The Famous Heroine/The Plumed Bonnet (50 page)

But it was too late to go back. And there was no chance to repeat the embrace and do it all differently. She gave him no chance. She behaved so correctly that
sometimes it seemed to him that she was inside an invisible casing of ice.

Having seen his friends again, he felt the hopelessness of his own case. They had overcome the odds against contentment and even happiness, all three couples. It seemed impossible, just too good to be true, that the same might happen to him. And yet seeing his friends had made him realize how desperately he wanted to capture that dream he had had as a young man.

How he longed to love her. To have her love him. To become her closest friend. To make her his. To live with her in companionship and intimacy and contentment for the rest of his days.

He remembered the disorienting impression he had had during that notorious embrace that she was the missing half of his soul. He had been wrong, of course. They were two strangers about to spend the rest of their lives together. They were of two worlds that would only rarely touch and perhaps never would.

But perhaps he could make things a little easier for her, he thought. She appeared to like his friends, and they seemed to return the feeling. She already had a personal friendship with Lady Francis. She must like the children if she had asked them to call her aunt. And she was from the country. She must miss it after three weeks spent in London, moving from one fashionable drawing room or ballroom to another.

“Will you all join Miss Gray and me for a picnic in Richmond Park tomorrow afternoon?” he asked before they took their leave. “The children too, of course. I shall have my cook provide sufficient food.”

“Cricket,” Lord Francis said. “I shall provide the bats and balls and wickets. Splendid idea, Bridge.”

“Trees to climb,” Lady Francis said in a voice of mock gloom, “especially for the youngest, who will be able to climb up but not down again.”

“We will allow you to rescue them all, Cora,” Lord Thornhill said dryly.

They all knew that Lady Francis was terrified of heights, though neither that nor her fear of water had ever daunted her from rushing to the rescue of anyone she perceived as being in distress.

“The outdoors again almost before we have arrived in town,” Lady Carew said. “Bliss. What a wonderful idea, Alistair. Thank you.”

“We will be there,” the Countess of Thornhill said. “I hope you realize, Miss Gray, that you are going to be surrounded by no fewer than nine children. And none of them, except Samantha’s Rosamond, can be described as shy.”

“Not by any stretch of the imagination,” the marquess said with a laugh.

“I shall look forward to meeting them all tomorrow,” Stephanie said. “I am fond of children.”

“I can vouch for that,” Lady Francis said. “A picnic. How we will look forward to it. Will we not, Francis? Though it will deprive you of one of your precious days in town.”

Lord Francis grinned and winked at the Duke of Bridgwater as soon as his wife turned her head away.

It was settled then, the duke thought. A picnic might be just the thing—with his friends and their children—in the rural surroundings of Richmond Park. Perhaps he could get past that barrier with her again. Perhaps he could get their relationship onto a more workable footing.

There was so little time left. Only five days.

His stomach lurched at the thought. In five days’ time they would be man and wife. They would be irrevocably bound together. But then they already were. A betrothal was quite as binding as a marriage.

ICHMOND
P
ARK
. I
T WAS CLOSE TO
L
ONDON, AND YET
it was pure countryside. There were even deer grazing among the giant oak trees. And there were long stretches of grass. Stephanie loved it. It helped too that after the gloomy weather of much of the past month the sun shone from a cloudless sky.

She felt relaxed and happy almost from the start of the afternoon. The Marquess and Marchioness of Carew and their children traveled with them in the Duke of Bridgwater’s carriage. Despite their somewhat daunting titles, Stephanie had found both of them to be sweet and kindly the previous evening. And the marchioness immediately set her at her ease during the afternoon.

“Oh,” she said after Stephanie had greeted them, “do I have to be ‘my lady’ all afternoon? It sounds so pompous for a picnic. And does Hartley have to be ‘my lord’? I am Samantha, Miss Gray. And you are Stephanie?” She smiled. “You will hear Jenny call me Sam, but Hartley prefers what he calls the more feminine form of my name.”

