed himself.” Mr. Fawkes started to go to Grainne, to comfort her, Lydia supposed, but then he stopped himself. She watched the conflict play out on his face. Mr. Fawkes, she thought, had nowhere left to turn. He would be blamed for the mare’s death, he would be blamed for allowing a houseguest to be compromised: he would take the blame for it all.
She wished one of them had the courage to speak up and say it was all untrue, but he would never dare aspire to wed her, and she would never dare brave her parents’ wrath. It would have been nice to think that true love would win over all, Lydia thought wryly. But it wasn’t going to happen. Not here, anyway. Well, she had always known that life wasn’t a fairy tale. Today should really have come as no surprise.
“Peregrin, I do not know what to say,” Grainne spoke with an effort, and then she swiped at her eyes with the back of her sleeve, and sniffed. “I had that mare brought out from Ireland; I rode her when I was just a girl. She was Gretna’s dam, you know.”
Lydia pursed her lips and looked up at the ceiling, feeling impatient. She’d been upstaged by a horse. Her reputation in shambles, about to be married by special license, and the lady of the house was eulogizing about a horse.
“No kennels. Have her buried in the orchard,” Grainne said. “Go, tell Wilkes at once.”
Mr. Fawkes nodded, as obedient as any servant, and went from the room, casting Lydia one apologetic look as he left.
Lydia just shook her head. Everyone here was mad, that was all. Even Mr. Fawkes. Horse-mad was just as bad as any of the inmates of Bedlam, as far as she was concerned.
Sutton seemed anxious to turn the conversation back to how honorable he was. “My lady, my utmost sympathies upon this untimely loss. I am only relieved that I was able to escort Miss Dean home in one piece — imagine if she had been mounted yet on the horse when the bad step was taken —”
“Enough, Lord Sutton,” Grainne sighed, flopping back down in the divan. The canary-yellow cushions creased beneath her dark hair as she flung her head back and closed her eyes. “Let me mourn my dead. Tell Walsh to send William to me at once, if you please. And Miss Dean?” She did not open her eyes.
“Yes, my lady,” Lydia replied meekly.
“Congratulations.”
***
Mary came into the room bearing tea and a thunderous expression. Lydia took one look at her maid’s face and buried her own head under the pillows. “Please, do not badger me, Mary, I cannot bear it,” she said from beneath the feathers.
Mary only set the tea tray down with no more clatter than usual and retrieved an envelope from her apron pocket. “All I will say is you need your tea, so get up and have a cup. And look, the love notes have already started arriving.” She brandished the envelope as Lydia removed herself from her tomb of feather pillows, alight with curiosity.
“Not from Sutton,” she mused, snatching at the envelope. Mary waved it above her head, refusing to give it up.
“Indeed, no, I wager you’ll see a formal letter from his solicitors after every successful childbirth, but that’s as romantic as your future husband will ever be. This is from your penniless lover, no doubt begging your pardon for being a spineless ass.”
“Mary!”
“Well, maybe he’s never read any Shakespeare, miss, but I have, and he should’ve owned up and told that Sutton was a liar.”
“And then what? My parents would disown me. We’d be pariahs. Last time I checked, you were utterly against my marrying Fawkes.”
“Well, that was before I saw what Sutton was capable of.”
Lydia could not deny the truth of that. “I feel the same way,” she muttered, finally gaining control of the envelope. “Until this morning I would have married him to do my duty. Now that I know what a villain he truly is, I find I am loathe to be in his presence — and that I am engaged to be married to him.”
“Isn’t that always the way,” Mary muttered vaguely, pouring tea. “Tell us what the Penniless Lover says.”
Lydia fumbled with the stationary, and pulled out the thin sheet of paper. “Hmmm….” She skimmed through Mr. Fawkes’ tidy script. “He apologizes a lot,” she said finally, feeling a twinge of disappointment.
“No invitation to elope then.”
“No, none.” She put down the letter and accepted the cup of tea Mary held out to her. “He isn’t that sort of person, Mary, and neither am I. He is beholden to the Archwoods for everything, and I cannot go against my parents’ wishes… we cannot run away. Where would we go?”
“Most go to Scotland,” Mary said pitilessly, and flung back the curtains on the tall windows. Late afternoon sun, golden and piercing, flooded the room.
“Ugh, too much light… Yes, most go to Scotland, but where do they go next? He has no home besides this. Do you think Lady Archwood would welcome us back after we shamed her house with our behavior? Not even she, Mary, not even she would be able to overlook such behavior. We would be homeless. And where would you be?”
Mary laughed grimly. “Oh, don’t you worry about me, miss. I’m sure to land on my feet. It’s you I worry about, and it always has been.”
Lydia sighed and sipped tentatively at her tea. “I suppose that’s perfectly reasonable. I am very talented at ruining my prospects for happiness.”
