Patricia Veryan - [Sanguinet Saga 05] - Nanette (18 page)

She said nothing, her entire energy directed to fighting,
kicking, and struggling so that of necessity he gripped her tighter.
She swung her head down, white teeth darting for his wrist, but he
wrenched her away and, a little breathless and aghast because of this
unseemly brawl, cried, "Have done, woman! Gad, but you need a firm
hand! Tomorrow you shall be taken to you papa, and—"

As he spoke her hair tore loose from its bun and fell like a
dark cloud about her, rippling down far past her shoulders. Her eyes
had widened at his words, her fury replaced by horror. "You
would
not! Harry, please! He is—"

"
Another
'loathsome monster,' I suppose,"
he sneered.

"He is vile," she said unequivocally. "And—cruel… and—"

"And beats and starves you, and keeps you locked in an
oubliette?" He gave a short, mocking laugh and, still smarting with
hurt and anger, frowned. "A fine way to speak of your father! No, spare
me the drama, I pray, for I believe none of it." He loosed her and
stepped back, saying in a cold voice, "You've scarce uttered one word
of truth since I met you."

"And who asked you to come with us? Not I. Not Diccon! So why
do you not at once leave us and resume your… your sacred quest?"

All too aware of how his real quest had been neglected, he
said nothing.

"Go on!" she taunted. Her lip curled and, folding her arms,
she regarded him with contempt. "Go and search for your Golden Goddess!"

"I shall leave here in the morning. And you—Miss Nanette, or
whatever in the deuce your real name is—will go with me. If you refuse
to give me your father's direction, I shall take you to the nearest
constable, and—"

"Yes!" she hissed, crouching a little. "You
would
do that, you unfeeling wretch! Well, your concern is as unwarranted as
it is unwanted! I shall be perfectly safe, I assure you. Once
you
are gone!"

"I've a very good mind," grated Harry, "to put you across my
knee, madam!"

She straightened, shook back her hair, and faced him with
proud disdain. "You will find your Nerina at "The Star" in Alfriston.
Do not look so astonished. She waits there for me. Have you forgot she
is my friend? And have no fears that I shall tell her of your crude,
ungentlemanlike behaviour towards me. I promise, my poor lovesick
stupid, that—"

"Sister Maria Evangeline was perfectly right," snarled Harry.
"You are indeed more shrew than saint!"

"—that it will not need this for her to send you packing," she
went on, as if he had not spoken. "So—go, sir! Run—to your vision of
delight!"

Now as she spoke thus she gave a mocking laugh, and her manner
was almost regal in its scorn. But her hands were tight clenched, her
cheeks deathly pale, and a quiver came and went beside her mouth so
that had he not been blinded by his own rage, Harry might have behaved
differently. As it was, he responded with a crisp, "I shall! Be so kind
as to tell you knight errant that I had to leave! And thank him for
his
hospitality, at least!" Having uttered the which gallantry, he snatched
up his few belongings. His fury increased when he dropped one of the
neckcloths he'd purchased in Horsham. He retrieved it and found Miss
Nanette standing close by, offering his jacket between thumb and finger
as though the garment were contaminated. He whipped it from her grasp
and stamped off. Only this morning she'd sung as she sat in the cart,
sewing a button on that jacket…

He turned back, marched up behind her, rasped, "Thank you for
sewing on the button!" and stamped off again.

He'd gone a little distance before he realized he was headed
in the wrong direction. Fuming, he shot a glance toward the glade.
Luckily it was out of sight and if he circled wide, she would not see
him. He began his detour. Had there ever been so perverse a female? To
think he'd felt sorry for her 'affliction'! And the barefaced gall of
her—to stand and shriek like a veritable fishwife that he was a man
and, therefore, implicitly a crude and lusting savage! Where in the
devil had she gathered such an impression of males? She'd said of her
father, "He is vile, and cruel…" Harry's steps slowed. More of her
gammoning. Still, he must not leave her all alone. Whatever had come
over him to do so ungallant a thing? He moved slowly back towards the
clearing. He'd stay just close enough to keep an eye on things…

The scream paralyzed him. But even as a wild outburst of
braying followed he had tossed his belongings aside and was running. A
five-barred fence loomed up. He placed one hand on the top, vaulted it
with a fluid leap, and raced up the gentle slope.

