Fairchild (18 page)

“Shall you ignore it, Jasper?” asked Boz, a lean man in buff trousers and a claret colored coat, seated at the end of the table.
 

Jasper smiled, slipping the note into his waistcoat pocket. “Not this time. The favor she demands is not so onerous.” Turning to the waiting footman, he said “You may tell my mother I shall present myself in the morning.”

Expectant, his friends waited until the footman withdrew.
 

“Well, what is it?” Boz asked, refilling his glass.

“I’m to go riding with my sister in the morning.”

The fourth man, hitherto silent, frowned. “Not Lady Arundel, surely.”

Jasper laughed. “No, Andre. Her husband would never let her, not so soon after her confinement. I meant my half-sister.” Natural sister, the polite name for bastards like Sophy, was a term he did not use.
 

Andre’s eyebrows rose in surprise, but Boz lapsed into a reminiscent smile. “The little one?” Boz had passed one holiday at Cordell Hall when he and Jasper were still at Cambridge.

“What’s she doing in town?” Alistair asked, surprised by Boz’s smile. He too had met Sophy, ages ago, when Lady Fairchild had gathered her relations to Cordell one Easter. He and Jasper had captured a grass snake and hid it in one of her cupboards. Her calm response had been vastly disappointing.
 

Jasper turned over his hand, inspecting his nails. “Puffing her off. Why else?”

Boz, his face already rather ruddy, nodded sagely over his port. “Only reason to bring a young female to town.”

“Think your mother will do it?” Alistair asked, still remembering a scrawny red-haired girl hiding from Lady Fairchild’s stare. “Not so easy to puff off a bastard.” It surprised him that his Aunt would trouble himself over the girl, but it had been years since he had been in England.

Jasper’s face turned cold. “Call her my half-sister, or use her name. I dislike that appellation.”

“Of course. My apologies.” Alistair waited for Jasper to answer his question.
 

Jasper lifted one eyebrow, wearily. “Surely you know better than to underestimate my mother. She’ll have her riveted soon enough.” He proffered the deck of cards. “Cut?”
 

“Little scrap of a thing, when I saw her last,” Alistair said.

“Well, she’s grown some,” Jasper said. “But she’s still up to the old tricks. Took out one of m’father’s prime bits of blood last week and came to grief.” He frowned.
 

“No lasting hurt?” Boz asked, looking up from his cards with a worried face.
 

“Not this time,” Jasper grunted. “And damned if there’ll be another. Never seen the Pater in such a taking.”
 

“What’s she look like?” Andre asked.

“Like my father,” Jasper said. “It just about killed my mother, you know.”

“Still?” Alistair asked. “Poor girl.” Red hair seldom looked well on a woman.
 

“Oh, she’s a rather taking brat,” Jasper said. “Boz thought she looked well enough.” He glanced at his friend across the table. “If I see you sniffing around her, I’ll call you out.”

“You don’t say?” Alistair settled back in his chair, arranging his cards in a fan. “Then it must be time for me to renew my acquaintance.”
 

Worth looking in, anyways. Fairchild must be giving her an adequate sum. He took a swallow of wine. “I’ll join you tomorrow, Jasper, if I may.”

“All right,” Jasper said. “But lay your card, man, or we’ll be here all night.”

*****

Sophy leaned on her dressing table, straightening her brushes. Pale fingers of morning sunlight curled around the edges of the cream silk draperies at her bedroom window. She was dressed for riding; her hat, whip, and gloves ready on the table.
 

She didn’t sleep well in London, too aware of the noise and vibration of so many souls clustered together. The city was busier than an anthill and more crowded. There were always people awake: milkmaids and bakers before dawn; butchers, crossing sweepers and cart men in the day; opera goers, link boys and the watch at night.
 

“Try to adjust, or the parties will wear you to shreds,” Lady Fairchild had urged. She was already half-nocturnal, flitting out in the evenings like a brightly winged moth, then sleeping into the early afternoon. Tonight Sophy would join her for the first time, at the Thorpes’ musicale. Already half sick with anticipation, she had another fence to clear first.
 