It was agreed, as it was later with the Earl and Countess of Thornhill—Gabriel and Jennifer—and with Lord Francis Kneller, that they be on a first-name basis. Stephanie felt warmed, as if she had been accepted and welcomed by the people who were perhaps her future
husband’s closest friends. She also felt a little awkward. His Grace had at one time told her that she might call him by his given name, but she had never done so. He had called her a few times by hers, but not during the past two weeks. Were they to be formal today only to each other?

The marquess and marchioness’s little girl, three-year-old Rosamond, a blond and pretty replica of her mother, was extremely shy. But Stephanie sat forward in her seat and had soon won the child’s confidence sufficiently to draw her onto her own lap. They played at counting fingers while five-year-old James told the duke how his riding skills had improved during the weeks since His Grace had left Highmoor. His father rested his left hand on the boy’s head and gently ruffled his hair. He smiled sweetly.

“He has wanted to ride during every waking hour since you told him he had a splendid seat, Bridge,” he said. “We have a famous equestrian in the making.”

The other carriages were close behind the duke’s with the result that they all arrived together at the park, and all spilled out together to great noise and confusion and much laughter.

“Michael,” the countess said to her eleven-year-old son, “remember that you are the oldest. I am trusting you to behave responsibly and not lead the younger ones into trouble.”

“Yes, Mama,” he shouted over one shoulder as he raced for the closest tree.

“Francis,” his wife called. She was holding baby Annabelle, who was squirming to be put down. “Andrew is off.”

“Ho!” Lord Francis shouted, and he sprinted after his two-year-old, who had already covered an admirable distance for one with such short legs.

“Andrew has never yet heard of curves or corners,”
Lady Francis explained to Stephanie, “or of walks either. He runs—and always in a straight line.”

“Yes.” Stephanie laughed. “I had noticed once or twice before.”

“Papa,” five-year-old Jonathan demanded of the earl, “I want to play cricket. You said Uncle Frank was bringing the things.”

“My dear lad,” his father said, “might we at least wait five minutes? Might we be permitted to catch our breath?”

“Yes, cricket!” five-year-old Paul Kneller cried with enthusiasm. “I want to bat first. I get to go first because the bats are mine.”

“And the manners are decidedly not,” his mother said sharply. “Oh, thank you, Stephanie. She is
such
an armful.” She flashed Stephanie a smile as Annabelle was lifted from her arms. “You may pull Aunt Stephie’s hair for a change, sweetheart.”

“You can bat first, Paul,” Jonathan conceded magnanimously. “But I get to be on Uncle Frank’s team.”

“It looks as if your afternoon has been mapped out for you, Frank,” the earl said as Lord Francis returned to the main group, tossing his shrieking son up in the air and catching him as he came down.

“While we ladies are relegated to watching the toddlers,” the marchioness said with a mock sigh. “The world never changes.”

But the duke had other ideas, and soon enough order had been restored to the scene of cheerful chaos. Those who wished to play cricket were to gather about Lord Francis and be organized into two teams of near enough equal strength and skill. He himself had no intention of being drawn into the game, and he believed he spoke for the earl and the marquess too.

“They are all yours, Frank,” he said. “Hart, you had better take Rosamond since she will doubtless not come
to either me or Gabe. Annabelle can go with Gabe. Andrew, my lad, you may ride on Uncle Alistair’s shoulders if you promise not to pull my ears. When you grow tired, you may run to your heart’s content or until you have exhausted me. Ladies, I will spread the blankets on the grass before I leave, and you may relax and enjoy the game or a quiet conversation.”

“Well!” the countess said. “A man after my own heart. Gabriel—”

“I was about to suggest the exact same thing,” the earl said, winking at the duke as he took Annabelle from Stephanie’s arms and immediately had his hat knocked to a decidedly rakish angle. “But Bridge spoke faster.”

