Patricia Veryan - [Sanguinet Saga 05] - Nanette (17 page)

"No, no! My papa!"

"Your papa—was…
stupid
… ? Oh! What a
dreadful thing to—"

"Vixen!" He took her by the shoulders. "Must I shake it out of
you? The
Hearing
! Your uncle said my father spoke
in a 'funny way'."

"If you do not this instant remove your hands from my body,
Sir Harry Redmond, I shall tell you nothing at all! How do you dare to
lecture other people about propriety when you yourself are a wicked
gamester with libertine propensities, who—" At this point, the look of
molten rage in his eyes caused her to say hastily, "That is better. My
uncle said your papa saw an accident in which a young man was killed.
Your papa was the only one who saw it, but he would say nothing
although the coaches passed close by him and he must have seen who was
in the big one. But this is all so very foolish, for you certainly know
more of it than I, so why—"

"I wish to God I did, for I feel it is important, somehow." He
paused, worrying at it, then tossed up his head. "But if my father said
he did not see who occupied the big carriage, then he did not. He never
lied, and—"

"And very obviously did not confide in you about the matter.
So since he did not trust you with that, it is scarcely to be expected
he would—"'

"
Trust
me?" he scowled. "Of course he
trusted me."

"Then he must have told you of it. Unless…" She gave an empty
little laugh. "Ah… I see. It is something you wish to keep quiet—yes?
Well, if you were so compulsive a gamester you were ruining the poor
man, I suppose he had to raise funds somehow. One could not blame him,
and if the other driver was very… rich…" And she stopped again,
quailing from the dead whiteness of his face, his eyes flames against
that pallor. "He did not tell me," grated Harry, "because I was very
ill at the time! And since you have the incredible affrontery to
suspect his integrity, madam, let me advise you that he was far and
away the finest—"

Nanette's eyes slid past him and he checked and glanced over
his shoulder.

Unnoticed, Diccon had approached and was perched upon a large
boulder. "What you done with all them papers what was in my cart?" It
was the first time Harry had ever seen anger written upon that
lugubrious countenance, but it was written there now, effecting an odd
change in the man.

Their dispute forgotten, the culprits exchanged guilty
glances. "I am truly sorry, Diccon," Harry said contritely. "I only
gave him one, and he—"

"Harry did not give it to him, dear Diccon." Nanette crossed
to smile at the Trader with a rather startling degree of charm. "I am
the naughty one."

"But I told you to give it to him," Harry argued.

Diccon folded his arms. "I 'special asked of you to keep a eye
on Mr. Fox, Harry. Some of them papers was important t'me. Very
important."

Nanette hung her head, and Harry stepped closer to her. "It
started when Mr. Fox pushed Miss Nanette into the stream," he explained.

"And then I tried to hit Harry with the oar," she said with a
dimple.

"Only she knocked down the tent instead," grinned Harry.

Diccon looked from one merry face to the other and sighed.

Aside from his morning fits of the sullens, Mr. Fox was a
good-natured beast, perfectly willing to pull the cart and exhibiting
few of the signs of mulishness associated with his kind. On one point,
however, he was most stubborn, and this was a disinclination to hurry.
It was partly due to this trait, and partly because Diccon had stops to
make along the way, that their progress was not rapid. Two days later,
in fact, they had only travelled as far as Lewes. They camped in late
afternoon, to the west of that pleasant little town, in a glade bright
with wildflowers, blessed by the proximity of a small stream,
alternately shaded by trees and warmed by the sunshine.

Nanette hummed softly as she carried flour and lard from the
large food box in the cart to her cooking table. Harry put up the tent
and Diccon sat leaning against a birch tree, writing laboriously in the
small leather-covered book he always carried and that he called his
business book.

"Harry… We need more wood," called Nanette.

Harry had walked beside the cart for much of the day and had
hoped to rest for a little while, wherefore he gave an irked frown.

"Unless, or course," she added innocently, "you are not
hungry, sir?"

