Miss Ryder's Memoirs (15 page)

“Go away, you pesky dog,” I admonished him. But he would have none of it. With baleful eyes he began a mournful groan that sounded much like a cow in pain. “Now stop that!”

“He merely wants your attention,” a familiar voice informed me.

Sir John was dressed for riding, as he had been in my dream the previous evening, and I was hard-pressed not to blush. The rest of my body, too, had a decided response to his presence, which I vainly attempted to ignore. “Why don’t
you
pay some attention to him?” I suggested.

His eyes crinkled with mirth. “This throat-ripping hound? I wouldn’t dare get within ten feet of the brute.”

Nonetheless, he picked up a stick and threw it for Dutch. Now Dutch is not really a retriever type of dog, but he was taken with the baronet and dutifully loped over to where the stick had fallen. Rather than pick it up, he stood guard over it until Sir John in frustration called him back.

“Just what is this animal capable of doing?” he inquired.

“Not much, but he’s the most loyal beast in nature.” I gave a little shake to the letter I held, eyeing him carefully as I said, “Now, if you want to know what an animal is capable of, let me just read you a part of this letter I’ve received.”

My threat held about as much influence as the original one concerning Dutch. Sir John gave me a look of mock horror and settled himself on the stone bench beside me, making much of disposing himself comfortably and turning to hear me with an expression of polite concentration. I would like to have kicked him in the shin.

“This is what my friend Bethany has written with regard to your character.”

Oh, he shuddered with feigned alarm and I only wished that Bethany had been even more to the point. I was sure she could have been.

"'My dear Catherine, It was so delightful to hear from you. I feared you had quite forgotten me and our delicious adventures during your Season. I still laugh when I think what some poor gentleman is missing by not having won you then.’" I thought Sir John gave a snort of mirth at this point, but when I glanced over at him, he was sitting stiff as a statue, listening intently. “‘Martin sends his dearest love. I half-suspect that he would have offered for you himself had I not been making eyes to distract him!’ She’s only teasing, of course,” I explained to Sir John.

"Of course."

"Now, as to Sir John Meddows, I was astonished to hear that he had made himself at home at Hastings when your brother Robert is in town. Sir John and Robert are, as you must know, the very best of friends. But Robert feels an obligation to the Earl of Stonebridge, which tends to keep his behavior in line, while Sir John has absolutely no check on his. My dear, you would not believe the tales about him. If even a third of them are true, he is the most astonishing rake.

"'Not that he’s ever been accused of mistreating his women, but there have been so many of them! You will understand, from being acquainted with his dark good looks, that he has attracted half of the unattached young ladies, but his preference seems to be for married or not so respectable ones! Honestly, I believe I know half a dozen women who would not scorn a small tête-à-tête with him. Not including myself, of course!’"

“Oh, drat!” he muttered. “And here I was planning to seduce her when I returned to town.”

There was a great deal of laughter in his voice, but I paid no heed to it. I had already realized that I shouldn’t have read the whole of Bethany’s letter to him, but it was too late by then. At least he would understand exactly what I had learned of his true character.

“To continue,” I said, in a monstrously cool tone of voice. “‘He is rumored to have some interest in Marguerite Larson, and to have had a short term affair with Molly Winslow, but neither of them has ever said a word. So perhaps it is all fantasy. Except! I did myself see him once leaving the home of a rather questionable woman at seven o’clock in the morning. Do not ask me what I was doing up at that hour, for it is not half so interesting as it sounds. My dearest husband is planning to. . .' Well, that is all she has to say about you.”

He considered the gossip with Olympian calm. “There are always tales about unattached men, Catherine. I’m not saying that I haven’t done my share of courting of the ladies, but I’ve never harmed anyone.”

I humphed at him. “So you say. Well, this is not the sort of record my sister would wish to hear, and I very much fear that she should be apprised of it.”

He considered this with impartial detachment. “She won’t like the fact that it’s gossip, of course, but she’ll be inclined to believe the account of a woman as well-placed and sensible as Lady Sutton. It will certainly shatter her illusions about me.”

“Don’t you care?”