“I do believe,” the marchioness said, “Alistair is tactfully taking note of my condition. I shall be eternally grateful.”

The gentlemen set off on their walk with the younger children as soon as the blankets had been spread for the ladies. But Lord Francis had a problem on his hands. Every prospective cricketer wanted him on their team, but as he pointed out, he could not divide himself in two.

“And even if I could,” he said, “someone would have to take the left-hand side and therefore the useless side.”

“But—”

“But—”

The chorus came from all sides.

Stephanie got to her feet and coughed for their attention. “If it is an adult who is wanted on both sides,” she said, “I could offer my services.”

Everyone—including Lord Francis to his discredit—turned to stare at her as if she had two heads.

“I was the champion bowler of my county for years,” she said rashly. “Of the girls anyway,” she added more quietly. “I shattered more wickets than anyone could possibly count.”

“I can count to a hundred, Aunt Stephie,” four-year-old Robert Kneller announced.

“More than that,” she said. “Well, here I am. Take me or leave me.”

“Stephanie,” the countess said with a grimace, “you really must not feel obliged—”

“I am going to sleep with the sun on my face,” Lady Francis announced, stretching out her full length on the blanket and determinedly closing her eyes.

But Stephanie was in the game—on sufferance, she realized when she saw the glum faces of her team members. Lord Francis, of course, was on the other team.

Gloom turned to exuberance when her turn at bat came and she got a good hit off the first ball Lord Francis bowled at her. She suspected that he had thrown it deliberately slowly, as he had done for Robert and Jennifer’s Mary. She laughed and whooped as she hitched her skirts and ran between the wickets. Her team cheered wildly. The other team looked accusingly at their hero. Samantha and Jennifer applauded.

“Oh, very well done, Stephanie,” Jennifer called.

After that success Stephanie threw herself even more wholeheartedly into the game. She cheered and coaxed and coached her own team; she jeered and taunted the other team—the oldest member of it, anyway. She pulled off her bonnet and tossed it to the blanket. She tucked her dress a couple of inches up beneath the ribbon under her bosom so that she would not trip over the hem as she ran. She lost hairpins. She gained color.

She had not enjoyed herself so much for ten years or more.

And then came her moment of greatest triumph. Her team was leading by only two runs, and Lord Francis, the final batter for the other side, came in to bat.

“Move your fielders back, Aunt Stephie,” he called,
taking the bat in both hands and flexing his wrists. “Here comes a certain hit.”

Cheers from his side.

“Stay where you are, fielders,” Stephanie commanded, “so that you may have a better view of the wickets shattering.”

Cheers—considerably more halfhearted—from her side.

But it happened just as she had predicted. Luck was with her, of course, as she would have been the last to admit. The ball took an awkward bounce on the grass before the bat and hopped over it, while Lord Francis sawed at the air. It sent the wickets toppling with a satisfying thud.

“Yes!” Stephanie pumped both fists in the air and then fell backward as her team threw themselves at her, all shrieking enough to break eardrums. She laughed and hugged them and wrestled with them. Lord Francis, she noticed as guilt suddenly struck her, was also prone on the grass with his team on top of him. Considerable laughter came from their direction.

A few minutes passed before the children dispersed, intent on sharing their triumph with mothers. Stephanie, still laughing, struggled to her feet and brushed ineffectually at the grass clinging to her muslin skirt. Her hair must be similarly full of it, she thought, lifting her hands to the ruin of curls that Patty had created just a few hours before.

And then she saw that the children were talking excitedly at the blankets not only to mothers, but to
fathers
too. And Annabelle was crawling on the grass, trying to pull the head off a daisy.

Reality came crashing back as she found him at last with her eyes—leaning against the trunk of a tree a short distance from the blankets, his arms folded across his chest, his eyes focused on her. In his dark green superfine
coat and buff pantaloons and black Hessians, he looked about as immaculate as a man could possibly look. He was not smiling.
Of course he was not smiling
.