The Marquess and Miss Davies (8 page)

“Ah.”

“Not to mention saving you from an awkward conversation, later, with our brother. Because he would find out.” Isa’s lips quirked in a small, rueful moue. “Talfryn always finds out.”

There was a long moment of silence. “Your sister need have no fear on such account,” said Lord Leighton, and Isa knew that the statement cost him dear, that it went against every instinct of a marquess to condescend to answer such cheek.

She liked him greatly for it.

“I am like a bulldog, I’m afraid, with my sister.”

“Indeed. So may I expect to make some progress in my attentions?”

There was a hint of aggrieved pride in Lord Leighton’s tone, and Isa hid a small smile. Most young ladies, she knew, would hardly consider the possibility of a ‘no’.

“That will depend on Carys.”

“Have you any suggestions?”

She thought for a few minutes as they made another circuit around the dance floor. Finally she asked the one thing that she knew would matter the most to her sister.

“Do you love town, my lord?”

* * * *

Carys and Baron Leith finished their waltz in good order, a dance in which her social skills had been sore tested. Smiling was difficult when one continued to see flashes of one’s own sister dancing with—

Well, some gentleman or another, and Carys was sure she did not care that the marquess preferred Isolde’s charms to her own. Or worse, that he could not tell the difference.

Fortunately, the baron bowed to her as the music faded without suggesting that their conversation continue, and she did not need to wait long before Isa was at her side.

“He knew,” said Isolde, without preamble.

Carys let out a breath. He had not mistaken one twin for the other, then.

“But—”

“Information. Tactics.”

“Good heavens. What—”

“A matter between the two of us.”

Carys stared at her sister. The two of us had ever meant her and Isa. But not in this case.

“Don’t fuss. You can have your revenge at my next lesson.”

* * * *

She saw him one last time at the Lincolnshire’s ball, very late in the evening as she and Isa were making their way out, by degrees. He was talking with a group of young gentlemen, none of whom she knew by name. They were at some distance, but as her glance fell on his back—with those broad shoulders and the dark hair cut short, she recognized him immediately—he turned in their direction.

The Marquess of Clare smiled at Miss Carys Davies, as his warm eyes found her own.

Carys watched her sister carefully while keeping her mouth firmly shut. Isolde would do this on her own or not at all.

According to Jeffers, the groom, Isa had visited the stables nearly each day since Jesse had arrived, and the horse now got restive if she did not appear at her usual time. She wore the forest green riding habit for these visits—a few alterations had been all that was necessary once the thing was dragged from the lavender and aired—and told the groom that she wanted the stallion to be accustomed to her dressed in that fashion.

Speaking of Jesse—

The stallion’s ears were perked, as if he knew something unusual was about to happen. Carys had been worried that no-one had ridden him for a fortnight, but it could not be helped. As best it could be accomplished he and her twin must make an inseparable pair, reliant on each other as they made their way through the world.

“So,” Isolde was saying to the horse, “what do you think?”

Jesse regarded her evenly. They were communing on some level that Carys could not share, and she felt the unaccustomed pang of being divided from her twin.

And then, without a glance back, Isa slowly reached out and touched the stallion’s forehead. Gently, as if he was a bird, as Talfryn had taught them both so long ago. Carys bit her lip and watched Jesse’s ears. A horse might respond to the touch with anything from a friendly huff to—if ‘twas the devil’s own animal, of which Carys had seen one or two—rearing up and beating the air with their hooves.

If he rears up or nips at her Isa will never ride.

Jesse did not move. Isolde stroked his forehead and then brushed her fingers lightly along the side of his neck. She took a deep, unsteady breath.

“All right,” she said, turning to Carys. “I’m ready.”

At that moment the stallion nickered faintly, and Carys imagined a plaintive note to the sound.

“Excellent. We can return tomorrow, and—”

“No. Today. I ... I want to try the saddle.”

“That’s not what we planned. Sitting is not on the schedule for today.”

Isolde turned back to Jesse. “Did you hear that? Sitting is not on the schedule for today.”

Carys had developed a list of activities—all written down, and numbered—and each activity was designed to prepare Isa for the next. Today Isa was only to touch the horse. According to the plan, there would be no actual sitting for at least another week, at which time—assuming all went well—they would put Isolde astride, several minutes in the saddle and perhaps a step or two, all without leaving the stable.

“Jesse says the schedule is nonsense.”

Carys groaned. “Isa, I’m not arguing with a
horse
.”

Real riding would commence, one hoped, on the week following, when they would pick a sunny day without hint of rain or, gods forbid, thunder. Jeffers would bring the stallion and Carys’s own mount to one of the quietest points in Hyde Park—perhaps just to the northwest of the Serpentine—and make sure that they were settled and calm after the streets of London. The sisters would arrive by carriage.

“I want to try,” said Isolde. “Today.”

“There is no need to—”

“Today.”

Everyone in the family recognized that tone of voice. Talfryn called it ‘Isa’s foot stomp’.

It would happen when it happened. And apparently when it would happen was now.

“Jeffers,” said Carys. “Bring Miss Isolde’s saddle, if you please.”

Jesse nickered again and Isolde, to the surprise of both Carys and the groom, leaned her head against his neck and sighed.

