Memoirs of a Hoyden (3 page)

“What would you suggest I use to scour it? My bare hands? There’s no brush here.” His languid tone was becoming testy.

“Is your handkerchief clean?”

He pulled out an immaculate handkerchief, wet it from the pump, and rubbed it around the inside of the pot before filling the latter. He then carried the pot and hung it over the fire, which by this time was petering out. “We need more wood for the grate,” I said.

He looked at the empty wood basket. “There doesn’t seem to be any more. Perhaps those chairs—”

“They don’t belong to us. There must be a woodshed attached to this cottage. Let us see if they left any wood behind.”

Kestrel leapt to attention, surprising me by the quick movement. “Aye, aye, sir!” he exclaimed, and saluted. Wideman emitted a chuckle from the sofa. I paid no heed to this puerile attempt at humor, but went back to the kitchen, Kestrel following me. We found a low door leading into a woodshed. Unfortunately, the roof leaked, so that the top wood was quite sodden.

“No doubt you have a plan for me to dry this soaking wood?” he asked. “I’m eager to hear it.”

His sarcasm was ignored as thoroughly as his poor attempt at humor. “That won’t be necessary. It will be drier below, if you would be so kind as to remove the top couple of layers.”

A muscular spasm around his mouth was the only sign of revolt. Kestrel pulled away the top layer to discover dry logs beneath. They were enormous pieces of tree trunk.

“We’ll need a team of horses to get these into the living room.”

“They’ll have to be chopped,” I pointed out reasonably.

“Of course,” he said, all fight gone. His elegant shoulders sagged to consider the chore in front of him. He inhaled slowly, looked around the shed, and found, to his dismay, a rusty axe leaning against the wall. He took it clumsily in his hands and began battering at the tree trunk. When he finally made contact with the stump, he imbedded the axe so firmly in it that he couldn’t get it out. “What now?” he asked, with a gleam of satisfaction, thinking he had made the job impossible of completion.

“I suggest you remove the axe blade and try again.”

He straightened up, arms akimbo, puffing from his exertions. “My name is Lord Kestrel, ma’am, not King Arthur.”

With one hand I gently pushed him aside and showed him how to hold the stump steady with one foot while applying pressure upward on the axe handle with both hands and jiggling to extricate the blade. This done, I passed the axe to him. “Excalibur awaits your pleasure, sir.”

He took it without a word and raised the axe to repeat his error.

“Excuse me,” I said, and took the axe from him. “I spent a month one winter in the Syrian desert, which to my surprise, had six inches of snow and was extremely cold. It was very pretty in summer, however, with mountains, hills, and green plains, dotted with flowers and herbs. By ‘desert’ the Syrians mean only a place without houses. In any case, I have seen the natives chop wood and learned how to do it.” I placed a stump in the ground, leaned the smallest log I could find against it, and aimed not for the middle of the top log, but a point a few inches in from the outside. It split with a satisfying snap, and a piece of wood flew across the room. That it happened to hit Kestrel was an accident.

“You’d best stand back a little,” I advised, and raised the axe again. When I had chopped the first trunk into burnable pieces, I handed Kestrel the axe. “Do you think you have the knack of it now? We shall need half a dozen more logs chopped up.”

“An impressive performance, Miss Mathieson.” He bowed, and took the axe. I collected up my pieces and went to build up the fire. From time to time Kestrel came and deposited an armful of chopped wood at my feet, like a magpie bringing chips of glitter to its mate. I did the civil thing and said, “Thank you” on each occasion.

When the pile was higher than necessary, and when Kestrel was gasping from exhaustion, I said, “That will be enough for tonight. You’d best sit down or you’ll have a stroke. My, you’re not as hardy as you appear. Have you been ill, Lord Kestrel?”

“I was feeling fine till tonight,” he said through clenched teeth. Then he went to the door and looked out. The rain was still coming down in buckets. Despite this, he took his steaming coat from in front of the fire and put it on.

“You’re not leaving!” I exclaimed.

“Sorry I can’t remain to kill a wild boar or a bear for dinner, or perform whatever other chores you desire, but I am in rather a hurry. I have every confidence you will manage without me. Good night, Miss Mathieson. It has been . . . educational meeting you.”

