Joan Wolf (7 page)

“I didn’t see you lying there in the grass,” he said to me as he brought the stallion to a halt beside me.

His lordship dismounted, efficiently picketed Saladin, and dropped down beside me.

“What a day, eh,” he said good-humoredly.

He was wearing buckskins and his favorite riding jacket, which he proceeded to take off. “It’s hot as hell in this sun,” he remarked, and started to roll up his sleeves. Belatedly I recalled my own state of undress.

Since assuming my disguise, I had never gone without a jacket in the presence of anyone else. Their padded bulk had been one of the main reasons my masquerade had been successful. I looked now at the coat lying just beyond the reach of my fingertips and glanced sideways at Lord Leyburn
.
He was squinting up at the sun, a blade of grass between his teeth. Cautiously I stretched my hand forward toward the jacket.

Strong fingers closed like a vise around my wrist and held my arm rigid. I sat as still as stone and stared at our two bare arms.

I had always been fair but, against the darkness of the earl’s hand, my skin looked pearly, translucent almost. The fragile bones and tendons of my arm were in stark contrast to the hardness of the male forearm and hand that gripped it so efficiently. He must have been able to feel the hammering of the pulse in my wrist.

He twisted my arm a little so that I had to turn toward him. I felt his eyes on the open collar of my shirt. I had always been very careful to wear a muffling cravat. Those dark eyes moved from my throat lower down to the chest, and I could feel hot color staining my cheeks.

“All right,” he said. “I want the truth. Now.”

It was a voice I had never heard from him before. I glanced at him quickly and felt myself recoil from what I saw in his eyes.

“I told you the truth, my lord. The only thing I neglected to mention was my disguise. Everything else was true. I swear it!”

“Who are your grandparents?”

I had guarded that secret for so long, but things were different now. I had never seen him like this.

“Grandpapa is the Earl of Ardsley,” I said. “My real name is Valentine Langley.”

He let my wrist go and the blood began to flow back into my hand. “Your father?”

“Papa was Captain Francis Langley. He was in the cavalry rear guard that held the French at the Rio Seco during the retreat to Corunna. Papa never made Corunna. He died at the river.”

I was afraid to look at him, afraid to see the deadly controlled rage that narrowed his eyes and thinned his mouth. There was an excruciating silence.

“Is it so terrible that I am a girl?” I asked at last in a low voice. My head was beginning to pound. “It isn’t my fault that no one would hire me to look after horses if I told the truth. It isn’t fair that girls should be more dependent than boys. I am perfectly able to look out for myself.”

He said something I had never heard before, not even in the army. Then he took my chin in his hand and held my face up to his. I won’t cry, I said to myself fiercely, I will
not
cry.

“How could I have been so stupid?” There was such slashing bitterness in his voice that I shivered despite the warm sunshine. He let me go and stood up.

“All right, this is something I am going to have to deal with. I need to think. And I need time to calm down.” He gave me a very grim look. “Are you all right walking back by yourself?”

“Of course I am, my lord. I do it all the time.”

The eyes looking at me were very hard and very black. “You go straight to your room when you get home, young lady, and stay there until I tell you otherwise.”

I bowed my head. “Yes, my lord.” I didn’t look up until the sound of hoofbeats told me he had gone.

I walked home in abject misery. My head felt heavy, and it hurt from the sun. My legs became harder and harder to move. It was very hot, but I put my jacket on because I was beginning to shiver.

When I reached home, I had only one desire: to do as his lordship had ordered and get to my room. I undressed and crawled into the big soft bed, where I immediately fell asleep.

I awoke to a cool hand on my cheek. I opened heavy eyelids to see Lord Leyburn’s face close above mine. He had been saying my name.

“I—I don’t feel very well, my lord,” I whispered.

“You have a fever.” His voice sounded matter-of-fact and calm. “We’ll have the doctor in to give you something.” He smoothed the hair back off my hot forehead. “Now, sit up a minute and drink this.”

He slipped an arm behind me and raised me up against his shoulder. At the foot of the bed I saw Mr. Fitzallan and Mrs. Emerson, the housekeeper. I drank the lemonade the earl was holding to my lips and looked up into his face.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

He nodded gravely and lowered me back onto the pillow. I closed my eyes.

