A Gentleman’s Game (9 page)

But oh—it was a broad ribbon of silk, smooth and bright and lovely to the touch. Something so fine would exhaust her coins. By way of excuse, she said, “Maybe something narrower would do better for my bonnet.” It still hung from its strings about her neck, and she gave the straw hat a little tug.

“If you prefer something narrower, then you ought to have it. But my dear Miss Agate, if you wear the green ribbon, kingdoms will fall at your glance, and men will topple at your feet.”

The ribbon seller, a goodwife with a plump, ruddy face, winked at Rosalind. “Listen to your gentleman, miss. I wouldn’t mind a few kingdoms myself if they’d come my way as easily as buying a ribbon.”

Now Rosalind was blushing in earnest. “A lady only needs one kingdom—or queendom. The running of any more than that will wear her to a thread.”

“And how many men do you require at your feet?” asked Nathaniel.

She could not quite look at him. “None. I’d be devastated if I trod on anyone.”

“The benevolent sort of queen. That settles it. You simply must have this.” Before she could stop him, he had exchanged a coin for the length of sleek green silk. “Would you like me to tie that on for you at once?”

“You’ve—no, thank you. You’ve done so much. More than—you shouldn’t really. I shouldn’t have…” She looped the ribbon around her hand, liking the slick, satiny feel of it. She didn’t want to let go of it, even to weave it onto her bonnet. “Thank you, Nathaniel. This is kind of you.”

“You
did
promise not to tread on me. How could I resist?”

And did that mean he lay at her feet? For a while, she had forgot her usual warning: no false compliments.

But maybe he’d remembered, and maybe that had been a real one.

“Thank you,” she said again. “I like it. Very much.”

Now it was his turn to flush and look away. “Always with the short sentences.” Which somehow, she knew, meant that he was pleased.

As they left the ribbon seller and Rosalind looked around, she noticed that many of the women were not even wearing bonnets. Instead, they were crowned by wreaths of flowers. For some, this had clearly been an impulse. Their bonnets swung free from strings tied over a dainty arm or had been pushed back to hang behind a smooth neck. Whitsuntide was all flowers, all new life, all celebration.

She remembered her girlhood dream of riding a pony at a fete, crowned with flowers like a May Queen. She had thought of it when treating Sheltie; before that, not for years. If pressed, she would have guessed she had outgrown this dream.

But maybe not. Maybe she had only outgrown her chance to ride a pony.

From a woman holding wreaths of flowers along one arm, Rosalind bought a circlet of carnations, red as heart’s blood. There was a particular sort of pleasure in buying something for herself that she had long wanted, just because she could. She tipped her carnation crown to a jaunty angle atop her plaited coronet of hair.

“Very nice,” said Nathaniel when she had done this. “You look a proper Whit-week maiden now. Shall you buy anything else?”

“I have…”
bought enough already
, she intended to say, but then she saw it. Pretty, so pretty that there was no uncertainty about the matter. Spilling atop a stall of cloths and caps and scarfs was a fichu of bobbin lace, a shade just off white and scalloped at the edges. When Rosalind slipped over and lifted it in reverent fingers, she realized it was shaped in a long thin triangle gently swooping in the middle, as though it were ready to embrace her.

“I never wear this sort of thing,” she said.

“Is that why you want it?” Nathaniel asked.

He understood. “Yes. That is exactly why I want it.” If she unfastened her high-necked gown at the collar, then folded the fabric under, she might feel light, rather than having something always clutching at her throat.

The fichu emptied her pocket, even after she argued the seller down to half the scandalous price first asked. It was worth the cost to fill her hands with such spiderweb-fine luxury. The passion-red crown and the lace made her feel like a different Rosalind, one who had never been scarred. She wanted to cover herself in such fineness, to carry this feeling around with her even after they left the fete.

She wanted Nathaniel to look at her with that sort of shy wonder again, as though he had found himself at her feet without quite knowing how it had happened.

“I would like to wear this lace at once,” she decided. “Will you help me to find a place to change my clothing?”

Rosalind had hoped simply to duck into the village’s public house to arrange her gown and fichu, but a quick conversation between Nathaniel and a random inhabitant of Kelting proved that this would be impossible.