Nanette, a scratching, writhing wildcat, was being dragged
away by two men who swore with her every movement but made no attempt
to strike her. They were both well over six feet in height and
impressively clad in livery of black, trimmed with gold, and having
large crested gold buttons.

"Hey!" cried Harry. And his rage was such that he scorned to
take up a branch or anything with which to wage this uneven struggle,
longing only to smash at them with his bare hands.

They spun about. In their cold eyes he read brutality and
vicious-ness, and his heart leapt with joy.

" 'Old 'er… " growled the younger of the two and started
forward. He was muscular, with a mop of crinkly brown hair, and he
crouched a little as he advanced. Laughing softly, Harry ran at him. A
knotted fist flashed for his jaw. He danced to the side, jumped in and
landed a right and left to the midsection that brought the crinkly man
doubling over, a great "Oooff!" escaping his gaping mouth. Harry struck
with his right again, and that whistling upper-cut straightened out his
antagonist and deposited him on his back amid the clover. In the nick
of time, Harry spun around and ducked the knife the second man slashed
at him. He gripped that flailing arm, added to its momentum, and sent
the man heels over head down the slope.

"Harry!"

He started to turn too late. Something thudded across his back
and the all-too-familiar lance of pain was sharp and blinding. The
clearing dissolved. He sank down and lay there totally unable to move,
his brain reeling, while a terrible weakness turned his bones to water…

"Ah,
mon pauvre! Mon pauvre
…" The
grieving words penetrated the mists. Soft arms were about him, and he
lay in them gratefully and tried to breathe without groaning. The
nausea eased a little, and he saw eyes filled with tears and a new glow
that puzzled him so that he said stupidly, "Tuppence… ?"

"Yes, my brave one. Are you better?"

"I am—very well… thank you." He endeavoured to take stock of
the situation. Down the slope the knife wielder was dragging the
crinkly one to his feet, and close at hand a red-faced bully sprawled
on his back, his mouth as wide as his eyes were closed. Harry turned in
amazement to Nanette.

"I hit him," she nodded and, touching his brow anxiously,
asked, "Are you all right? You look so pale."

"Perfectly… fit. What did you hit him with?"

She held up a small, nobby club. Harry took it and with a
great effort clambered to his feet and tottered to where the knife
wielder was tugging at his groaning friend. Harry raised the club.
"Don't 'it me, guv!" An arm was flung up to shield the bullet head.
"Don't you 'it me no more! We'm a'goin'. Just give me a chance ter get
me mate."

"Well, devil take you—hurry up!" growled Harry, managing to
sound threatening as his head cleared. He waited until all three went
weaving off, then crossed to the tent, from behind which came a soft,
distressed braying.

Nanette was attempting to console Mr. Fox with a shopping
list. It was accepted with reluctance, the donkey fixing them both with
a reproachful gaze. Harry stroked his neck and explained matters to the
best of his ability, and after a while the eyes closed, the shaggy head
butted against his chest, and a gusty sigh of contentment accompanied
the retreating hoofbeats that proclaimed the departure of their
unwelcome guests.

Harry turned to Nanette and found her regarding him with a
smile, half-amused, half-tender; but recalling the manner of their
parting he frowned "I wonder you did not cross your eyes and slobber at
'em."

She lowered her lashes and said meekly, "You came back."

"And had no business leaving you, though as God is my judge,
little one, I'd not have done so had I any notion you would be
attacked. Filthy swine!"

"They were from my papa," imparted Nanette softly.

He gave a gasp of dismay. "
What
? Why
did you not—"

"Tell you?" She said sadly, "You would have let them take me."

Would he? Those crude louts? What manner of man would send
such after a loved daughter? Confused, he muttered, "Put up your
hair—before we have the rest of Sussex here."

She searched his face and, finding the deathly pallor gone
from under his eyes, stifled a sigh of relief. "Yes, Harry," she said,
again with that uncharacteristic meekness, and started to search in the
cart. Watching her, he said worriedly, "Tomorrow, you will come with me
to…" Here, Nanette leaning far over, he caught a glimpse of a trim
ankle and finished with a grin "—to Lewes."

