Love & Folly (18 page)

"I have often found it so."

"Well, your presence was a piece of good fortune for Jean and Maggie, and I thank you very
much for the rescue."

"Strictly speaking, they rescued themselves, ma'am."

Elizabeth stared.

He was frowning. "As I said, I was watching. I noticed them at once, because there were so few
women in the street."

Elizabeth grimaced.

He said dryly, "An unhappy choice of words. At any rate, they were visible but not immediately
identifiable."

"Thank God for that."

"I watched as they were swept into the middle of the street and wondered if I ought to try to
reach them. And whether I could do them any good if I did."

He had slipped his right arm back in the discreet black silk sling. Now he touched the fabric,
adding with evident regret, "I'm not much use in a set-to these days." He flashed a grin. "There was Johnny
Dyott with one good leg and me with one good arm. Between the two of us, we might have made an
adequate knight errant, but I think your sisters would have been better served by a troop of Guards."

Elizabeth had to smile, too, but she said, "They were very well served as it was."

He shook his head and went on, "They kept their wits about them. They waited in the shelter of a
cart that had been caught in the confusion, and when they saw a gap in the crowd they made a dash for
safety. Lady Margaret's cap was torn off. That was when I recognized them. I was some way off."

"I see"

"Lady Margaret was struck as they reached the walkway and pulled to safety by her sister and two
onlookers. I made my way to them at once, but I can't claim to have rescued them. Or that they needed
rescue They are redoubtable young women."

"They're a pair of pestiferous hobbledehoys," Elizabeth said roundly, "and so I shall tell them
when they wake. I blush when I consider what you must be thinking of their breeding."

"I'm thinking that they have a great deal of spirit," he said mildly.

"Spirit!"

Fortunately, the butler entered before Elizabeth's exasperation betrayed her into unbecoming
language.

When the wine was poured and the butler had left the room, she found Colonel Falk watching her
with considerable amusement in his hazel eyes "If your sisters had fallen into hysterics or swooned in one
another's arms I daresay that would have showed good breeding."

"Not being there at all would have showed good breeding." She took a sip of sherry. "Johnny says
they refused to explain their presence, unescorted, in the seamiest purlieus of Soho."

Colonel Falk toyed with his glass. "Lady Margaret was in no state to be explaining anything. Lady
Jean said they were tired of, er, being hedged about by solicitous guardians. I was inclined to believe her:"
He took a swallow of wine. "They were looking for adventure, ma'am. An understandable impulse."

Elizabeth's wrath kindled. "Understandable in young men, perhaps, but not in well-bred young
ladies."

He cocked an eyebrow. "Are young ladies immune to natural inclinations?"

Elizabeth said grimly, "They must learn to consider the consequences of heedless
behaviour."

"Your sisters merely went for a little jaunt in each other's company and found more adventure
than they bargained for. Lady Margaret's injury will mend. Where is the harm?"

"There might have been a great deal of harm if you and Johnny hadn't found them. I can only
hope no one of note recognised them before you were able to give them respectable escort."

Colonel Falk's mouth quirked at the corners. "That's the first time anyone has ever accused me of
respectability."

Elizabeth stared.

He cocked a quizzical eyebrow.

Finally recalling his scandalous antecedents, she blushed to the roots of her hair, but when he
began to laugh she did, too. The situation was fraught with absurdity, after all. In her concern for the girls'
reputation, she'd been in danger of forgetting that. She was grateful to him for restoring the balance of her
judgement.

He was a quiet man. She had thought him colourless and unpleasantly reserved, assuming his
friendship with her husband was just another instance of Tom's kindness. Tom had told her often enough
that Colonel Falk was his oldest friend. She began to see why the friendship had endured.

"I want a proper mount," Matt announced, sliding from the saddle. "Tommy can have Pie." Pie,
short for Piebald Prancer, was Matt's pony, a fat, good-natured beast, and with Amy's pony, Eustachio, the
universal family pet.

"Perhaps, I'll think about it." Emily dismounted with a hand from her father's head groom and
gave Feather a pat on the nose. Her father had reserved the mare for her use.