He was ravenous. He placed one hand upon his heart and bowed
low, and waving the wooden spoon airily as she did so, she sank into a
graceful curtsey. He grinned, finishing his task, gave Mr. Fox a
friendly pat, and started on his next assignment as the mellow call of
a cuckoo lingered on the warm air. He became quite heated in the
process of gathering an armful of firewood and, sitting on a boulder,
put down his branches and stared at them glumly. They should reach
Chichester tomorrow and heaven knows it was past time, yet the thought
saddened him. These past few days had been touched by a rare lustre
difficult to identify but vaguely associated in his mind with his
campaigning in Spain. Perhaps it was the clean open air and the long
hikes beside the cart that made food when it came beyond words
delicious. Perhaps it was the long philosophical discussions he enjoyed
with Diccon as they followed the sunlit ribbon of lane and track and
highway—discussions that never failed to leave him impressed by the
Trader's breadth of knowledge. He sighed. He would miss the drowsy
chatter around the campfire at night, capped by Diccon's superlative
music. He would miss Nanette's consuming interest in everything, that
opened one's own eyes to little sights long overlooked—the beauties all
about that busy days in Town rendered invisible. He smiled faintly as
he thought of his indignation that very morning when he'd awoken to the
tugging of her impatient hands and been dragged to the brow of the hill
whereon they had camped, to view a sunrise of such surpassing beauty
that his vexation had been swept away by the wonder of it…

"Harry… ? Ha… rrry…"

The imperious summons made him start up, grab his harvest, and
hurry back to the clearing. Yet once there he found Nanette standing at
the table gazing upward, her hands covered with flour, flour on the tip
of her pert nose, and her eyes following a flock of birds that wheeled
and dipped across the turquoise skies. He halted, watching her upturned
face and the sheen the mellow sunlight awoke along her profile. In her
own way, he thought, she was not unattractive. Her body was certainly
beyond reproach; small she might be, but her curves were just as they
should be and, although much more pronounced than the fine-boned
perfection of Lady Nerina, were nonetheless the type that many men
would find delightful. Her snub little nose and the proud tilt of her
chin had a way of growing upon one; and her eyes—when they were not
crossed — were large and the more interesting because the flecks amid
the hazel tended to vary according to the colours around her, or the
time of day, so that in the early morning they were the clearest blue,
and at this moment, closer to green. A little touch of feminine
fal-lals could work a vast improvement, though she stood in dire need
of instruction in the proper behaviour for a lady of Quality.

"How wonderful to be able to fly," she murmured, her gaze
still fixed upon the soaring birds. "Just think of all they can see.
The cities and towns… the people… the beautiful countryside…"

"The burning stew," grinned Harry, "and the dumplings that had
best not be as leaden as those cannonballs you gave us last night, my
girl, or I shall take the oar to you!"

Her gaze lowered, wrath bringing a flash to her dreamy eyes.
"Peasant! have you no romance in your soul? I show you a small miracle,
and all you think of is your stomach! Men!" And she kneaded the dough
with a violence that caused him to suspect she wished his throat was
between her fingers.

"If your birds could talk," he said, "they might tell us where
Diccon wandered off to. Do you suppose he has abandoned us?"

"Of course not! He'd never abandon Mr. Fox. But if he does
not
come, it will be Nanette who commands the oar, sir!"

Tossing down the branches, he looked at her in mild surprise.
And realizing that if Diccon did not come they would be alone together,
an odd tension raced through him. Nanette looked down, a crimson tide
sweeping up her white throat and into her cheeks, her lowered lashes
hovering upon that blush like dark fans. Harry, unaccountably finding
breathing become difficult, was irritated by such rank stupidity and
asked with commendable aplomb whether Sister Maria Evangeline was the
nun from whom Diccon had acquired the oar.

She nodded, her eyes still downcast, and went on kneading her
dough although with considerably less vigour. Harry chopped a long
branch neatly in half and, dropping both pieces onto the fire, said,
"He told me he traded it on Salisbury Plain. Why on earth would you
have had an oar in such a spot?"

"One of the wheels came off our coach, and we went into a
ditch. The driver said he needed something for leverage. A gypsy came
along, and we bought the oar from him. He made a great fuss about
parting with it, but…" Her hesitation was brief. "He was persuaded, at
last."