"No, but I cannot." With swift movements of her white hands
she began to wind her hair into two long braids. "I must go to
Alfriston to meet Nerina."

Harry's heart gave a jump, but he said with forced
nonchalance, "Very well—to Alfriston. Bur I warn you, I intent to make
enquiries for your papa." He could not like to see how the colour left
her face, and lowering himself cautiously onto Diccon's folding stool
he said, "Now pray do not enact me another of your tragedies, miss.
I'll admit those three ruffians might have been better chosen, but
likely your poor father is worried and desperate."

"Oh, of that I have no doubt whatsoever," she nodded bitterly.

She looked like a pretty child with her hair dressed so, the
bright red ribbons binding the shining ropes she had fashioned. But—she
told such awful whiskers! "Little one," he sighed, "do you really
have
a papa?"

She smiled and, coming to kneel close beside him, confessed.
"He died when I was two. I cannot remember him, but he was a fine
English gentleman."

"Aha! I might have known!"

"I believe," she went on, knitting her brows ferociously, "my
stepfather contrived his death so as to be able to marry Mama!"

She was off again! "Oh, egad! So it is your wicked
step
father
who seeks to force you into marriage for money—and with a man you
loathe?" She nodded, and he pointed out with the quiver of a grin, "But
you loathe all men."

"This one especially. For he complicates my life most
unfairly."

"He is old and ugly and lecherous," he ventured tentatively.

"He is young and handsome, and a perfect gentleman." She
sighed, a wistful light in her eyes, then scowled, "And I
hate
him!"

Harry shook his head in reluctant admiration. "And what does
this young, handsome, perfect gentleman' think of you?"

"He loves me, of course." She bit her lip. "But—he has not
offered."

"If he loves you," said Harry, still striving, "why hasn't he
offered?"

"To spite my papa.
He
hates him, too."

"Oh—of course," he nodded gravely. (Whatever else, she was
good at it!) "And why does your papa seek to force you into marriage
with this handsome young gentleman who hates him and whom you hate?
Surely there must be other and less reluctant wealthy prospects? One
you might find—er—acceptable."

She frowned at him, her eyes becoming very hard and bright. "I
do not want someone acceptable'. I want to marry for love. Like you
and—Nerina."

Harry's head came up slightly, and he met her challenge
coolly. "You mistake. Even were I acquainted with the lady I could not
offer. I
have
nothing to offer."

"What matter? Nerina has lots of money. And since you gambled
all yours away, why not—"

"Be still!" he commanded angrily. And when, much to his
astonishment, she closed her lips and knelt there in humble silence, he
persisted, "Does your papa know you hate this handsome young suitor?"

"Yes."

"And does he know the suitor hates him also?"

"Well, of course he does!" She looked at him as though he were
touched in his upper works and added, "He is his brother."

Harry gawked at her, then went off into a peal of laughter.
"Oh, you've done it up rather too brown, my girl! You could at least
have made him a cousin!"

Nanette sprang up and glared at him. "I do not
make
him anything, Sir Harry Horrid! Could I make him into something else, I
would make him without the taint of my stepfather's evil blood. And
then I
would
marry him!"

"But—you hate him!"' pointed out Harry, standing politely and
wiping his eyes.

"Only because he is my uncle. If he were not, I would love
him. In point of fact, I
do
love him. Save only
for… Papa."

"Oh." His laughter faded. "Well, you certainly cannot marry
your uncle. I should think even your wicked papa would see that!"

"My wicked papa," she said, low voiced, "holds there is no
blood relationship." She clasped her hands imploringly and beggged, "So
you see, Harry, you must
not
force me to go back
to him! I beseech you to save me!"

Unmoved by this dramatic performance, he said, "Save yourself."

"Peasant!" she raged, stamping her foot at him. Then asked,
"How?"

"Simple. Marry someone else."

"Oh…" The dark lashes drifted down again to the soft glow that
warmed her cheeks. "I—dare not."

"Your villainous papa would kill him, I collect." He could not
hold back a laugh and tugged gently at one of her fat braids. "What a
rasper!"