This morning she was riding with Lord Fairchild. If she was clever, she would have made more of her shoulder injury to give her an excuse to stay home, but it was a week and a half since that unfortunate business and she wanted to forget it.
 

Pushing away from the dressing table, Sophy crossed the room, parted the draperies and leaned against the window, resting her forehead against the glass. It was strange, looking down at the tops of people from the third story—costly beaver hats on the few gentlemen venturing out early and worn caps on the rest. The horses hadn’t been brought round yet.
 

Only ladies who were horse mad and keen sporting gentlemen rode in the early morning when the rest of the Polite World was asleep. Sophy supposed she and Lord Fairchild both fit the respective descriptions. There were worse ways to find a husband than riding horses and hobnobbing in the park. What unsettled her was being tied to Lord Fairchild’s side for over an hour. What would they possibly say? This was not like their accidental rides in the country, where their paths merged and diverged by chance.
 

A kitchen boy ran out from a house down the street, momentarily silencing the ragged knife grinder calling out his trade. The man sharpened the knives the boy brought out, accepted his wage with a tug of his cap, and continued down the street, his bass voice rolling ahead of him. Sophy’s eyes followed him, catching on a familiar form in a dark green coat.
 

It was Jasper, trotting up the street on a chestnut she didn’t recognize. His companion wasn’t familiar either, but he was remarkably handsome and sat well on his horse. Sophy darted to the dressing table, grabbing gloves, whip and hat, ignoring the energizing tonic Lady Fairchild had given her last evening. She was supposed to drink it, but uncorking the bottle had been enough—the vapor of the potion was strong enough to curl her hair. Not that she needed any help with that. Some magic to keep her hair in its pins, maybe.
 

She left the room with a lighter tread. Riding with Lord Fairchild would be much easier with Jasper along for company. Halfway down the hall, Lady Fairchild stopped her, emerging from her boudoir wrapped in a silk dressing gown. “Sophy! You can’t go down yet. At least wait until he’s inside.”
 

Lady Fairchild had spent most of yesterday preparing Sophy for this morning’s ride, choosing her hat and boots and going over things she might say to the gentlemen she met. It shouldn’t surprise her that Lady Fairchild was awake, watching from her window too. This wasn’t just any ride. It was important. Sophy’s eyes dropped to the carpet. “I beg your pardon ma’am. I thought since it’s only Jasper—”
 

“I won’t insist on you receiving him in the drawing room. That is a bit much for your brother, after all. But I won’t have you rushing at him as if he were returned from the Orient! Wait a few minutes!”

Beckoning Sophy into her room, Lady Fairchild occupied Sophy for a few minutes, inspecting the color of her cheeks and adjusting the angle of her hat. “Wear the veil when you are outside,” she said, referring to the scrap of lace clinging to the brim. Opening a French novel Sophy wasn’t allowed to read, Lady Fairchild dismissed her with a wave. Sophy sped down the stairs, smiling to herself. She had Henrietta’s copy of the book hidden under her mattress.

“Sophy! You look fine as five pence,” Jasper said, coming up the stairs to meet her with a wide smile and outstretched hands.
 

“Yet this cost a good deal more,” she said, taking his hands and offering her cheek with a smile.

He looked her over. “I’m sure it did. How’s the shoulder?”
 

“Never better,” she assured him. Glancing past him, she saw that Lord Fairchild was drawing on his gloves, watching them impatiently. He hated having his horses wait. “Sorry to keep you waiting, sir,” she said.
   

As she and Jasper descended the last few steps, Jasper’s companion stepped forward and bowed. “Cousin Sophy. So good to see you again.”
 

Cousin?
Her eyes flew to Jasper’s.

“Alistair,” he whispered. “Spent Easter with us years ago. Remember the snake?”
 

She did, dredging his name out of the wells of memory. “Of course. Mr. Beaumaris. It’s been such a long time.”
 

Tired of waiting, Lord Fairchild was making his way to the door. “Come along, Sophy. I’ve something to show you.” Hastening her steps, Sophy followed him outside and stopped so suddenly, Jasper nearly collided with her. She hardly noticed. Her eyes were fixed on the horse.
 

