Elisabeth Fairchild (12 page)

“This suits my purposes perfectly,” he said.

Beau returned to the promise of his window that evening, as the sun set. The day had ended in disappointment. Unable to exchange a single word with Miss Quinby since morning, the ladies had been taken on the fan-fetching expedition, but Ursula Dunn made it quite clear that her coachman was expected to sit his box and hold his tongue. She could not abide servants who chattered. Frustrated, Beau had returned to an afternoon of hot, sweaty stable work. He knew he would see Nell when he took the ladies to the Assembly that evening at the Old Ship, but the limitations of his position as coachman were beginning to sink in. How did one woo a woman when one could not so much as exchange a word with her? And how did one go about it, smelling of horses and hay?

As he stood, sleeves rolled back for a quick sponge bath at the washstand by his dirt-clouded window, Beau noticed the view he was allowed of the upstairs chambers in the main house. The night lamps were lit. He could see dimly, despite dirt on the one set of windows, and lace curtaining on the other, directly into the room where Miss Quinby readied herself for the evening’s festivities. Such a sight gave him pause, and he stood, mouth agape, sponge dripping in his hands, trying to make out what little he could through a layer of grime. He used his sponge to clear a spot in the dirt, only to discover that most of the obstruction was accumulated on the outside surface of the pane.

Eager to avail himself of the best possible view, and frustrated thus far in accomplishing that goal, he undid the latch on the window frame with wet hands, only to find that the window did not budge, for when it had been painted fresh the previous year, it had been painted shut.

With a sigh that fogged the pane to an even dimmer state, he peered at the muzzy silhouette that moved about in the room across from his, content enough to know that it was she, and that she was near, and that he had the privilege of perhaps exchanging a word or two with her again this evening.

It was only as her light was extinguished, that he remembered that he was now her coachman. As such, he must not keep her waiting, for the ladies had been most specific about the time the carriage was to be brought around to the door.

He made himself presentable with a speed that would have left his valet gasping, for Lord Beauford had always been meticulously careful in the rendering of his toilet. Not so this evening. The duke threw himself together with more dash than splash, set his weather-worn coachman’s hat upon his head and flew down the steps to find that Toby held the horses ready.

Beau regretted his slap dash appearance when he drew the carriage around to the front of the house. The ladies came down the steps, elegant in evening finery. Unaccustomed to wearing the same second-hand shirt and coat two days running, Lord Beauford felt diminished before their eyes. It surprised him that the cloth one carried on one’s back could affect one’s self-esteem so profoundly.

As if she read his mind, Ursula Dunn settled into her seat with a slightly jaundiced eye directed at her coachman’s borrowed attire. “We must see you fitted for a suit of livery, Mr. Ferd. I am quite prejudicially opposed to the color of your waistcoat!”

Fatigued with the faded robin red-breast effect of his borrowed garb, Beau yet felt his pride had been dealt a tremendous blow. With bowed head he agreed.

“As you wish, madame.”

“What think you, Nell?” Ursula ground home the point. Nell seemed to have withdrawn from her earlier friendliness. She met Beau’s gaz with a distant look that could not but remind him of his position, and then fixed her attention on his waistcoat. “Quite right, Auntie. Mr. Ferd will look much more handsome in some other color.”

In that moment, Beau felt that he had set himself an impossible task. How might he now induce this lovely creature to consider him in any way other than as a pair of hands, hired to do as he was bid? This feeling was not to be dispelled by an evening in which Miss Quinby participated in an Assemblage of her peers, while he stood outside and held the horses.

However, a singular incident occurred on their way to the Old Ship, which renewed hope and shored up his resolve. As he tooled the carriage onto the main street, a frenzied barking followed them.

“Bandit!” Nell exclaimed. “Mr. Ferd, I think you had best slow down so that we might take up your dog.”

Ursula Dunn was not so tolerant. “We shall do no such thing. I think you had best lock the creature up when we intend to go out, Mr. Ferd.  We cannot have him chasing after us everywhere we would go. It is not at all attractive.”

“Yes, madam,” Beau said obligingly, knowing how much Bandit would object to such a scheme.

