Enchanted Rendezvous: A Tangled Hearts Romance (13 page)

“Seems to me,” Lord Brandon interrupted, “that
you
had no right beatin’ this fellow here. This is England, and that’s truth. You can’t go around thrashin’ people for no reason. Not ton at all. Settin’ yourself above the law, that’s what you’ve been doin’, you and your henchmen.”

The rank and file were looking uneasily at each other. They shifted from foot to foot and looked longingly at their horses as Lord Brandon continued, “If you think Horris has contraband in his house, bring the watch and let
them
search.”

The colonel let loose a stream of oaths. His face had turned almost magenta, and he glared at Cully and at Lord Brandon, who drawled, “Temper, Colonel. A soldier has to control himself, remember.”

“Let me go,” the colonel snarled, “or I will tear your head off.”

With a sigh, Lord Brandon nodded. “You heard him,” he said to the world at large. “He’s sworn at me. Called me names. Ruined my
coat.
There’s nothin’ for it but to demand satisfaction, sir.”

The colonel was about to open his mouth to roar that he would gladly put a bullet through the effete dandy, then realized that the grip on his arm was like steel. Though Brandon might smell like a Bond Street fribble, he had somewhere acquired a formidable strength of arm.

And there was something even more disturbing. If he quarrelled with Pershing’s disgusting son, he might well have to deal with the father. The Ice Duke could be a formidable adversary, and though Colonel Howard scorned the man’s pacifistic ideas in regard to America, he had no desire to have open warfare with him.

With a stupendous effort he controlled himself and growled, “You’re the one who interfered with me.”

“Then
you
can demand satisfaction,” Lord Brandon replied promptly. “Delighted, ’pon my honor. Who’s actin’ as your seconds?”

“Nobody, damn it. There’s no need for a duel. You don’t hand a man your cartel because of a frumpery button—”

“A button
and
my coat. Look at the mess you’ve made of it.”

Lord Brandon let go of the colonel, stepped back, and turned his back on him. After glowering at that back for a moment, the colonel bent down and retrieved the button from the mud. “Will this content you?” he snarled. “Here, take the filthy thing. Why aren’t you taking it?”

“Because it
is
a filthy thing,” drawled the duke’s son. “Wipe it first.”

The colonel’s face became mottled. On the point of throwing the button into Lord Brandon’s face, he once again recalled the Duke of Pershing. “Pruett,” he roared, “give me a cloth.”

One of the rank and file scuttled forward. The colonel wiped the huge button and almost threw it at Lord Brandon. “Will that content you?” he fairly gargled.

Lord Brandon took the button and examined it critically. “I still think that I require satisfaction. My coat—”

“Oh, Beelzebub fly off with you and your coat!”

The colonel strode to his horse, flung himself into the saddle, and galloped off. A few seconds later he and his retainers had vanished around a hairpin bend in the road.

“Well,”
Cecily was beginning, when there was a splintering crash, followed by a scream.

“God almighty!” Cully exclaimed. “What’s that?”

Followed by Lord Brandon, he was off at a run. Cecily, running, too, turned the corner of the road
and saw that a cart lay on its side. Nearby in the dirt lay an old man.

“How badly is he hurt?” she cried.

Cully Horris, kneeling by the motionless form, made answer. “I don’t know, miss. ’E hain’t moving.”

“The old man came straight for me—I had no time to move aside.” Colonel Howard and his retainers were sitting their horses some distance away. “It was his fault,” the colonel accused. “He came around that bend without warning.”

“An’ hif you wasn’t in such a pother, you’da ’eard ’im coming,” Cully retorted. “This ’ere is Linus ’Arding, what lives across the way from us. Poor, ’armless old sod.”

Kneeling beside the old man, Cecily saw that there was a vicious-looking bruise on his temple and that his leg lay at an odd angle.

“Leg looks broken.” Lord Brandon had come to kneel beside her. “That’ll mend—it’s the head blow I mislike. Cully, go and get me a litter so that we can carry him to your house.”

The fisherman ran off. “Horris’s house is a few steps away,” the colonel objected. “What do you want a litter for?”

“He must be moved as little as possible.” Lord Brandon turned to the rank and file. “You—Ableman, isn’t it?—help to carry the litter. You, Pruett, go for the doctor. And you, yes you! ride to Marcham Place and beg Lady Marcham to come.”

