Baroness in Buckskin (19 page)

He turned to look up at her, and the sight of him was enough to break her heart. His damp, dark hair was plastered to his scalp, his face was black with soot, and the elegant evening clothes he’d worn at dinner were soaking wet and caked with mud. But all this paled beside the utter hopelessness in his eyes.

“I hope you like it black,” she said apologetically, indicating the coffee cup in her hands. “I didn’t know what to put in it.”

He managed to summon up a bleak smile for her. “Black will do very well. Thank you.”

She handed the cup down to him, then gathered her apron-covered skirts and seated herself on the stoop beside him. “I’m sorry about Fairacres, Peter. I know how much it meant to you.”

“Oh well,” he said with a sigh, “it’s unlikely I would have been able to buy it in any case. At least I may now rebuff Miss Hunsford’s advances with a clear conscience,” he added in a woefully unsuccessful attempt at humour.

“Or you might marry her and buy another property, one that has not lain fallow for decades.” Even as she said the words, she hated the thought of Peter caught in the heiress’s toils. Still, she would gladly shove Miss Hunsford into his arms herself, if that would erase the misery from his eyes.

He shook his head impatiently. ”But that was much of its appeal, don’t you see? Anyone could administer Cousin Richard’s holdings, vast as they are, because they have been well managed for generations. One has only to continue what others before him have begun. But to take a neglected property, to bring it back to life through one’s own efforts—
that
is what I dreamed of doing with Fairacres.”

“In fact, you had thought to awaken the Sleeping Beauty with a kiss,” she said, falling back upon the fairytale theme they had explored on their earlier visit to Fairacres.

She had the satisfaction of seeing his expression lightened by the faintest hint of a smile. “I suppose you might put it in such fanciful terms—although the analogy breaks down when one considers that to have won the fair ‘lady,’ I must needs have made a loveless marriage with another, far more literal lady.”

“You will find another such property—perhaps one attached to a lady you might bring yourself to love. You have a gift, you know, for seeing what others do not. You see beauty and usefulness where others see nothing but barrenness and neglect.” She looked down and fingered the coarse linen of her apron. “You see a lady where others see only wild hair, unfashionable clothes, and peculiar manners.”

“That, at least, requires no special gift,” he assured her. “I see nothing that has not been there all along, waiting to be discovered.”

Her trembling hands pleated the folds of linen covering her lap. “Like—like the Sleeping Beauty, awaiting her prince’s kiss?” Her breath came quick and shallow, as if she had run all the way from Fairacres.

“Just so. Susannah—”

She looked up at him, and their eyes met and held. He put his arm around her waist, and then slowly, ever so slowly, leaned toward her until his lips touched hers. She gave a little sigh of surrender, and her warm breath against his mouth emboldened him to tighten his arm about her and kiss her in earnest. He was afterwards to wonder where it might have ended, had a sudden noise from the kitchen not recalled him to his senses.

He jerked upright, releasing his hold on her as if scalded by her touch. “Forgive me—I should not have—” He clambered to his feet and looked down at her with something akin to horror. “I beg your pardon,” he said, and disappeared into the kitchen as if the Furies were at his heels.

“Oh, but I wanted you to,” she whispered to the empty spot on the stoop where he’d been sitting. “I think I’ve wanted you to ever since I saw you standing on the dock at Portsmouth.”

O, Susannah! O, don’t you cry for me.

STEPHEN COLLINS FOSTER,
O, Susannah!

Given the lateness of the hour at which they had finally sought their respective beds, it was hardly surprising that the family did not assemble in the breakfast room until fully noon. Susannah entered the room to find Richard and Jane already there, and after a murmured “good morning,” she served herself from the chafing dishes on the sideboard and took a place at the table opposite Jane. Peter came in a few minutes later, and took only coffee and toast before sitting at the table without so much as a glance in Susannah’s direction. The Aunts had spent what was left of the night in the best spare guest chamber, and, since they had not had the forethought to bring pattens to attach to their shoes, Lord Ramsay had promised to drive them back to the Dower House after breakfast.