“We should pretend Bandit is our carriage mascot,” Nell said cheerfully. “Aurora writes me that they are all the rage in London this Season. Lady Aston has a fawn and white pug that goes everywhere with her.”

“Does she really?” Ursula enquired, much impressed.

“Yes, and Lord Whitcomb is not to be seen without his bull terrier, nor the Viscount of Falmount without his French poodle.”

“All right, all right, Fanella. You may take the dog up this one time. I know how dotty you are about animals.”

Nell chuckled, and opened up the carriage door. “Jump,

Bandit,” she called.

To Beau’s surprise, Bandit obediently did as she ordered, and settled himself happily at her feet.

The seventh Duke of Heste was watching Ursula Dunn’s horses, playing fetch with his dog and wondering what it might be like to dance with Nell Quinby, when Charley Tyrrwhit arrived at the Old Ship. Beauford’s attention was not wholly focused on his play with Bandit. He kept glancing up at the windows of the Inn, where some evidence of the gathered assemblage of local gentry was to be witnessed in the form of music and laughter, and figures moving against the light.

“There are definite advantages to being a Duke and not a coachman, are there not?” Charley asked softly. His question startled Beau, who had been too lost in thought to notice his approach.

“I a-a-am feeling rather an outsider.” He waved the fetching stick at a small group of local boxmen and footmen, who had gathered together by one of the waiting carriages for a smoke and a chat. They threw sidelong glances at him even as he spoke. “A-A-As things stand I belong to neither group.”

“Well, I will not waste pity on you,” Charley said. “There is absolutely no good reason for this preposterous charade.”

“Perhaps,” Beau agreed. “But, I m-mean to see it through.

There is some comfort to be derived in knowing that my station is temporary. Comfort too, in the knowledge that I shall never again lightly a-accept the services of my own servants. Their life is so very different than ours, Chaz!”

Charley laughed. “Oh ho! Developing a social conscience are you?” His expression went serious. “Do you know I have never heard you sound more like a duke than you did just now?”

A slow, sad smile transformed Beau’s face. He knew he was not in the least like his father. It was one of the reasons he felt so awkward about assuming his position as seventh Duke of Heste. He tried to make light of the moment. “It is the hat talking.” He ran his finger along its’ brim.

“A hat you may take off at any time,” Charley reminded him. “’Tis my opinion that you have set yourself an impossible and nonsensical task in winning a lady’s heart without all of the persuasions available to you. I wager you a pony you cannot do it this way.” He tapped the amber knob of his walking stick against the scarlet waistcoat that Mrs. Dunn had only too recently avowed she could not bear. “And I do not mean a broken down nag of a pony either.”

Beau nodded ruefully, gaze straying to the glowing windows above their heads. “I will not a-a-accept your wager. ’Tis all too likely you should win. I would a-appreciate your locating Gates for me. I require a valise to be packed with several of my plainest shirts, as well as fresh undergarments, tooth powder, a-a-and the like. He will know what is required.”

Charley sighed. “I have not convinced you to give up this foolishness?”

Beau shook his head. “No, for while I wonder if I shall be wasting too much time on the wrong side of windows, merely watching the life I mean to take part in, I a-a-am not ready to a-abandon my role as of yet. There is something far too exhilarating and liberating about my masquerade. I shall play out the charade a little longer.”

Charley chuckled. “I leave you to it. No sense in arguing points with a thick-head who prefers the company of a mongrel to that of his peers.”

“Ah, Fanella! There is a gentleman with whom you are familiar.” Aunt Ursula crowed. She had consumed more than one glass of punch, and Nell noticed that her aunt’s spirits seemed to rise in direct ratio to the amount of spirits she consumed. “Mr. Tyrrwhit is just come in the door. It would do you well to befriend that fellow, you know. He is very well connected.”

Nell, who took almost as little joy in her evening’s entertainment as did her coachman downstairs, regarded the newcomer with interest. If anyone here might carry on a conversation that would interest her, perhaps it was this man.

Not that Nell did not enjoy the company in which she immersed herself. The collection of local gentry, with its sprinkling of nobility, was nothing if not polite. Neither did she lack for partners, either in the country dances, the fetching of refreshment, or in the sharing of light conversation. To the contrary, as one of the prettiest young women in the hall, Fanella was much sought after for the dances and her head fairly reeled with the names and faces she must remember, as her aunt introduced her to one after another of her acquaintances.