His black Hessians gleamed in the sunlight and a breeze played with his thick, dark hair. Never had he seemed so uninterested and inaccessible as he did then. He might have been one of the London blades musing on the Season’s collection of maidens. An arrogance that I hadn’t witnessed before clung to him like a glove. When he spoke, it was with a voice quite different than his usual one. This one drawled in a lazy, offensive manner.

“I shouldn’t want her to hate me, of course. That would be most distressing.” He sounded suddenly just like all the men I had met in London, and I wanted to run away from him. But he kept me there with a stern look from those intense eyes. “Now your mother is a different matter. I shouldn’t like it at all if she were ill disposed toward me. But I think, yes, I feel quite sure, that this report will not damage me in her eyes.”

“No,” I admitted, miffed beyond bearing. “Mama hasn’t a prudish bone in her body.”

“Still, I would suggest that you withhold the letter for a few days. Until everything is settled.”

“What is there to be settled?” I asked him sharply.

“This highwayman business, for one thing. I think I really must make a concerted effort to apprehend the fellow, so that no rumors can find their way back to London. Your brother would expect as much of me.”

If he had spoken of our working together to discover who the highwayman was, I would have felt a little better toward him. As he didn’t, I rose abruptly and gave my skirts a dismissive shake. “Well, that has nothing to do with the letter. I cannot promise you that I won’t show it to anyone. That is a matter on which I will have to make up my own mind.”

He had hastened to his feet and now bowed smartly. “As you wish, of course, Miss Ryder. I’m sure you know how best to handle your own family.”

Not that he believed it for a minute. It was just one more of his fancy phrases, part of the imitation he was enacting of a Bond Street beau. How I hated it! But it struck me that it was the role he’d played with Amanda all along. I couldn’t imagine why he thought it would do anything other than repel
me.

* * * *

If Amanda hadn’t pestered me the next morning about not doing my share of the chores, I probably would not have been so blunt with her. But I had continued to oversee exactly those who had always been in my care: the dairy maids, the laundry maids, the stable boys, and every other outdoor employee at Hastings. Her duties seemed much simpler to me, and tidier, just directing the indoor staff.

“You will never learn to manage a household if you continue to skulk about in this fashion,” Amanda informed me. “Mama has told you that you are to help me choose the menu. You won’t have the slightest idea how to go on if you ever marry.”

Mama had mentioned that I might, if I wished, ask the cook for dishes I particularly liked. She had never suggested that I share the duty of choosing meals with Amanda.

But I could see what it was. Amanda thought that Sir John was paying more attention to me now and she was afraid that he meant to ask me to marry him. Which made her very cross. I thought it was as good a time as any to disillusion her as to his character.

“If you must make such an untrue statement, I wish you would not link it with the idea of marriage,” I protested. “You aren’t to be thinking that Sir John Meddows means to make either of us an offer. No such thing! I’ve long suspected he had a most deplorable reputation, and my dear friend Bethany confirms it in her letter.”

“You have solicited gossip from Lady Sutton!” How indignant she was, trying to hide her curiosity. “You know it is wrong to gossip about people. How could you listen to slanderous tales of Sir John? Why, he’s your own brother’s very best friend.”

“I daresay it doesn’t bother Robert one bit that Sir John is a rake. In fact, it probably brings him into contact with just the sort of women he wishes to know at this time of his life.”

“Catherine! I’m ashamed to hear you speak in such a fashion. And I never, ever considered that Sir John would make either of us an offer. And I’m sure your friend Lady Sutton is quite mistaken on this head.”

“Not a bit of it,” I assured her cheerfully. “Shall I get the letter and read it to you?”

From the flash of anger in her eyes I could tell that she was remarkably cross with me. Amanda was far too principled to contemplate slapping me for my insolence, but she was likely to run to Mama with tales of my misdeeds, so I suggested a compromise. “Mama, of course, need know nothing of this. She’s determined to be charmed by Sir John, and his presence seems to calm her.”

That brought her around a little. She sniffed delicately. “Except for the night when she would speak with Papa. Did Sir John ever mention that occasion to you?”

“I don’t think so, directly. He probably thought very little of it. He’s a most tolerant man, you know.”