“Even so, you’re not exactly weeping your eyes out over this,” Mary observed.
“I was. You missed that part, I’m afraid.” Lydia thought for a moment. “How is Lady Archwood?”
“Oh, she’s that upset. She went down to the stables to organize a funeral service or some such nonsense. Her maid says she was in a hurry unless they fed the mare to the hounds before she had a chance to stop them.”
Lydia shuddered. Poor Tilly! It was hard to believe that the beautiful, powerful creature she had been balancing atop just this morning was dead and cold. She couldn’t say that she mourned the horse, exactly, in the same way that Grainne and Mr. Fawkes clearly did, but still — she felt very sad that all that life was gone from the world.
And all because Sutton had wanted to startle them! The thought struck her. “Mary — did Lord Sutton come to you in the stable yard before — while we were out riding?”
Mary, who had been perusing the gowns in the wardrobe, paused and looked back at Lydia. “He did.”
“And what did you tell him?”
“I told him you was learnin
g to ride out on the drive.”
“Nothing more? Nothing about being unchaperoned?”
“Why would I tell him that? He didn’t ask. I wasn’t volunteering anything. But he suspected. He went flying out of here with a look on his face… butter wouldn’t have melted in his mouth. He knew.”
“So he surprised us on purpose,” Lydia mused. “And frightened my horse on purpose.”
“Oh, certainly,” Mary said airily, going back to her inspection of the dinner dresses. She fingered at a loose piece of lace trim and clucked her tongue. “It was all a set-up, miss, you can be sure of that.”
Lydia shook her head. “Horrible. Why would he do this? He could have just proposed marriage and I would have consented.”
“He has it in for Fawkes,” Mary said matter-of-factly. “I dunno why, but I’ve heard talk below-stairs. I’ve heard talk that he only came up here at all because he wanted to make trouble for Fawkes.”
“Oh, that can’t be true. That would be ridiculous,” Lydia chided. But her mind turned on it, and she sat for a little while very quietly, sipping at her tea, while Mary pulled out the dress with the offending lace and settled down by the window to mend the lace. Indeed, the idea of some plot against Mr. Fawkes did seem rather possible. It would explain, for instance, why he had been openly courting her in London, even mentioning marriage, but then quickly contracted himself to leave the city before the Season ended, leaving her without so much as a proposal. He would have known that she would not wait for him, but would have been flung right into the arms of the next suitable bachelor.
So he had not been in love with her, that much was obvious, despite his claims of forming an attachment. It had been more important to him that he follow Mr. Fawkes to Tivington.
And yet she had followed him here — followed both of them, really, but it was Sutton’s presence that had let her come. And so he had continued to toy with her. “Maybe he never meant to marry me at all. I was always just a game while he conspired against Mr. Fawkes.”
“Mayhaps,” Mary said, not looking up from her lace. The light was fading and she was in a hurry, wavering candlelight was never so good for stitching. “But he was quick enough to offer, and it will come as no surprise to the ton when you’re wed. Your parents won’t even have a breath of protest, I’m sure.”
Lydia only nodded. She couldn’t make sense of it. Why would Lord Sutton have a vendetta against Mr. Fawkes? He was no one’s enemy, unless it was his cousin the earl’s, and that was only because the earl did not like him. She didn’t even know if Sutton was acquainted with the Earl of Pembroke, let alone such a bosom friend that he would share a reasonless animosity for Mr. Fawkes’ position as a poor relation in the Pembroke household. “None of this makes sense,” she fretted.
Mary shook her head. “You Quality and your ways, none of you make sense most of the time. Now here, this dress is mended and you can wear it down to dinner. I heard talk that there’s to be a special feast tonight, in honor of your approaching nuptials.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Peregrin thought he might be happy again someday, but only if he never left the stables again. The outside world simply wouldn’t have a place for him.
He was sitting in Tilly’s stall, a morbid place to be sure, for the straw was already scraped up against the walls, the manger was swept clean of oat hulls, and the water buckets had been removed. It was a stale, lifeless place, a box between horses, waiting for the next young blood-horse that William would bring in to expand his racing stable.
But he wanted to tell the mare he was sorry, and he wasn’t sure where else he could do it. Not at the freshly mounded earth down in the orchard, where Grainne had supervised the laborers as they flung dirt onto the the body of her old horse. Her eyes had been cold and angry when she had looked at Peregrin, and he felt, once again, the icy worry creeping through him, that she and William had tired of him, that they were ready for him to move on and make his own fortune.
Well, it looked as if now he would have to. And he was afraid that it would be without their blessing or support, now that he was responsible for the death of a horse and the dishonor of a female houseguest.
He really couldn’t have done much worse if he had just burnt the abbey to the ground.