It was pleasant to be able to ride again. Richard had kept neither horses nor a carriage in
Winchester. The first brief rides Emily had taken after her temporary remove to Mayne Hall had left her so
stiff and sore she was almost convinced that women in their thirties ought to give up the saddle and content
themselves with being driven. Now she was glad she had persisted.

"...a roan gelding just like Smithers's," Matt was saying as he led Pie to the stables. Even when
Matt was small, Emily had insisted that her son see to his pony himself, though there had always been a
groom to help the boy. She was glad Matt had not forgot his training.

She watched as her eldest unbuckled the girth and removed Pie's saddle, rubbing the pony down
and inspecting his coat carefully before allowing the groom to lead Pie to water and the oat bag. She gave
Feather the carrot she had been saving. The groom lifted the heavy sidesaddle from the mare and Matt
rattled on about the superior points of a horse he had seen at the Home Farm that morning.

She and Matt had made a circuit of the Wellfield estate. It was a fine day for riding. The cherries
were hung with white clouds of blossom, their annual Easter display, and everything seemed forward for
the season. The bailiff Emily had hired to oversee Wellfield was a good man, no doubt of it, but she
couldn't help wishing she had been able to see to the planting herself.

Emily had been homesick for Wellfield all through the winter. She meant to enjoy as much of its
spring beauty as possible. She was almost certain it was her last Wellfield spring. Her melancholy sharpened
the pleasure of the ride.

She watched as the groom rubbed Feather down. Then she gave the mare a last affectionate pat
and followed Matt, who was still talking horse, out into the watery spring sunlight.

"...and Grandpapa says I may stable the roan here," Matt was saying, "and Will can exercise him
for me until school lets out for the summer holidays. Say I may buy him, Mama."

Emily focussed on her son. He was pink with eagerness, flaxen hair ruffling in the spring breeze.
"It's too soon to decide, Matt. Your stepfather hasn't made up his mind where we're to live, and I don't
want to burden Papa with another horse. He's very kind to keep Pie and Eustachio for us."

"I want a proper mount," Matt said fiercely. "I need one. You can sell Pie."

"Sell Pie? You don't mean that, Matt. Pie is a very old friend."

"I don't care."

"What would Tommy ride?"

Matt kicked a clod. "I want the roan. If my stepfather is so rich, he can buy Pie for
Tommy."

Emily stared at her son in silence.

Matt's eyes dropped. He was red in the face. Shame-faced, she hoped.

"We shall keep Pie," she said carefully, "for Tommy and Harry and Sally. Until he drops dead of
old age, which will, I trust, be many years in the future. Perhaps by that time you will have learnt
something of family feeling. In the meanwhile, if you insist, we shall pay you a fee every time one of the
younger children mounts your pony. Perhaps you'd like to sell rides for ha'pence to other children as well.
You should turn a handsome profit, enough perhaps to purchase the roan by your twenty-first birthday."
Matt was twelve.

"You always take their side."

"Whose 'side'?"

"Theirs. The Falks'."

"You are speaking of your brothers and sisters."

"Tommy isn't my brother."

Emily closed her eyes briefly. "Upon my word, Matt, are you so selfish you grudge poor
Tommy's existence? He takes nothing from you. To be sure, he is your stepbrother..." She regarded her
son rather helplessly.

In the past year, since Tommy's illness, Matt's jealousy had taken to bursting forth in ugly little
scenes like this one. She knew Matt loved the other children, nor did she suppose he hated his
stepfather.

Matt's moments of anger, sparked by the ordinary frustrations of childhood, had been fanned to
hostility by his paternal grandmother. If something were not done soon, his natural self-importance and hot
temper were going to lead him into a permanent state of fancied grievance.

He continued to stare at her, lower lip jutting.

"I think we had best have a talk."

"We're always having talks."

Emily sighed. "Another talk, then. I understand that you want a more suitable mount. You shall
certainly have one, though not just yet. When I'm sure we can stable it properly, it will be purchased from
the income of your own estate and will belong to you alone. I'll keep an accounting for you of the price, as I
have done since you were three years old of all other expenses relating to your father's estate, and when you
come of age I shall turn everything that is yours over to you. I never forget what is due to you as your
father's son, Matthew."

