Carola Dunn (15 page)

“What they will think is that we are a pair of forward hussies!” declared Catherine tartly. “Very well, Dom, are you going to entertain us with your exploits in the Peninsula?”

Judging by his stories, Lord Dominic’s exploits consisted largely of a series of outrageous pranks. Catherine supposed he had seen serious fighting since he bore the evidence, but either he thought the tale unfit for delicate female ears or he did not wish to boast. Though he spoke of manoeuvres and bivouacs, bloodletting was never mentioned.

Angel was enthralled. She was eager to find out at which battle he had been wounded, and only refrained from asking outright because she was afraid it might distress Beth. No considerations of delicacy would hold her back next time she was alone with him, she vowed to herself.

Later, she did Beth another service by asking why Mr Leigh was not present.

“I hope he has not changed his mind about the propriety of seeing Beth?” she asked.

“No. Whenever he mutters about it, I tell him it would be downright dishonourable to hedge off after raising her hopes, and I threaten to call him out if he so much as mentions the possibility. Can you imagine it—a duel between a cripple and a parson?” He laughed, but there was a tinge of bitterness in his voice. Osa raised her great head and licked his hand consolingly.

“Then why did he not come?” Beth wanted to know. “Dom, he does . . . he is fond of me, is he not? I simply assumed that he still felt . . . that he wanted . . .”

“Don’t worry, goosecap, he’s head over heels in love.” Lord Dominic hugged his sister. “If you are so set on getting riveted, you’ll have to understand that his time is not his own, nor yours neither. He has parish business today. He’ll be here tomorrow if you can come.”

“Oh, yes!” she cried joyfully. “Lyn, will you come? And Catherine?”

Angel agreed with alacrity, but Catherine cried off, pleading other business. She was unwilling to find herself cast permanently in the role of chaperon, and her opinion of Mr Leigh’s good sense and high principles made it seem unnecessary when he was to be present. Whenever she thought about it, she was staggered by the way Angel’s advent in her staid life had transformed it. Instead of assisting her father in his work and studying her books, her chief occupations at home, here she was aiding and abetting the clandestine meetings of a pair of star-crossed lovers, and concealing a Prodigal Son from his irate father. And surely the general atmosphere of reckless abandon was explanation enough for the way she so often found herself silently repeating Richardson’s dictum, that no young lady can be justified in falling in love before the gentleman’s love is declared.

She had always been of the opinion that no one blessed with a modicum of intelligence could quarrel with that!

The next day, while Catherine attempted to pick up the threads of her usual pursuits at home, Angel and Beth rode up Dowen Crag, accompanied by Abel. Unwarned, the groom was so overwhelmed by the sight of Lord Dominic that he went red as a beet and sat on his horse with his mouth open, unable to produce a sound. By the time he had recovered enough to greet his master properly, not an easy matter as Osa was delighted to meet a new friend, Beth and Gerald were wandering down the path arm in arm and deep in conversation.

“We’ll go down to the dingle,” Dominic told the groom. “Do you go out on the crag and watch for the enemy. You remember our whistle?”

“Aye, Master Dom. This be jist like th’owld days!”

“Keep an eye on the horses, Abel, and mum’s the word. Miss Brand, let me show you where we used to fight off Red Indians in my youth.”

As they followed the others, Angel seized her chance.

“I did not like to ask you before where you were wounded because I thought it might distress Beth,” she began.

“I see that you do not mean to spare me now that she is not by! I . . . I do not like to talk of it, Linnet.’’

“You are a great deal too sensitive about the whole business,” Angel declared severely. “If you never talk of it you will brood, and then you will become just such another cross-grained old surly-boots as your papa.”

He smiled with difficulty. “You may be right. I was used always to be merry and devil-may-care, and now I find myself . . . oh, wishing, for one, that I had not blithely whistled down the wind half of my inheritance.”

“I expect you are growing up, too,” she reflected, then coaxed, “Do tell!”

“This I received at Corunna,” he said, fingering the scar on his cheek. “It was not long after I joined up, and I have never been so frightened in my life, before or since. I was only nineteen then, you see. But it turned out to be nothing. The others were both at Ciudad Rodrigo, in January.”