“And I’ve been thinking about last night,” he continued, making at least two of the persons at the table start guiltily, both of them having done their own share of thinking over the events of those fateful hours before dawn. “I believe the fire might actually have been a good thing, so far as the Ramsay estate is concerned. I wonder if, with the manor house gone, the owner might be persuaded to sell. Peter, I believe the family name is Fairchild, from somewhere in Sussex. Look into it, if you don’t mind.”

Susannah knew for a fact that Peter would mind very much indeed, but he said only, “Of course, Richard,” in a wooden voice and, pushing his plate aside untouched, betook himself from the room.

“You need not do it this instant,” Richard protested, but Peter was already halfway through the door. If he heard this admonishment, he paid it no heed.

“Really, Richard!” exclaimed Susannah, disgust in every syllable. “How could you be so cruel?”

“Cruel?” echoed Richard, understandably baffled by this accusation. “All I did was ask him to write to the owner of Fairacres and ask if he would be willing to sell. I daresay he will have no difficulty locating the name and direction; all he need do is look it up in Debrett’s.”

“Are you really so obtuse?” demanded Susannah, pushing her own plate away and leaping to her feet to stand over her betrothed and hurl abuses over his head. “When Peter has dreamed of purchasing Fairacres for
years
!”

Richard was suddenly assailed by a multitude of images from last night’s fire, most of them involving Peter: Peter standing hip-deep in the river to lay the hose, Peter throwing his weight over and over against one side of the heavy pump. Peter labouring like the humblest peasant in a futile effort to save the house that would never be his. “My dear girl,” Richard grumbled, “even if what you say is true, how could I possibly have been expected to know such a thing?”

Susannah was unimpressed with this argument. “I suppose it never would have occurred to you to
ask!
Now I daresay you will expect him to feel honoured to be allowed to administer its lands on your behalf!”

“Well, yes, I will,” retorted Richard, goaded beyond endurance. “I pay Peter a very generous wage, so I don’t think I am asking too much when I expect him to earn it.”

“
Oh!
You are
impossible!
” she ground through clenched teeth, clutching at her unruly curls as if tempted to tear them out by the roots in sheer frustration. Before she could yield to such an impulse, she quitted the room in a cloud of indignation, pausing only long enough to slam the door behind her.

The four people still seated at the table regarded one another in strained silence, until Aunt Charlotte suddenly, and with rare tact, bethought herself of several tasks she needed to complete before returning to the Dower House. She and Aunt Amelia beat a hasty retreat, leaving Richard and Jane in sole possession of the breakfast room.

“Dash it, how was I to know?” Richard demanded of no one in particular. “I can’t read the fellow’s mind.”

“Of course not, Richard,” agreed Jane, although her strangled tone and the attention with which she addressed her buttered eggs spoke louder than any words.

“And if he were to tell anyone of his plans, he jolly well ought to have told
me
instead of Susannah,” he continued, working himself into a position of righteous indignation. “After all,
I’m
the one who might have been in a position to help him achieve this ambition. But no, he chooses to confide in a slip of a girl with neither connections nor resources, unless we are to count a plantation on the other side of the ocean.”

“Perhaps he wanted to accomplish it without your help.”

“Am I such an ogre, then, after all I’ve done for him—paying for his schooling, giving him a home and a position after his education was complete? There’s gratitude for you!”

“Perhaps that is the problem,” Jane suggested gently. “Gratitude can become a heavy burden, if one has no way of reciprocating.”

 “Have I ever given any indication that I
wanted
reciprocation?”

“Not that I am aware of, but Peter has his pride, you know.” She regarded him with a hint of a smile. “After all, he
is
a Ramsay.”

“
Touché
,” said Richard, throwing up a hand to acknowledge this home thrust. “I suppose I had best go and talk to him.”

“It would be kindest,” she agreed.

He heaved a sigh and pushed his plate away, wondering as he did so if anyone was getting a decent breakfast that day. Just as he had expected, he found Peter in the small chamber that served as his office, writing out a letter in his neat script. On the desk before him, a large volume lay open; Richard would have bet half his inheritance that it was Debrett’s.