Despite her social success, Nell found herself too preoccupied with thoughts of the mysterious and contradictory Mr. Ferd, whom she had fruitlessly vowed to henceforth ignore, for any in the assembled company to make an indelible impression.

Perhaps, like a child, she yearned for what was denied her. Perhaps she was drawn to the forbidden as Eve was to the apple, for certainly a coachman was a gentleman of inappropriate background and occupation for someone such as herself. She burned with guilt over the all encompassing fascination that Beau Ferd’s presence provoked within every fiber of her being. Such feelings were not at all proper, acceptable, desirable, or commendable in her, just because her family had fallen on bad times-- perhaps especially for that reason.

Nell felt that her interest, indeed her conduct thus far with Mr. Ferd, would ha been quite unobjectionable, even somewhat amusing, had he proved, as she had been convinced, a nobleman simply masquerading as a coachman, but now, with his own straight-faced insistence that he was a coachman, and nothing more, Nell felt consumed with two warring emotions: guilt, for she had overstepped the bounds of polite society in striking up such a friendship, and fascination, that she should be drawn to forbidden fruit.

The enigmatic riddle that Mr. Ferd posed for both her heart and her brain, rudely intruded on all her thoughts. Imagination succeeded in wreaking havoc with every conversation in which Nell engaged, for she kept thinking what Mr. Ferd might say or do were he upstairs instead of down.

She searched the masculine faces she encountered for some hint of the intensity of interest that so entranced her with Mr. Ferd’s pale gaze; that look of kinship, of deep understanding and admiration, that so warmed her heart whenever their eyes chanced to meet. His particular shade of cerulean was not to be found. Neither was the look. Even Mr. Crawford-- a fat old gent who told her aunt she was a pretty minx, and on being introduced to Nell said she must marry him-- did not cast his bleared eye on her with anything equaling the admiration she had grown accustomed to witnessing in Mr. Ferd’s beguiling gaze.

Drawn to the window on more than one occasion, Nell peered down on the row of carriages waiting in the road, wondering why a coachman, of all people, made her feel attractive, witty and intelligent. She could not mistake which of the ill-lit forms beneath her belonged to Mr. Ferd. Only one driver entertained himself playing fetch with a dog. How odd, that the most intriguing person that she had of late been introduced to, stood outside.

Thoughts thus engaged, when Mr. Tyrrwhit at last made his way to her side of the room, he startled her.

“Miss Quinby!” He politely saluted her hand. “What, may I ask, so captivates your attention that your eyes are drawn more often to the window, than to the fair company gathered in the room around you?”

Nell blushed. “I watch the dog, sir, and wonder why he had the misfortunate to lose part of his ear. Mr. Ferd does not appear to be a man given to cruelty.”

Mr. Tyrrwhit regarded her with a queer expression before he said, “Nothing could be further from the truth. Bandit would be missing far more than his ear had not Beau snatched him from the very jaws of certain death.” He scowled at the memory as she waited patiently to hear more. “The tale is not a pretty one. The telling of it is sure to offend the squeamish.”

Such a remark could not fail to intrigue. “With such an intriguing introduction, you cannot leave the tale untold.”

Charley looked at her doubtfully. “How familiar are you with the sport some men enjoy in dog fighting?”

“Familiar enough to know that I consider it as abhorrent as bull baiting and cock fighting,” she said firmly, expression grim. “Was Bandit a fighting dog?”

“To the contrary. Bandit was to have been used as bait, in a blooding before a big fight, between two pit bulls.”

Nell was confused. “What is this blooding you refer to? I am not so familiar with dog fighting as to understand.”

“Are you certain you wish to hear, Miss Quinby?”

Nell glanced one more to the window. “Pray continue. I shall refrain from embarrassing you with an undue show of emotion.”

Charley sighed. “The bait I refer to, is a live creature; a kitten, a puppy, a chicken sometimes. Weaker and less aggressive than the fighting dog, the bait is offered up as a sort of sacrifice that the fighting dog might get a taste for blood, for killing.”