The colonel’s retainers started to obey, then stopped and glanced fearfully at their chief, who nodded wordless agreement. His mind was obviously on other things, for when Cully arrived with a flat plank of wood, Howard said, “I’ll come with you.”

Cecily guessed that no humanitarian instinct had
prompted the offer. Once inside the Horris house, the colonel meant to search for contraband. She glanced uneasily at Lord Brandon, but he was helping to lift the old man onto the makeshift litter.

“Do as you will,” he said indifferently, “just don’t get in my way.”

Howard frowned. He disliked Brandon’s tone, but he also realized that he stood on shaky ground. “I didn’t see him coming,” he growled uneasily. “I had no intention of having anything like this happen.”

Lord Brandon did not bother to reply. He was busy giving orders. Cully’s wife was set to boiling water. Cully himself was sent to find wood for splints.

“What shall I do?” Cecily asked.

Brandon could not help smiling into her anxious face. “If you’ll hold the compress to his temple, it may make him more comfortable. Don’t worry, it will all come to rights.”

“He is still unconscious,” Cecily pointed out.

“He was thrown out of his cart with some force, remember. Luckily he’s a tough old fellow. Barring shock, he’ll come to and be none the worse for it.”

He removed his coat and tossed it aside before starting to set the old man’s leg. He exuded confidence with every movement, and Cecily, who chanced to glance at the colonel, saw that he was watching the duke’s son with growing suspicion. He, too, had seen beneath the mask of the dandy, Cecily thought, and from henceforth he would watch Lord Brandon carefully. She must warn him for Aunt Emerald’s sake.

Pruett now returned with news that the doctor was not at home and would not return before dark, but shortly thereafter Lady Marcham arrived in her trap. Accompanying her on horseback were both Montworthy and Captain Jermayne. Dickinson the
underfootman, laden with jars of medicine, rode with Lady Marcham.

She paused only to wash her hands in hot water before examining the old man. “You have seen to the head wound and set the leg, I see. Well done. Now help me give him something to offset shock.”

From her place by the sickbed Cecily watched the interaction between her Aunt Emerald and Lord Brandon. She glanced at the colonel to see if he, too, was watching, but Howard had wandered off. Assisted by Montworthy and trailed by Captain Jermayne, he had begun to poke about Cully’s small cottage.

Montworthy’s actions did not surprise Cecily, but she wondered why Captain Jermayne was joining in the unlawful search. But perhaps he was only curious. “Smugglers, eh?” she heard him saying. “Well, it’s possible, I suppose. What with the war and all. Dorset’s the perfect place for it. By Jove, yes.”

Just then old Linus opened his rheumy eyes and demanded to know what had happened and why his head ached like a blacksmith’s anvil. Cully explained, and Lady Marcham said that she would remain behind to show Cully’s wife how to take care of the old man.

“Trevor, take the trap and Cecily and go back to Marcham Place,” she instructed. “Cecily, I will need bistort in case the head wound becomes purulent, and a decoction of lavender for a disinfectant. Get them from the stillroom and send them here with one of the servants. I shall keep Dickinson here in case I need him.”

Colonel Howard came up to them. “So the old man will recover?” he demanded.

Lady Marcham did not deign to reply, but Brandon nodded. “Fortunately for you. Be careful that
your zeal for ferretin’ out smugglers doesn’t put you on the wrong side of the law.”

“I don’t need any warning from you.” Colonel Howard paused to add significantly, “I didn’t know you were studying to be a sawbones, Brandon.”

“Lord, no.” Deliberately his lordship donned the coat he had cast off, flicked lint from his cuff, and removing his scented handkerchief, fluttering it under the colonel’s nose. “I merely remembered some battlefield doctorin’. In the heat of the moment, you might say.”

“That’s right,” Captain Jermayne interposed. “Had to know some doctoring where we were.”

“Where was that—on your way to dinner?” Montworthy sneered. He had noted the attention Miss Vervain was paying to that smatterer, Brandon, and he did not like it at all.

Captain Jermayne blinked hard, but before he could speak, Lord Brandon gave a yelp.

“Dinner! I have actually forgotten about lunch. No wonder I’ve been feelin’ faint. And I quite forgot my, er, damp garments. Your servant, Lady M., gentlemen. Come, Miss Verving, come, before I catch a chill.”