“No inn in the village since Christmas,” confirmed the villager—one George Hutchins, a broad, sturdy farmer with gnarled hands and a vinegary Suffolk accent that hopped upward at the end of every sentence. “Somehow a fire caugh’ to it, a terrible loss. The Cock and Bull’s nothin’ bu’ a shell.” He indicated the handsome structure of blond and red brick to one corner of the village green, beside the main road. Though the facade was intact, Rosalind could tell that the window frames were empty eyes upon the fallen interior.

“The stables are sound enough, though,” Hutchins added. “Old Toby’s been serving ale from there since the new year. If yer care for a pint, the Whit ale’s strong enough to grow yer a mustache.” He jerked his head toward the road. “Or yer can run on back to the Dog and Pony and roll abou’ in down pillows while yer drink sherry.”

Such pride in his village; Rosalind smiled as she folded away her fichu. Doubling and redoubling the fine lace, she made a packet of it as small as the palm of her hand, then tucked it into her pocket alongside the ribbon.

The color of your eyes.

“I could do with a pint,” she replied to Hutchins. She felt flushed and half intoxicated already. “Though perhaps not a mustache.”

“They know how to celebrate here in Kelting,” Nathaniel said. “Thank you for your help, sir.”

Hutchins nodded. “No one knows more abou’ Kelting than me. There’s been a Hutchins here since Richard Crookback was on the throne.”

The stables seemed an unlikely home for a brewery, but the burly man tending the taps seemed happy to explain. The so-called Old Toby was of no more than middle age, though as he explained, he had borne the nickname since the birth of his son Young Toby two decades earlier.

“The owners of the Cock and Bull up and left after the fire,” he said. “They weren’t from Kelting. They’d only lived here a few decades. But they were good people. Just couldn’t afford to rebuild. Couldn’t find a buyer for the inn neither, as far as I know, so they sold me the stables for a song. Now, what’ll yer have? A pint?”

Too late, Rosalind recalled her empty pockets. “Oh, I couldn’t—”

“Yes, a pint for the lady.” Nathaniel handed Old Toby a coin. Beneath his luxuriant black mustache—it seemed Hutchins had been right about the strength of the ale—the gruff brewer smiled.

“Now that’s a fine gentleman you have,” he commented as he filled a pottery tankard. “Keepin’ a lady in ale is the surest way to her heart.”

“Is it?” Nathaniel accepted the tankard, then handed it on to Rosalind. “Like a fool, I’ve spent time on less liquid means of courtship.”

“Ah, well. Those other ways are never wasted. Just ask the lady if yer don’t believe me.”

“Lady, do you share Mr. Hutchins’s viewpoint?” Nathaniel was teasing her; he had to be. For he wasn’t talking of her, but of someone in his past. Though they’d danced and he’d bought her a ribbon, that was hardly courtship.

Was it? Wasn’t it?

She shook her head. “Secretaries are too diplomatic to have opinions about such matters.” She held up the tankard, breathing a scent of grain and alcohol strong enough to pinch the nose. It pulled her back in time to the taps at the Eight Bells, where she had once seen her parents fill tankards much like this.

When she drank, the ale was like liquid bread, dark and sharp as rye. The way it fizzed on the tongue was new and interesting.

The swallow sloshed in her stomach, wary, and she recalled that she had eaten nothing yet that day.

“That’s enough for me. Here, you can finish this if you like.” She turned to hand the pottery tankard to Nathaniel.

“No, no. I couldn’t.” He slid aside as a trio of revelers entered, clamoring for ale, and pressed himself against the brick wall beside the door.

But he was regarding the tankard the same way she had studied the fichu: covetous and determined. As though it were already in his hands.

So she pressed. “No, truly. I want you to have it.” She squeezed by the new arrivals to join him at the wall.

“I shouldn’t. It’s far too early for ale.”

“Maybe at Windsor Castle, but not at the Kelting fete. Everyone else is drinking it.” Which wasn’t quite true, but true enough. “Besides which, some people drink ale with breakfast.”

“Not I.”

She shrugged. “Of course, you don’t have to have it.” She tilted the pottery tankard, ready to upend it.

“Wait.” He caught her wrist. “Maybe—just this one. Just one will be all right.”

Was he asking her? He sounded uncertain. “I told you it was all right,” she said. “Here. It’s yours. You paid for it.”