"Nerina, probably…" thought Harry wistfully. Who could refuse
that sweet vision anything? He sighed, and when he glanced up met such
a baleful glare that he demanded, "Now what have I done?"

"You are a foolish young man," she observed rudely. "And you
have a foolish face which I do not at all like. And when you think
about—her—it becomes even more foolish. Which is quite as it should be
because you know nothing of the matter whatsoever."

Feeling his offending countenance become hot, Harry wondered
how she could possibly have guessed his thoughts and responded, "Know
nothing about—what?" And at once wished he'd treated her remark with
the haughty silence it deserved.

"Love."

"Oho!" he sat on a convenient root and leaning back, grinned,
"While
you
are an expert on the subject, I take
it."

"Sufficiently to know I want none of it. Yet sufficiently to
know that you stand in abysmal ignorance of the very meaning of the
word." She busied herself in shaping her dough and dropping it onto the
simmering meat and vegetables in the big iron kettle, but when Harry
began to whistle, deigning her no reply, she scowled and demanded,
"Well? What
do
you know of it, Don Juan?"

He shrugged and said lightly, "I suppose it is for a man to
find someone so beautiful, so pure, so perfect that he would want to
spend the rest of his life shielding her. Keeping her safe and happy…
and—loving and caring for her." And, embarrassed because he had become
serious, he looked down and was still.

Nanette gazed upon the careless and unconscious grace of him;
the long legs, the strong, slender hands, the broad shoulders… She
sniffed and looked away. But her eyes slipped back, irresistibly drawn
to that downbent head. His thick dark hair was a little shaggy, yet
infinitely more attractive than that of any Bond Street beau she had
ever beheld. The bruises were fading from the lean face, and the
deepening tan made his green eyes seem the more vivid. And those eyes
were lifting to her rather shyly, wherefore she sniffed again but said
nothing.

"Come now, Madam All-Wise. Your turn."

The laughter in his voice steadied her. "I think it is…
oneness…" she said, frowning at the dumpling she had fashioned. "It is
finding someone with whom to share your joys and sorrows, someone you
know will be amused by the very things that make you laugh. It is pride
because he is brave and strong, and honourable. And feeling safe when
he is beside you. It is like… like being an empty picture frame if he
is gone, and only complete when he is near. But above all—it is giving…
and wanting ever to give… to make him happy." She stopped, for she had
said far more than she'd even known she thought, and for a moment her
hands were trembling and she, in turn, scarcely dare look up.

Staring at her, Harry wondered how he could ever have thought
her plain, for in that moment she seemed all feminine, and quite
lovely. And in that same instant she did look up, and beholding his
expression, her eyes crossed, her chin lolled… And he knew, and
springing to his feet cried furiously, "You do that
deliberately
!
Why you wicked little shrew!" It is all a hum!"

She had panicked and employed her defence once too often. She
backed away, one hand stretched out in a gesture of restraint. "Do
not—-dare . . !"

"Why would you
do
such a hideous thing?"
he demanded, striding angrily towards her. "To win sympathy?"

"
Sympathy
!" Pride restored her, and she
halted. "Why would I want
your
sympathy?"

Halting also, he frowned, "Then—why? To keep away the men— is
that it?"

"It is a trick I have always been able to do. And—" her chin
came up. "I am a girl—alone. And men are—"

"Lustful brutes, eh?" he grated, his eyes savage with anger.
"And is this why you employed your 'trick' with me? Do you hold me the
kind of libertine who would abuse a helpless girl? Am I so crude as to
force myself on—"

"You are a
man
!" she flashed, teeth
bared. "And
all
men are obsessed—"

"By God!" the infuriated Harry exploded. And he leapt forward
and soundly boxed her ears.

For a second Nanette froze, her face livid as she stared in
astounded disbelief. Then, her hands flying upward, she sprang at him.
"Filthy beast! Loathsome
monster
! How
dare
you strike me! How
dare
you!"

"You deserved it!" Harry held her wrists, his eyes glaring
wrathfully into her own. "How dare
you
believe
such evil of
me
?"