He caught Cecily by the elbow and steered her through the door and to the waiting trap. “This time, I will drive,” he informed her. “Lunch awaits, and I don’t want it to become too impatient.”

Cecily remained silent until they had left the house behind. Then she said, “The colonel knows who you are and what you are doing here.”

“Does he indeed?” Lord Brandon flicked the reins lightly over the horses’ backs. “And what might that be?”

She said it as bluntly as she could. “He thinks you are a smuggler.”

Brandon began to whistle softly. Cecily gave him
an exasperated look. “Is that not what you are?” she demanded.

“If it pleases you,” he replied cheerfully, “I am a smuggler. I have been called much worse names, believe me. My father, when the mood was on him, would refer to me as a jacknapes, a chitty-faced runt, a—”

“Will you be serious?” Cecily shouted. “You are in danger of being arrested.”

“And that worries you?” Looking up at the black eyes that smiled into hers, Cecily felt a sense of imbalance. It was almost as though she were being drawn into their dark depths. She forgot to be angry, forgot Linus’s lying unconscious and the suspicion in the colonel’s eyes. She heard only the song of the blackbirds and drew in the magical scents of summer.

When she sat there looking at him with that expression in her eyes, Brandon’s best intentions began to take French leave. “That is kind,” he told her softly. “It means that you must care what happens to me.”

His voice was like a caress. Like a moth drawn to fire, Cecily leaned toward Lord Brandon. But as he bent toward her, his steady hand on the reins changed pressure, and the horse threw up its head and neighed.

The noise startled them both. Cecily was aware of the various emotions that were coursing through her and was both angry and a little frightened. Why should Lord Brandon make her feel like this? More to the point, why did she allow herself to be gulled by this devious lord?

“Do not flatter yourself. It means nothing of the kind,” she exclaimed fiercely. “I am worried about Aunt Emerald, not you. Have you ever thought what would happen to her if that colonel and his
friends arrested you? She could be named your accomplice and arrested, too. Her estates would be confiscated by the crown. She would—”

She broke off as Lord Brandon reached out and covered her hand with his. “Nothing like that will happen,” he promised. “I give you my word.”

His fingers were cool and strong. They evoked memories she did not care to examine. Jerking her hand away, Cecily cried, “How can you be sure?”

“I would never allow harm to come to her. Or to you.”

He thought that she was afraid for herself. Cecily’s bosom heaved with indignation, but she did not trust herself to speak. Lord Brandon, she was well aware, could twist her words around so that they came to mean something else.

Turning her head away, she maintained an icy silence as they drove back to Marcham Place. There she requested, in frozen tones, that he set her down on the garden path.

“Goin’ to the herb garden without waitin’ for lunch? Now, that’s true heroism,” Lord Brandon opined.

Not waiting for him to help her down from the trap, Cecily dismounted and walked very quickly down the path that led to the herb garden. Well, she told herself, she had warned him. It was more than he deserved. If Colonel Howard caught him and sent him to prison, it would serve him right . . .

Her thoughts were checked as, in the periphery of her vision, she glimpsed a flash of color. She turned her head quickly. Though the herb garden was silent and deserted, the branches of the trees just behind the statue of Ceres were moving gently.

There was no wind. Something—or someone—had just disappeared into the woods.

And that someone had not wanted to be seen.
Cecily stopped short as she considered that the colonel was all abroad in searching Cully’s house. She would lay odds that whatever he was seeking lay hidden in the Haunted Woods.

Chapter Eight

I
t had rained all morning, and the afternoon skies were still heavy with moisture. A fitful wind tugged at Cecily’s skirts as she walked briskly through the herb garden. Lady Marcham was occupied in the house, and Lord Brandon was pretending to doze in a corner. It was the perfect moment to explore the woods.

“Miss Vervain! Your most obedient, ma’am!”

Cecily’s heart sank as she saw James Montworthy striding toward her. He was dressed for riding and carried a crop in one gloved fist. “Just arrived with the pater and Jermayne,” he said. “Lady Marcham said that you had gone out walking. Give you m’word, ma’am, it’s been a long time since we met.”

He spoke as though he was sure that she had been pining for his attentions. Cecily remained repressively silent as he continued, “Heard that Harding’s on the mend. Talk in the village is that you and Lady Marcham have been taking care of him. Think it commendable myself. Always said it was a good thing to be kind to the lower orders.”