“Both? Your leg and what else?”

“I took a ball in the lung, Miss Inquisitive, and then a Hussar came along and broke my leg with his sabre for good measure. I was in the hospital at Lisbon for three months, then another month in London before I came to Upthwaite.”

“I wish I had known you for I would have come to nurse you, or at least to visit. It must have been horrid.”

“That is not precisely the word I should have chosen, Linnet, but you have the general idea.”

“What did the London doctors say?”

“That the bone had shrunk and I must limp forever, though the pain should mostly fade away in a year or two. And to avoid catching cold like the plague.”

“Does your chest hurt?”

“Only when I cough. They warned me that it will cause trouble in the winter. There, can you blame me for calling myself a cripple?’’

“Yes. You have all your limbs, you are not bedridden, you can even ride a horse!”

He caught her to him in a sudden hug and as quickly released her. “You make me feel better in spite of myself, Linnet. I must learn to count my blessings. Well, here is our dingle. Is it not as wild as the forests of North America?”

The dingle was a circular depression in the hillside, its entrance hidden by a hazel thicket. In its shelter grew a tangle of bushes, brambles, and small trees, and dog-roses bloomed everywhere, scenting the air. The branches of the tallest tree held the remains of a wooden fort, and Gerald was standing hands on hips regarding it sadly. He turned as they picked their way through the jungle.

“Look what wind and weather have done to our refuge,” he said, pointing. “It is shockingly dilapidated.”

“I do believe it has shrunk,” Lord Dominic added critically. “I cannot imagine how four of us fitted into that.”

“Possibly we have grown,” suggested Beth.

“Miss Brand, let me show you the spot where we used to have our campfire,” offered Mr Leigh. “It is just through here, if I remember aright.”

He held aside a curtain of ivy, and Angel made her way through a green tunnel into a glade backed by the wall of the dell. In its centre, a circle of blackened stones bore mute witness to years of use.

“Did you ever cook here?” she asked the vicar.

“I’d not call it cooking. We made toast and boiled water.”

“I thought your home was on the other side of Ullswater. Is not that a long way to come for a day’s play?”

“I used often to stay at the Hall when I was a child. The earl is my godfather, believe it or not. And when I was older I rode or rowed—r-o-d-e or r-o-w-e-d. It is not so far. As I told your cousin, I go over every Thursday to see my mother. She is something of an invalid and does not go about.”

“Does she like visitors? I am determined to take a boat trip before we leave Westmorland, and it would be delightful to have such an object in view.”

“Why, yes, she does enjoy callers and has very few. My boat will not hold more than two or three, but it is not difficult to hire a larger vessel. Think you your uncle and aunt might like to go?”

“Certainly,” Angel pledged them.

“Then I will see what I can arrange.”

“Does Lord Dominic row?”

“He used to. I had not thought to wonder whether he could now. I shall have to persuade him to give it a try. An excellent idea, Miss Brand.”

Crashing through the undergrowth, Osa warned them of his lordship’s approach. Dominic emerged from the shade and they saw that he was very pale.

“Beth wants to see you, Leigh,” he said in a strangled voice.

Gerald Leigh glanced questioningly at Angel. She gave him a quick nod. His tall form stooped to pass under the low boughs as Dominic sank down on one of the fireplace stones and dropped his head in his hands. Unmindful of the soot, Angel sat beside him, her hands tightly clasped in her lap. Osa came and licked them, and then went to lie panting in the shade, head on outstretched paws, her dark brown eyes watchful.

“Linnet?”

“Yes, Dom, I’m here.”

His lips moved but no words emerged. He cleared his throat, the sound loud in the stillness of the glade.

“My mother died while I was in Spain.”

She was silent. He must have known this before now; something further was troubling him.

It came in a sudden torrent. “Beth told me she fell ill right after I left. Nothing specific, but she grew weaker and weaker and lost interest in everything. She lived for news of me. I never wrote, not once, not a single line. Gregory had me watched, damn him, and told her now and then that I was still alive. Beth says that even when my father swore he’d never let me set foot in the house again, Mama hoped, but when she heard nothing from me, for so long, she gave up the struggle and died. I killed her. I killed her as surely as if I had put a pistol to her head and pulled the trigger. I did not think . . .”