As he put his lips to it, she wondered: was that the same spot from which she had drunk? It was as though she had passed him a kiss—or he had accepted one. But surely the taste of ale would be far stronger than any hint of Rosalind that might remain.

He drank off the remainder of the pint in one long swallow. With eyes closed, he fumbled to hand off the tankard. Rosalind took it back, then with a few sliding steps around the others, returned it to Toby for washing—she hoped—and reuse.

When she returned to Nathaniel’s side, he said, “Let’s be off at once.” She made as if to take his arm again, but his hands were clenched into fists, elbows locked at his sides.

Maybe he hadn’t liked the ale. She shouldn’t have pressed him; getting a pint had been her idea, not his. So she accepted this odd intensity, sidling with him toward the exit, then breathing deeply of the cooler outside air. “What would you like to do now?”

“Anything. Eat. Dance. Watch a race. Play a game.”

“Eat,” she said. “If you are asking for my suggestion.”

“Of course.”

Scattered about like seeds were small stalls selling meat pies and wagons laden with spring fruits. Above all wafted a heavenly scent of sweetness and spice. Rosalind imagined the aroma soaking through every inch of her body. Something roasted in sugar; almonds, probably. The Earl of Carbury’s children had gobbled them last Christmas just as poorer children might eat popped corn or rejoice over raisins.

She didn’t realize she was following her nose until Nathaniel caught up to her with a running step. “You’ve seen something you want?”

Another deep breath.
Ah
. “Smelled it.”

He tilted back his head, hand to the crown of his hat, and drew in a deep breath. “Ah. The roasted almonds have you fascinated. Have a fondness for sweets, do you?”

She nodded as she clapped eyes on the source of the scent: an open fire in a ring of stones, over which a lanky, half-grown boy was shaking a long-handled pan of the sort one used for roasting chestnuts.

“Almonds for yer?” He gave the pan another shake. Flame licked the bottom and made its contents sizzle.

Rosalind drew back a step, her skin tight and prickling.

It wasn’t as though she were unaccustomed to fire. Nearly every room of every house had a hearth and—if one had the money—something to burn within it for warmth and light. But this open blaze… No, she wanted her skirts away from it.

Nathaniel must have understood why she halted. Giving her shoulder a quick squeeze, he closed the distance between them and the youth. “I think we must have some almonds, yes. How can anyone resist that smell?”

“Shoulda been here yesterdi’. I was roastin’ sausages. Ma made roups of ’em out of the pig tha’ we kill las’ week for Whitsun.”

“I’m sorry I missed it. Will you be here every day of the fete?” Nathaniel peered into the roasting pan. Rosalind rubbed at her elbow and took another step back.

The boy explained that he had injured his ankle the previous week and could not help on the land, so he was making amends by selling anything he could throughout the Whit week festivities. “If it’s food, it’s go’ to have a fine smell. How’s anyone to come buy if they can’ smell me?”

“That’s good sense,” Nathaniel said gravely. “One must be smelled if one is to make a success of oneself. How much for a cone of your almonds?”

“A shillin’?” The youth’s angular face split in a puckish grin.

Rosalind spluttered. “That’s outrageous.”

Nathaniel shrugged. “It’s Whit week. We’re celebrating.” He fished out a silver coin and flipped it to the gaping boy. He accepted a paper twist of old newspaper from the boy, who scooped it full of sugared nuts. When Nathaniel stepped back to Rosalind and extended the cone, the warm almonds released their sweet, spiced scent in a blow of pleasure.

“For you.” He smiled.

She took another step back. “Oh—I shouldn’t accept…” It was not much of a protest, but protests were difficult when one’s belly was empty and one’s nose was full of the scent of warm sugar.

“If you like sweets, you should have them.” His blue eyes were shaded beneath the brim of his hat. His lips curved, kind and wry at once. “And you ought to ask for what you want, Rosalind. You never know but that you might get it.”

How confident he sounded, that to want a thing was to have the right to pursue that desire. For a decade she had asked for nothing she did not earn, save the money that would pay long-held debts. There was no room in her life, in her well-ordered mind, for any but the deepest claims upon her soul. What were sugared almonds next to that?

Yet he made it look so easy. If almonds meant so little, then it was but a small gesture to get them. And here they were, hot and cinnamon-scented in her grasp. All the sweeter for being a gift.