I remember very little of the next few days. I was very far away from Carlton Castle, reliving over and over again the terrible moment when word had come to Lisbon that there had been a great battle at Corunna and the English dependents must evacuate.

I hadn’t known if my father was alive or dead until I reached London. In my delirium I saw again and again the worried unhappy face of Major Benning saying, “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, Miss Langley, but your father is dead.”

“Papa!” I cried out in anguish. “No! Don’t leave me!”

And a well-loved voice that was not my father’s would answer. “It’s all right, Valentine. You’re safe. Everything is going to be all right.”

Then I was in Newmarket. “I can ride that horse,” I said. “Just let me try. I’ll show you. I can ride him.”

It was very hot. Why was it so hot? I tried to push the heavy blanket off me and someone pushed it back. “Don’t do that,” I said.

A woman’s voice said, “Leave the blankets be, miss. Sit up now, it’s time for your medicine.”

But I pushed the hands away. “Leave me alone,” I said fretfully. “I have to get up. Mama is sick and she needs me.”

“Oh, my lord.” The woman’s voice sounded relieved. “She’s been trying to get up.”

I was sitting up in bed staring around me in bewilderment. “Where am I?” I asked.

“You’re here with me,” the familiar voice answered. He put an arm around my shoulder. “Lie down now, sweetheart. You’re sick and you need to rest.”

I stared up at the dark face so close to mine. “Don’t leave me,” I whispered.

“No, I won’t leave you. Will you take some medicine now?”

“Yes.” I opened my mouth for the spoon he was holding.

When next I awoke, it was night. The only light in the room came from the fire, and seated in front of it was the figure of a woman.

“What time is it?” I asked.

She stood up and came over to the bed. “How are you feeling, miss?”

“Tired,” I answered. “Who are you?”

“Mrs. Willis, the nurse Lord Leyburn engaged to look after you. You’ve been sick, but the fever broke earlier in the night. You’re going to be all right.”

I ran my tongue across my lips. They were dry and cracked. “What time is it?” I repeated.

“Four in the morning, miss. Would you like a drink?”

I was very thirsty. “Yes,” I said, and pushed myself up against the pillow. I drank thirstily. “How long have I been sick?”

“Five days, miss. It was the influenza. It’s been that bad this year.”

“Oh.” I tried to smile at her. “I don’t remember very much.”

“You were delirious, miss.”

I had to ask it. “Was—was Lord Leyburn here?”

“Aye. He was the only one we could get you to mind.” She took the glass away. “Go back to sleep, miss. There’s no need to fret now. You’re on the mend.”

I closed my eyes and slipped into a deep sleep that for the first time in five days was dreamless.

Chapter 10

I didn’t see Lord Leyburn for the next three days. During that time I was kept in bed and looked after most efficiently by Mrs. Willis. In fact, Mrs. Willis was the only person I saw, aside from the doctor. On the fourth day I was allowed to get up for a short time, and while Mrs. Willis was out of the room, I got dressed in my old clothes and slipped down to the kitchen.

Mrs. Scone and Crosby were sitting at the kitchen table when I walked in and Robert was busy in the corner polishing silver.

“Miss Valentine,” Crosby said woodenly, and rose to his feet. “You oughtn’t to be here, miss.”

Well, I had known it wasn’t going to be easy. I looked as pathetic as I could, and with my white, too-thin face and shadowed eyes, I must have looked piteous indeed.

“Oh,” I said very sadly. “Am I in disgrace with you, too?”

“That was quite a nasty trick you played on us all, Valentine,” Mrs. Scone said sternly. But she had forgotten the miss.

“I know.” I drooped as much as I could. “But after my papa was killed, I had nowhere to go, Mrs. Scone. I didn’t mean to trick you. I only wanted a job. Please don’t hate me.”

“Nobody hates you, Miss Valentine.” Crosby was beginning to sound quite fatherly. “You were very naughty to deceive us all like that, but certainly no one hates you.”

“I’m terribly hungry, Mrs. Scone. I don’t see how I’m ever to get better if I’m not allowed to eat anything.”

“I sent you up a nice dish of gruel, Valentine.”

“Gruel!” I made a face. “I mean real food. I’m
hungry.”