He clapped his curled beaver on the side of his head and left. I figured his fit of pique might get him the length of a city block. I underestimated his stubbornness. He wasn’t back for half an hour, by which time he was soaked through and sneezing, and I had cleansed Mostly’s wound and got more water on to boil. “I must have walked in a circle. I ended up here again,” he said with a sheepish glance.

“It’s difficult to navigate when the stars aren’t out,” I conceded, and took his coat to place by the fire with the others.

The subject of dinner was at the back of all our minds. It was Wideman who gave it voice. “I wonder if there’s any food in the pantry,” he said, casting a hopeful glance at myself.

“Why don’t you have a look?” I suggested.

He was still looking five minutes later, by which time impatience won and I went to join him. Kestrel wandered out behind me. He wore an expression of doubtful curiosity.

“What we’ve got is a tin of coffee and half a tin of flour,” Wideman announced. “Can you do anything with that, Miss Mathieson?”

“Pity it weren’t a loaf and fishes,” Kestrel said. “But I have no doubt Miss Mathieson will contrive a meal from that inauspicious beginning.”

“We can have coffee at least.”

“With no milk and sugar?” Wideman asked, offended.

“If you would care to run along to Chatham and do some shopping, sir, we can have milk and sugar with it. You might as well pick up some bacon and eggs while you’re there.”

I took the tin of coffee and rattled through the cupboards, looking for cups and a coffeepot. I found an old enameled pan, put the coffee in it and poured the boiling water from the grate on top. That was our dinner, served in wretched old chipped cups without handles. It tasted very good, too. I was accustomed to taking my coffee straight in my travels. At least it was hot.

“I could go for a beefsteak right about now,” Mr. Wideman said, licking his lips.

Kestrel nodded in sympathy. “I had some hope Miss Mathieson could bake us up a few loaves from that tin of flour, as I’m sure is done in the deserts of Arabia.”

“Of more importance,” the vicar announced, “is how we are to spend the night. I suggest we give Miss Mathieson the bedchamber, and we gentlemen roll up here in these smelly blankets before the fire. That weather isn’t fit for man nor beast.”

“Very kind of you, Reverend,” I said, “but you may take the freezing bedchamber. I’ll sleep on the floor by the grate with the rest of them.”

“But you’re a lady!”

“And you all, I trust, are gentlemen?” My scathing glance included even Mostly, who sat on the floor like a dog, scratching his ear.

“We are none of us brave enough to molest Miss Mathieson,” Kestrel announced, with an unnecessarily sly grin at my predicament. “I suggest we give her the sofa, while we all roll up in our coats and sit out the storm. If anyone is able to sleep under such conditions, more power to him. I shall be awake, and will undertake to guard Miss Mathieson’s honor—with axe, if necessary.’’

“Take note of that, gentlemen. I promise you, if once Lord Kestrel imbeds the blade in your head, it is there forever.’’

We were all too tired and hungry to argue. I lay down on the sofa with my damp pelisse over me, and soon the men gathered around the grate, trying to get comfortable. For an hour I lay awake, wondering why I couldn’t sleep in the relative comfort of this cottage. I had slept under worse conditions, often on the ground, surrounded by Arabs who would as soon slit your throat as steal your gold. What I mean is that it wasn’t the discomfort, and certainly not fear of being molested by any of these tame fellows, that kept me awake.

I kept thinking of the highwaymen, and the lackadaisical way they had robbed us. Surely professional bandits would have taken our watches and rings. They would have remembered my reticule. They wouldn’t have kissed my hand, and called me mam’selle. That “mam’selle” hinted at French attackers.

With an invasion from Napoleon imminent, the French were much in everyone’s mind. This opened a new avenue of exploration. Why had they singled out Kestrel for a closer examination than the rest? They had looked very smug when they found that letter in his waistcoat. Was it no ordinary letter, but something to do with Boney? A strange place to carry a letter, next to the heart, as it were.

Or was it merely a billet-doux? Strange to think of that dour, lazy-eyed man being in love. What would she look like? I pictured a wilting violet, some demure, prissy young lady—pretty, of course, in the conventional mold,

I was never called pretty. A Greek professor of art once used the phrase “Hellenic beauty” to describe me.
He said I had a classical face, by which I believe he meant a certain regularity of features, and perhaps a statuesque quality, due to my height. Men stare at me, but to be realistic, which I always endeavor to be, I think there is more surprise than admiration in their gaze. I saw plenty of that abroad.