Peregrin hugged at his knees and tried to think of Tilly, to will her spirit a safe journey to wherever it was equine souls went, but he could only think of himself, and of Lydia. Lydia! What would happen to her? He remembered their kiss, the way her lips opened gently to his, the way her touch seemed to brand his very flesh. Lydia, the girl who had been waiting and waiting for him to rescue her since the day they had met — he had saved her life time and time again, but he had not been able to do more than that, and he had given her to another man.
Was he a coward for letting Sutton take her?
He was a realist, he told himself firmly.
But wasn’t he a coward?
William, after all, had believed that his love for Grainne was the most important thing in the world. How Peregrin had despised her name, that trip back to England, when William had been drinking whiskey like a fiend and pining for his lost love. He’d told him to put Grainne out of his head forever, to remember that he had a family and responsibilities, and marrying an Irish nobody with a fondness for riding astride wasn’t even an option. And then he had helped him, with misgivings, in his ploy to convince his fiancee, Violetta deLacey, to throw over their engagement. And then William had flown back to Ireland for his lady-love while Peregrin put out the fires in London.
He’d never approved of the lengths William had gone to, the way that William had flouted his responsibilities, in order to marry Grainne. That was the way of it. And though he had seen how happy William was with Grainne, and though he himself had come to love Grainne — and somehow passed out of that infatuation, he realized with a bemused headshake — he had not been willing to go to such lengths to marry his own lady-love.
So there it was — she would marry another. A man with more determination and force of character than he. A man with more money and a better name than he. A man with less virtue and honor than he, but who hid his bad nature very well.
Peregrin shook his head in disgust. Honor was a cold companion.
There was a rap on the stall wall just then, and he looked up to see William himself peeking in. Speak of the devil, Peregrin thought. “Hello,” he said grimly. “Come in, join me.”
William came and slid down the wall to sit in the heaped straw next to Peregrin. He studied his friend for a moment, but Peregrin kept his eyes downcast. He didn’t want to be read, and diagnosed, and given brusque advice as a cure. He wanted to be alone with his cowardice, and his honor, and his regret.
“Bit morbid sitting out in a dead horse’s stall,” William said after a few moments had passed.
“I thought that myself,” Peregrin admitted. “Still, it’s safer than sitting in a stall with a live horse. And I can’t think of another place I want to be tonight.”
William nodded. “True. So tell me, man, what really happened today?”
“Did you hear something different from what Sutton told Grainne?”
“I heard a lot of cock-and-bull about what an irresponsible old lech you were, but I didn’t believe a word of it. All I know for sure is that you took the girl riding and the horse took off. The horse was injured and had to be destroyed. I don’t know about the rest. Want to tell me?”
Peregrin sighed and toyed with a piece of straw. “It’s better if she marries Sutton, Will. I can’t provide for her.”
“The hell you can’t — we would have taken care of you.” William shook his head. “Don’t you trust your own best friends?”
“I thought you were tired of me.” Peregrin’s voice sounded weak, and he regretted saying the words aloud, but it couldn’t be undone. “I was waiting for you to tell me it was time to leave, that I’d overstayed my welcome.”
“What the hell — are you mad? You’re p
art of the family… Grainne and I wouldn’t even be a family if it wasn’t for you. The way that you helped me… Peregrin, you’re the reason I was able to find Grainne, and marry her. And Peregrin — listen — we’re going to have a child, Perry, it’s going to happen.”
Peregrin reached out and clutched William’s hand. Inside, his heart was bursting with the mingled joy and pain of the news. They had so wanted a child; Grainne had already bought a pony for the young Master Archwood. But there had been no sign of one for nearly two years. They must be overwhelmed with happiness, and here he marred it with the sorrowful knowledge that he would never have a child. He hadn’t fought for Lydia, and she was going to marry someone else.
She’d never been for him. Who was he fooling? How was it a loss when it could never have been?
“Perry, come on man, we’ll help you. We’ll give you the stewardship at Longcastle. Grainne and I talked about this months ago. Just… you have to come clean about Lydia. Tell Sutton to clear off if he doesn’t have a claim to her.”
“I can’t,” Peregrin whispered.
“Whyever not?”
“She doesn’t want that. Me, I mean. She came here to marry Sutton. She told me she expected to marry him. Marrying him was always her plan. If she felt anything at all for me, it was only a little infatuation.”
“Like hell. Her eyes follow you like a hound follows its master.”
“She is bound by her parents’ wishes,” Peregrin said hollowly. “I have no parents; how can I tell her to go against her own? I have no fortune; how can I tell her to give up hers?”
William was quiet for a moment, and Peregrin loosened his grip on his friend’s hand. “I’m telling you, William, this is the way it has to be. Not all of us can have a story like you and Grainne. Most of us have to marry and live and die by our station and our fortune. And I have neither.” He paused. “I have different expectations than you have had.”
The Honorable Nobody (Heroines on Horseback Book 2) Page 19