Maybe she was not right about what sort of request made sense. Or maybe this was the first time she had wanted something small enough that she had a prayer of receiving it.

He was tall at her side, and she suddenly felt shy about all the things she wanted. “Thank you,” she said, and crunched an almond to paste.

The remainder of the morning passed too swiftly. First they meandered to the edge of the road, where a trotting race was to begin. After a day in the company of tidy saddle horses and stringy Thoroughbreds, the massive Suffolk plow horses seemed as thick-limbed and brawny as the elephants about which Rosalind had once taught Lord Carbury’s children.

Their grizzled friend Hutchins split from the line of horses and riders, shaking his head as he tugged at a bit of tack on the long muzzle of his chestnut gelding.

“His rein has snapped,” Rosalind realized. “What a shame; he will miss the race. They are to give another medal.”

“A medal? We can’t have him miss that. Wait here, if you will. I’ll return in a moment.” Nathaniel strode toward Hutchins, leaving Rosalind behind with her almonds. She savored them, sucking the candied sugar and sweet spice from each one while she watched Nathaniel cut a length from Hutchins’s lead line and effect a repair.

It was so natural to him, to be the one who darted forward to help. Nathaniel Chandler was the sort of man who, when he saw something that needed to be done, would do it.

That impulsive urge didn’t always serve him well, as when he’d rolled his father’s stuck wheelchair. But just now, as Rosalind watched, Hutchins’s gesturing turned to a grudging nod, and he mounted up and returned to the line in time for the starting signal.

As Nathaniel walked back toward Rosalind, she could not seem to stop looking at his hands. Though she wore long sleeves, she shivered. The pleasant sort of shiver. The sort that came from wondering
What would it be like if…

When he reached her side, she managed to speak lightly. “You knew exactly how to help him. Did a milkmaid break his rein?”

He laughed. “Of course it was a milkmaid. They are the cause of every delay. Here, let me try one of those almonds, will you?”

She held out the paper, keeping her eyes fixed on the line of horses. Once he’d shaken out a few almonds, she folded the cone closed and tucked it into her pocket. “I hope no carriages are traveling the other way. This race stretches the whole width of the road.”

“These horses are quick enough to keep out of trouble,” he replied.

Once the starting signal set them off, she saw he was quite right. The huge animals were far quicker than the cart horses she remembered from London. Chestnuts, every one of them, they lifted their neat hooves in a light trot that soon hid them behind a cloud of dust. A minute later, a shrill whistle marked the end of the race.

“Hutchins has got it. You see if he hasn’t,” Nathaniel predicted. “He was so angry about that broken rein that he would have run the race himself.”

And indeed the man who knew more about Kelting than anyone else was the victor. He guided his horse back to the green on a now-short lead, a shining medal about his neck.

When he reached Nathaniel and Rosalind where they stood beside the burned-out public house, he took off the medal and handed it to Nathaniel. “Yer deserve this more than I do, Chandler.”

“Not at all!” Nathaniel’s eyes went wide, and he held his palms out flat as if to make a wall of his hands. “You ran the race, Hutchins. You and your horse. If you don’t want the medal, give it to your animal.”

The farmer’s deeply carved face relaxed into a smile. “They give me a guinea too. This in’t the real prize.”

“In that case,” Rosalind interrupted, “he would be honored. He has been wanting a medal to reward him for his everyday triumphs—”

“Such as arising for the day on time,” Nathaniel interrupted smoothly, ignoring Rosalind’s wry glance. “I would be honored to accept it, deserving it so well.”

Hutchins tugged his forelock, then replaced his cap. “Better for yer to keep it, if yer hopin’ to ge’ a medal for wakin’ up. Not even in Whit week do yer ge’ a prize for that.”

When the farmer had led his chestnut away again, Nathaniel dangled the medal before Rosalind’s face. “Look there, Rosalind Agate. I’ve finally won a medal, and I didn’t even have to tidy myself up for a meal.”

“Or arise early.” At the end of its white ribbon, the medal turned in a slow breeze. It was a small circle of some silver metal, maybe tin, buffed to shine and catch the eye. “It’s pretty,” she said. “I’m glad he gave it to you. He wouldn’t have won without your help at the right moment.”