His body was shaken by hard, dry, racking sobs, tearing his heart out. Angel could find no words, so she put her arms around him and held him close. As he calmed, she began to say what came to her mind.

“She was always frail, Beth said, and your papa was as much to blame as you. More, for he was there and saw what his decision was doing to her. And he was older and should have been wiser.”

“But you do not hold me blameless.” His voice was exhausted.

“No. You should have written, sent a message, something. You were heedless and inconsiderate, both faults which I share with you, I fear. But you could not have imagined that your omission would have such a dire effect.”

“Mama was never strong. As sensitive as Beth, without Beth’s inner strength. I should have guessed what it would do to her. Linnet, you said maybe I was growing up at last. This is part of it, isn't it? Learning to accept the guilt and bear it and go on.”

“And learning to forgive your father, perhaps.”

“You are very wise, little Puritan. My father was never able to take back anything he had said, to change his mind or compromise. He thought it—still thinks, I suppose—a sign of weakness. Once he had threatened to cast me out if I joined the army, nothing this side of the Day of Judgement could alter his decision.”

“And once you had said you would in spite of him, nothing could alter yours?”

He was silent for a moment. “Perhaps. It is a weakness to be unable to confess that one was wrong, is it not? I am learning, Linnet.”

“Do not learn too fast, or you will grow old before your time! And do not snap my head off if I say that you are very tired and I am going to ask Mr Leigh to fetch Thunder.” Angel stood up and looked down at his grey face.

“Will you come back?”

“If you wish.” As she left, Osa went to sit beside him, and on her return she found him absently fondling the dog’s shaggy white head and staring into the middle distance. “Mr Leigh went out on the path and put his fingers in his mouth and whistled,” she told him with a giggle. “I never thought to see a parson behave so! Abel popped up out of nowhere and Mr Leigh positively bellowed at him to bring the horses, so they will be here in a minute. Promise me you will not brood? About anything?”

“I will try, I promise. You know, I was used to think you a hubble-bubble romp of a female, but I find I have had to abandon my notions. You are candid and compassionate and commonsensical and . . . and comforting and courageous.”

“It won’t last,” said Angel blithely, and they went to join the others.

As if to prove her words, she challenged Beth to a race when they reached the farm track at the bottom of the hill. Her hat blew off and had to be rescued from a blackthorn bush by Abel, and she arrived at the vicarage pink-cheeked, with her golden ringlets tumbling to her shoulders.

Beth went in with her to pay her respects to the Suttons, and they found Sir Gregory, ostensibly calling on the vicar on business, ensconced in the parlour with Catherine and her mother. He raised his eyebrows at her dishevelled appearance. She was certain that if he had carried a quizzing glass he would have examined her through it.

“A pleasant ride, Miss Brand?” he enquired, with something more than casual interest, she thought. At least, any display of interest was a change from his usual world-weary manner.

“Thank you, yes,” she replied shortly, and turned away. “Aunt Maria, I beg your pardon for appearing in this state. I did not know you had a visitor. Pray excuse me while I tidy myself.”

“A moment, Miss Brand,” requested the odious Sir Gregory. “Am I correct in supposing that you have been racing? I thought so. I wish to be certain that you understand how dangerous these hills can be. There are unexpected precipices, falling rocks, hidden bogs, and other hazards for the unwary or those not familiar with the area.”

“I am not so chuckleheaded as to gallop where I do not know the terrain,” she retorted hotly. “We were down on the track by Grisedale Beck.”

“I beg your pardon, ma’am. If you ride out tomorrow, I will come with you and show you a more convenient place to stretch your horse’s legs.”

“That is not at all necessary. I am sure we do very well without you.”

“Lyn!” said her aunt sharply. “That is no response to make to Sir Gregory’s kind offer.”

Beth took a deep breath and intervened. “She did it for me, Mrs Sutton. Cousin Gregory, I have been meeting Gerald Leigh in secret.”

“Only twice,” Angel put in quickly, before Beth could reveal Lord Dominic’s presence to the enemy.

“I see,” said Sir Gregory. “I had wondered if the fellow had enough backbone to defy my uncle.”