“Ah, Richard, you were quite right,” Peter said, looking up at the entrance of his employer and cousin. “According to Debrett’s, Fairacres is the property of one Arthur Edmund Fairchild of Denbury Chase, Sussex.”

“Peter,” Richard began hesitantly, reaching behind his back to close the door, “Susannah told me you’d had hopes of owning the property yourself someday. Forgive me; I didn’t know.”

Peter shrugged. “It was nothing but a pipe dream, anyway,” he said with an indifference which might have deceived Richard, had he not heard the vociferously expressed truth from his betrothed’s lips.

“Still, it is only natural that you should desire a place of your own someday on which to exercise your talents,” Richard insisted.

“As to that, I’ve been thinking.” Peter stared with great concentration on the letter before him, but Richard suspected he didn’t actually see a word of it. “If you have no objection, I think you should send me to Kentucky, to manage Cousin Susannah’s property there.”

Richard frowned. “You want to leave England?”

“I think you would be wise to have a man on the property, one who can see at first-hand what it needs, who can administer it and report to you. I understand Susannah’s father freed his slaves in his will. That being the case, you will need a man to engage workers to replace those who chose to leave, and to make sure those who remain do not see their new freedom as an excuse to shirk their duties. Who knows?” he asked in a bracing tone. “While I am there, I might be able to acquire a property of my own. I understand land is cheap, if one is willing to put the effort into clearing it.”

“Very well, then, if that is what you want,” Richard said with obvious reluctance. “I can only say how much I hate the thought of losing you. I shall have the devil of a time finding a steward whose judgment I trust half so well. When would you want to set out?”

“I should prefer to leave at once, if that is possible.”

“Surely there is no need for such haste! I had hoped you would stand up with me at my wedding.”

“In that case, I should be honoured,” Peter said, although a more perceptive man than Richard might have noticed that his voice held nothing but the liveliest dread.

* * *

However vehement her defense of Peter, Susannah had no intention of allowing him to continue to avoid her as he had at breakfast. When he made no appearance at teatime, she had a very good idea of where to look for him. She downed a single cup of tea with uncharacteristic haste, declining to take so much as a single cake from the lavish selection arranged on a plate (a circumstance which in itself would have warned Peter that something was afoot, had he been present to witness it), and excused herself as soon as she could decently do so. She hurried up the stairs to her room, changed her morning gown for her riding habit, and soon descended upon the stables, calling for the groom to saddle Daffodil.

A canter across the fields soon brought her to the property called Fairacres—a property so changed that she hardly would have recognized it, had it not been for the dejected figure of Peter staring bleakly at the pile of charred and blackened timbers from which curls of smoke still rose. She reined in her horse more sharply than she intended, and Daffodil gave a loud snort of protest.

Peter turned at the sound. “Susannah? What are you doing here?”

“Looking for you. When you didn’t come to tea, I had a feeling I would find you here.”

She lifted her knee over the pommel, and Peter, seeing what she was about, moved mechanically forward to help her dismount. She slid from the saddle and into his arms. As soon as her feet touched the ground, he released his hold on her as if scorched by her touch.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he protested, glancing back toward the smouldering ruin. “The embers are still hot enough to cause an injury, should you get too close.”

“It isn’t the embers I want to get close to,” she said, taking a tentative step in his direction. “Peter, I know you’ve been hurt—deeply hurt—but please don’t push me away. What happened last night—”

“What happened last night was a mistake,” he said in a voice that brooked no argument. “A house burned; a dream died. I was not thinking clearly—it was a moment’s madness. It meant nothing.”

“It meant something to me,” she said softly.

“Susannah, please don’t.” In spite of his better judgment, he put his hands on her shoulders and gave a little squeeze. “Since you will have it, then yes, it did mean something. It meant a great deal too much, in fact, which is why it must never happen again. You are betrothed to my cousin and employer. Last night, in the heat of the moment—God, what an unfortunate choice of words!—I came dangerously close to forgetting that.”