I often thought of my travels while I lay in bed at night. Home again in England, I would remember the mountains of Lebanon, and Emir Beshyr’s mountaintop palace, where we drank sherbets and he taught me to smoke his nargileh. And the old sheikh’s palace at Maktara, where a stream of mountain water flowed through all the rooms, giving off a silver tinkle as it ran over the stone floors. And of the desert emir, Mohanna el Fadel, who called me
Meleki—
the Queen.

It was my fair coloring and blue eyes that interested those easterners, that and the fact that a European lady traveled amongst them. I was the first one most of them had seen. How they came to stare! Thousands of them would meet me at the entrances to their towns. I had been treated royally by pashas and emirs, by princes and sheikhs, but in England, a lord did not treat me with even common respect. Kestrel had been mocking me since our arrival here. Perhaps that was what kept me awake. I glanced at the roll on the floor where Kestrel was lying, and noticed it move.

He sat up and looked around. Then he rose and began piling wood on the smouldering fire. The flames shining up on his face gave him a demonic air, like Lucifer. It played over his deep-set eyes and traced shadows on his lean cheeks. I was attracted by that air of danger the fire conferred on him. Kestrel pulled out his watch, went to the door, and frowned at the curtain of rain that still came down. I remembered the questions that had plagued me earlier, and decided this was the time to find some answers.

I got quietly up from the sofa, pulled my pelisse around me abba-style, and went softly forward. “You’re still awake!” he exclaimed.

“Shhh! I don’t want to wake the others. Come to the sofa a moment.”

A leap of astonishment lit his pale eyes. The idiot thought I was planning to seduce him! “I have a few questions I’d like to ask,” I said. Ignoring that brief misunderstanding seemed the best way to handle it.

Kestrel was less subtle. “That’s a relief!” he murmured.

“Ah, you feared I was after more wood. There’s plenty to last till morning.” I sat demurely on one end of the sofa. Kestrel as far away from me as possible. “I find it peculiar the highwaymen left so many valuables behind, don’t you?” I began.

“The weather might account for their haste.”

“It’s surprising they were out in such weather at all. Mostly found it unusual. But being out, why did they not collect our jewelry—and my reticule?”

“Are you complaining that they missed a few items?” he asked.

“Not complaining precisely, but it is odd.
You
are the only one they actually searched,” I added pensively.

“I should think the cut of Wideman’s jacket was enough to disqualify him. And a vicar wouldn’t be carrying any money.”

“Cut bait, Lord Kestrel. It was that letter hidden under your waistcoat they were after. The rest of it was a sham to make us think it was a regular highway holdup. What was in that letter?”

“It was a personal matter.”

“Highwaymen don’t steal billets-doux. You were coming from London toward Dover. The coast is expecting a visit from Boney any day now. Is it possible you were carrying a missive from Whitehall to the army stationed at the coast?”

“You have an active imagination, Miss Mathieson.”

“I didn’t imagine that they called me mam’selle, and that they said
‘ chevaux.’
I didn’t quite catch it at first, but immediately after he said it, the bandit cut the team loose. That’s what he said—
chevaux.
In case you aren’t aware of it, Lord Kestrel,
chevaux
is French for horses. Are you a ... spy?”

My voice rose on the last word. What astonished me was not that spies abounded at this time and place, but that such an incompetent sort of gentleman as sat with me was of their number. First his curricle broke down, then he got held up, and instead of going after the enemy, he hung around this shack, chopping wood and drinking coffee. Really, it was incredible.

“What if I am?” he asked.

“If you are, you’d best get after those Frenchies before they deliver your message to their superior. At least ... I shouldn’t think the ringleader was risking his life in a simple holdup. He’d have one of his minions do that.”

His chiseled nose pinched in annoyance. “Why do you think I left earlier?” he demanded fiercely. He obviously didn’t like to have his actions questioned.

“You found no trace of them?”

“You couldn’t find St. Paul’s in that downpour. As I said, I ended up walking in a circle. It seemed best to catch a few winks and be fresh to go after them in the morning.”

I nodded in agreement. “We must set out at the break of day,” I said.