The boy's eyes dropped.

"Do you understand what I'm saying?"

"Grandmama said my stepfather was milking the estate," he muttered.

Emily drew a sharp breath. "What?"

"I think that means--"

"I know what it means. Your grandmother--"

Emily broke off.
Is a damnable liar,
she had been about to say. Not a diplomatic
utterance. "Mrs. Foster is mistaken."

"But she said my stepfather was battening on my rents."

"She may claim that, and perhaps even believe it," Emily pronounced, "but it is untrue, Matthew.
Look at me."

Matt raised his head. There were tears in his eyes. Emily melted. She bent and pulled him to her
in a fierce embrace. "How unhappy you've been, Matt. I'm sorry."

Matt squirmed. "I didn't think it could be true, Mama, but she said it was." He began to cry in
earnest.

Emily held him, patting him as if he were a much younger child until the first gust of tears--born
of relief, she suspected--had spent itself.

How long had Matt been trying to deal with the old woman's poisonous allegations? He had spent
a month with Mrs. Foster after Tommy's illness, but how long before that?

When Matt reached the hiccoughing stage, Emily released him and straightened. It wouldn't do to
injure his dignity with too much babying. "Let's walk to the spinney, darling, and try to sort this
out."

Matt daubed his eyes with his sleeve. "All right."

"Do you know why we closed Wellfield House and moved to Winchester?"

He sniffed. "So I could come home from school Sundays and so Amy could go to her
school."

"Those were benefits of the move but not the reason. We moved because your stepfather thought
it best to establish his own household. When I married Richard we continued to live at Wellfield because I
wanted to oversee the estate. And," she added, determined to make a clean breast of it, "because I loved
the house and felt comfortable in it. You were very young, too, and I wanted you to spend your childhood
there. I thought you should know the land and I wanted your tenants to know who you were."

"The s-squire," Matt offered the old joke hesitantly; He would be the squire of Wellfield as his
father had been, and one of the Wellfield tenants, an elderly farmer, had insisted on calling Matt "young
squire." Emily had teased him with the nickname. The joke was stale now, but there was truth in it.

"I think my plan succeeded," Emily said cheerfully. "When you come of age, Wellfield and its
people will be ready to welcome you home. That's what I wanted for you."

"But Papa Falk--"

"Your stepfather is a soldier and a writer. He is not wonderfully interested in agriculture."

That was an understatement. Richard listened politely enough to Emily's bucolic enthusiasms, but
he had once confessed to her that when he saw a field of waving corn, the words that popped into his head
were "forage" and "bivouac." The revelation had shocked Emily to the core.

Matt was looking at her, owl-eyed. He had grown half a foot in the past year. The top of his head
reached her chin.

She gave his shoulder a brief, reassuring squeeze and walked on. "Your stepfather had reservations
about living at Wellfield, but he knew I wanted to stay on, so he didn't raise any objections until last year,
when we heard of unpleasant gossip in the village. Then you began to echo some of the gossip, and we knew
we'd have to find a way to set your mind at ease. Besides, it wasn't fair to Amy and Tommy and the babies
to rear them at Wellfield when it could never really be their home."

"I don't see why not," Matt muttered. "I don't mind."

Emily sighed. "It's too complicated. Keeping estate records and household records separate fairly
addled my brain. Of course, your stepfather always paid the household expenses." Emily had thought
Richard overscrupulous. He had even paid Matt a rent for the house. Now she was glad he had
insisted.

Matt said nothing but she knew she had his attention.

After a moment, she went on, "When we found that Tommy was...had lost his hearing, we knew
we should have to provide for him, something in addition to his education, I mean, and living in Winchester
was less costly than running a large house like Wellfield. So you see..."

"But now that Papa Falk is rich we can move back to Wellfield." Matt's eyes blazed. "We can
open the house again."

"Oh, Matt, no."

"Why not?"