“Obviously. I would never dream of upsetting Mama. If she’s attached to the baronet, it may distract her from her grief.”

I only wish it had. “She would be more distracted if he carried one of us off and married us, but Bethany’s letter suggests that it is the dalliance and not the sticking point that is his specialty.”

Since she seemed receptive enough by then to hear the whole, I explained what my friend had said. Amanda’s lips twitched with disapproval and her eyes narrowed as she said, “Not at all the sort of man he has passed himself off to be. Whatever can be the point of his playing such a game?”

But I didn’t want her to know about all the other untoward things that were going forward. She was likely to have a fit of the vapors or burst into floods of tears. When Amanda didn’t know what to do about a situation, she cried. Not a very useful substitute for action.

“He’s only come to look out a pair of horses for himself, and one for Robert, and I daresay he doesn’t know how to behave himself other than to make himself pleasing to whatever ladies he finds available.” This just slipped out of my mouth, but the more I thought about it, the more I became convinced that it was true. And the more melancholy I felt.

Amanda sighed and clasped her soft white hands together. “Well, it won’t do any harm to have him around for our Public Day. He’s just the sort of man who could make the whole occasion a huge success—dance with all the girls, talk about sporting events with the other gentlemen, and make the servants feel most comfortable in their entertainments. Charming men are so very useful. It’s such a pity they aren’t honorable.”

Such cynicism was unlike Amanda and I worried about her. But only for a moment. Then Sir John appeared at the door of the summer parlor, where we were sitting, a broad smile on his face and a devilish gleam in his eyes.

“I wonder if I might join the two most delightful young ladies in the country,” he said. His gaze was full upon Amanda, an intent, knowing expression on his face. I felt quite sure he must have overheard a good bit of our conversation.

Amanda lost her composure. Her hands fluttered about at her waist almost as if they had a life of their own. “Oh, I don’t . . . Uhm, you mustn’t . . . Really, I should go to see Mama on the instant. She will wonder where I have gotten, and scold me for being so long about the linens.” She gave the briefest of nods to Sir John before fleeing on her little slippered feet at a pace one could only describe as a run.

“Now, what could possibly have taken possession of your sister?” He turned his knowing, intent expression on me, hoping, no doubt, to throw me into disorder as well. At the same time he continued into the room, walking right up to me.

“You know very well what has happened. I have been forced to enlighten her as to your wicked reputation.”

“Wicked?” He took a step closer to me, moving with that uncanny grace that made my hands tremble. “Don’t you mean passionate? Or perhaps dangerous? Don’t you find me a little bit dangerous, Catherine?”

His silky voice was not meant to threaten me, but to remind me of how very enchanting he could be. Though I tried to resist the pull of his voice and his eyes and his nearness, I could not so much as back away from him. “N-no,” I insisted bravely. “I don’t find you dangerous, Sir John.”

He caught hold of my trembling hands and brought them to his lips. It was no use pretending that he had no effect on me. His mouth brushed the skin on the back of my hands, and my fingers tightened over his.

“Aren’t you tempted to run away from me, as your sister did?’’

I had begun to feel reckless. “Not at all. I’m perfectly capable of restraining your ardor and making you behave yourself.”

“I can’t think why you would believe that.” His grin was meant to entirely destroy me, which it very nearly did. Only by remembering where we were, and that a servant or even my mother could appear at any moment was I able to tug my fingers from his grip.

The gleam in his eyes alarmed me. I very much feared that he intended to kiss me right there. With a little skip backward I put myself momentarily out of his reach. “You wouldn’t dare kiss me in such a public place.”

“Rakes aren’t concerned with such things, you know. We have only a burning desire to have our way with innocent young ladies. A true rake would no doubt ravish you right here on the Axminster carpet.”

He was teasing me, of course, but that special light had appeared in his eyes, and I did wonder if he mightn’t kiss me. Not that I would have minded, save for someone seeing us. That possibility was too great; I had yet to sink to such folly. With a stern look I strode to the door, informing him grandly, “You will do nothing of the sort. If there is ever anything of that nature forced upon me, I shall have my brother challenge you to a duel.”