“Sit
you down here, then, and I’ll get you something,” Mrs. Scone said, and bustled off toward the pantry. Crosby looked at his watch and left the kitchen as well, leaving me alone with Robert. I sat down at the table and looked at him. He was industriously polishing and refused to look back.

“Are you angry with me, Robert?” I asked.

“Certainly not, miss.”

“Then why won’t you look at me?”

He glanced up from his polishing. “Yes, miss?” he said with implacable politeness.

This was going to be more difficult than Mrs. Scone and Crosby. Robert was palpably unmoved by my pathetic appearance.

‘ ‘You’re just annoyed because it was a girl who beat you at cards,” I said.

His lips tightened and his blue eyes glared. “That’s not true!”

“Yes, it is. Your pride is hurt, that’s all. I’m sorry I had to fool you, but I don’t see why you’re so upset. What difference does it make, anyway?”

He put down the candlestick he had been polishing for the last five minutes. “What difference? What difference when you let us all think you were a boy when really ...” He glared even harder. “How could you, Val? How could you?”

This was much better. “Well, Robert, who would have hired a girl to look after a horse?”

“That’s not the point.”

“Yes it is. It’s the whole point, don’t you see? After my father was killed, I had to have somewhere to live, some way to earn money.”

“You must have relatives. The Quality are never just thrown on the world like that.”

“All I have are my grandparents. And they cast my mother off when she married Papa. I’d rather take care of horses than be beholden to them.”

“But, Val, don’t you see . . .” Robert was beginning when Mrs. Scone came back with a plate of cheese and freshly cut bread.

I smiled. “This looks delicious, Mrs. Scone.”

I really was starving and was halfway through the cheese when Mrs. Willis appeared to drag me off.

“Let the lass finish her meal,” Mrs. Scone told the nurse firmly. Mrs. Willis took exception to her tone and her interference, and while the two women battled it out, I finished the bread and cheese. As Mrs. Willis finally led me off, I looked back over my shoulder at Robert and winked. He grinned, caught Mrs. Scone’s eye on him, and went back to polishing the silver.

The following day Mrs. Emerson, the housekeeper, came into my bedroom with a stack of boxes.

“His lordship sent me into Richmond to buy some proper clothes for you, Miss Valentine. I had to guess your size, but these should be adequate for a while. It won’t do for you to be wearing those boy’s clothes any longer.” And she gave me a severely disapproving look.

“Yes, ma’am,” I said meekly. I was sitting up in bed and reading a book.

“Get up and we’ll try these on.”

I hopped out of bed with alacrity and looked with interest through Mrs. Emerson’s boxes. There were stockings and underwear and shoes and gloves and three dresses. The dresses were all rather big as were the shoes.

“There’s nothing to you, lass,” Mrs. Emerson said as she pulled a blue muslin this way and that.

“I lost weight when I was sick, I think.”

“Well, I’ll have Rose take a stitch or two in these for you. His lordship is going to send you into York to get a proper wardrobe, so these will only have to do temporarily.”

“They are very pretty dresses, Mrs. Emerson,” I assured her. I looked at myself in the mirror. The dresses might be pretty, but one could hardly say the same thing of the wearer. With my ragged head and too-thin face, I looked like an underfed urchin. “I don’t know what I can do about my hair,” I said dismally.

Mrs. Emerson surveyed me critically. “Sit down here, Miss Valentine, and I’ll trim it for you.”

I sat down on the chair and Mrs. Emerson began to comb my hair, trying it first one way and then another.

“It doesn’t curl,” I informed her.

“It’s very fine for all it’s so thick,” she returned, picked up the scissors, and began to snip away.

Ten minutes later she said, “There, that looks better,” and stepped back to look at me. I turned to the mirror.

She had trimmed my bangs and cut the rest of my hair so it fell back away from my face. It was quite short on the sides but grew longer on the back of my neck.

“Well,” I said doubtfully, “it looks much neater. Thank you.”

“It’s very pretty hair,” the housekeeper said unexpectedly. “A lovely color, really, all brown and coppery and gold, like the autumn leaves.”

It was very nice of her to try to cheer me up and I smiled gratefully. She picked up her scissors and went to the door.

“You’re much too pale, my dear. I suggest you take that book of yours and go sit in the garden for a little. You need to put the color back into those cheeks.”

“I will, Mrs. Emerson. And thank you.”