It was fitted with a side-saddle, but she couldn’t believe this beautiful grey mare was for her. Such intelligent eyes, such smooth muscles rippling beneath her glossy coat—surely this horse was meant for a duchess. But there were only the four of them, standing on the steps. Mr. Beaumaris’s black was waiting beside Jasper’s horse and Lord Fairchild’s current favorite, a bay with giant quarters, stood ready.
 
There was no horse for her, besides this one.
 

“Her paces are faultless,” Lord Fairchild said beside her.
 

Sophy could well believe it. This horse had been formed from clay by a god’s hand, before given the breath of life.
 

“She’s yours,” Lord Fairchild said, when Sophy remained speechless.
 

Where had he found her, and what had she cost? Shaking her head, still disbelieving, Sophy said, “I could have ridden Lady Fairchild’s horse.”
 

“I’m supposed to ride with you every day, you know,” he said. “Do you think I could stand it, with you mounted on that plug?”

Of course. Advertising. That’s what this was. Parading her in front of the eligibles and reassuring the squeamish that her father claimed her as his own.
 

“Seemed a good way to prevent future accidents,” Lord Fairchild said, his eyes on the horse.
 

She ignored that. “What is she called?”
 

“I thought ‘Mischief’ might be fitting, but you don’t need any encouragement in that direction.” He smiled. “What will you call her?”

“Hirondelle,” Sophy said immediately. “She looks like she should have wings.”
 

“And like she’d carry you to Africa if you let her run away with you,” interjected Mr. Beaumaris, already in his saddle.

“She won’t,” Jasper said smugly. “Sophy knows what she’s about.”

Smiling at Jasper’s compliment, still incredulous at her good fortune, Sophy accepted a leg up from the groom. Settling into the saddle, she arranged her skirts and dropped the lace veil over her face. Silently, she maneuvered down the street alongside Lord Fairchild, Jasper and Mr. Beaumaris following behind.
 

Hirondelle was a good name for this horse. She was agile and quick, with a responsive mouth, her steps light, like she would dance if she only had more space. Given free rein, she would fly as far and fast as the swallows for which she was named. Inside the park, Sophy gazed at the open grass, longing to gallop, painfully aware it was one of many things that Must Never Be Done. She would obey for now, but once they were home—

Before the thought could bud, Sophy remembered she wasn’t returning to Cordell. Swiftly, she shut her mind to the familiar picture of wide green earth and infinite sky. Wherever she lived, there would be
someplace
to ride.
 

The morning was damp, with an intermittent wind sweeping through the row of sentinel trees lining the riding path. Sophy didn’t mind it playing with her skirts, but did wish it would stop blowing her veil into her mouth. Spitting it free for the second time, she caught the amused look in Lord Fairchild’s eye.
 

“You look well,” he assured her. “The costume suits you.” It was designed, Sophy knew, to highlight her resemblance to him. Her brown beaver hat was identical to his, save for its veil of cream lace.
 

“Want to trade?” she asked, indicating her hat with her whip.
 

“Not on your life,” he laughed. She followed his backward glance to Jasper and Mr. Beaumaris, lagging behind them to greet a party of gentlemen riders. All were dressed in the same fashionable uniform: dark coats, yellow or tan trousers and boots polished to a high gloss. She wasn’t sure if the absurdly large peony in the buttonhole of one of them was an attempt to set fashion or a misguided attempt at copying it.

 
Lord Fairchild cleared his throat. “You should start calling me father in informal situations among the family, you know. It is appropriate, since we want to make your position clear. And it would please me if you did.”
 

“Of course. Father.” The word stuck in her throat before she coughed it grudgingly into the silence between them. It was an endearment that would never come naturally to her lips. Given her way, she preferred ‘sir.’ It was easier not to have to remember where she could be his daughter and where they pretended she was his ward.

A lady in a habit of purple velvet bounced by, trailing a groom. Sophy saw her own frown mirrored by the sour twist of Lord Fairchild’s mouth. “Thank God you don’t ride like that,” he said.
 

Here was safer ground. Sophy smiled. “I’ve a better horse. Thank-you,” she said fervently.
 

He snorted. “A crime, if she were to ride Hirondelle. We should wait,” he said, looking back again at Jasper. “He will introduce his friends. It’s why we’re here, after all.”