* * * *

Isolde would need to ride sidesaddle, unfortunately. The
ton
currently insisted on this for ladies, with Carys mentally consigning the rule to perdition. Sidesaddle made everything more difficult, not to mention dangerous, and was one of the reasons she herself had ridden so little in town. At Pencarrow—

At Pencarrow she rode Leopold astride, through every season and weather. Talfryn had made no objection, nor her mother, as both knew that Carys would ride, and ride fast, and if she was forced to sit her horse sidesaddle, and fell, she would be like to break her neck. Sidesaddle did not lend itself to jumping.

Isolde stood aside as the groom began brushing down Jesse’s back, ensuring that not a fleck of dirt was left to irritate the animal once the pad was put on. Jeffers, thank the stars, was no fool. He had gone through this procedure with the stallion several times before, until both he and Carys were certain that the animal would tolerate it, and that the fit of the saddle itself was perfect.

“This is how a lady should ride,” muttered Jeffers, of the sidesaddle. He had become accustomed to Carys riding astride in Cornwall, but never quite approved.

Carys sighed. ‘Twould be easier for Isa to learn astride, but ‘twould offend the current public tastes. She could just imagine the delight of the London gossips if the Davies twins turned up in Hyde Park sitting with their legs on opposite sides of a horse. Heavens! There would be no end to their mother’s complaints.

* * * *

It had certainly gone better than anyone could have expected. Jeffers swung Isa up into the saddle, Jesse did not move an inch, and then the groom led them back and forth in the stable yard for most of a half hour. The first few minutes were worrisome, as Isolde was clearly tense and frightened, but she admitted so—speaking not to Carys, but to Jesse—and the stallion nickered in response, apparently some kind of reassurance, because her sister relaxed, and then apologized. Again, to the horse.

“I’m sorry Jesse, I’m still a little nervous.”

And now Isolde could not stop praising the stallion.

“He is the sweetest animal imaginable,” she told her sister. “He would never hurt me.”

Carys could not be other than pleased, although she was a bit concerned that Isa insisted on addressing Jesse as if he were a person. A horse, in Carys’s experience, was a horse. There were high-strung animals and placid animals, and every variation in-between, but the one commonality was this: they could not be reasoned with. Still, Isolde was happy and Jesse seemed disinclined to be bothered by small matters. The sisters made plans for the next day in Hyde Park, with Isolde accepting only that they would not attempt to ride if it rained.

The Marquess of Clare’s holdings were not, as one might expect, in Ireland. His late father had never tired of pointing this out to all and sundry, explaining that the Leightons came from the town of Clare in Suffolk, itself close by Bury St Edmunds, and as English as it got. ‘Twas an area of low hills and rich pasture, with the marquisate encompassing a large portion of the western part of the county, near enough to Cambridge to make that university a source of some pride to the local folk, at least when they weren’t complaining about well-born ruffians drunk in the streets.

The estate itself was called Claresholm, and the marquess preferred it to any place in Britain. When he was at his estate no-one wore cravats, no-one minded if he spent the entire day out-of-doors, and no-one sniffed if he accompanied his men in some piece of business involving shovels, mud, and a few hours of backbreaking labor. Work was continual on the estate, and exhausting, but crops and fences and riding for hours until one was sore in the saddle appealed to his lordship a great deal more than, say, dealing with a newly-discovered infestation of the London rats.

“Why are you here?” Lord Harcourt always asked, whenever Anthony re-appeared in town.

‘Twas a joke between them. Benjamin recognized Lord Leighton’s underlying frustration with London society, for all that he did not understand it. The
ton’s
ways could be annoying, to be sure. But if there were pretty women about, and drink to be had—

In the past the marquess’s answer to Benjamin’s question had been simple; he remained in London for the needs of his family. He could not expect his sisters—Eugenie, Adele, and Josephine—to remain in Suffolk for months on end without entertainments and without hope of finding a marriageable gentleman, nor could he leave them always alone to the mercies of their mother. And Harry was apt to get into any amount of nonsense without his older brother’s supervision, or at least he had been, before he married.

Harry, a husband and father! The thought always amazed Lord Leighton. The young man who had so frequently needed rescue from one scrape or another was now a homebody, with wife and toddling daughter, and as happy as Anthony had ever seen him.

At any rate, for years it was the marquess’s habit to journey back and forth from Suffolk to town, traveling more than was usual even for a high-born male of the
ton.
But now Jo was married, the last of the sisters to do so, and the only person requesting—nay, demanding—his presence in London was the dowager marchioness. Who had no intention of traveling anywhere, let alone as far as the country estate.

Why was he here?

He had planned to leave for Suffolk a few days after Josephine’s wedding. He had told himself that was his reward for remaining calm in the face of the numerous complaints and small disasters that seemed an inevitable part of such events. The complaints were not from Jo, to be sure, but seemingly from everyone else, including the Earl of Chalcroft’s mother, who claimed that the tapestries in the wedding chapel clashed with her gown.

He and Jo had laughed themselves silly when
that
became known; and, to give him credit, the earl did as well, saying only that his mother was feeling rather overwhelmed.

The marquess sighed inwardly. He would need to speak with his own mother sometime during the morning. The music room needed repair, a bit of plastering on the south wall, and although the work should not take more than a day or two, Lady Leighton would be annoyed at the inconvenience.

Why was he here?

* * * *

“Plaster! It needs no such thing. And I
cannot
work with plasterers underfoot!”

“Of course not,” said Lord Leighton. Patiently. “But since they will need to be within the room in order to do the repairs, you will need to be elsewhere.”

“‘Tis a great bother,” sniffed the dowager.

“I’m sure it is.”

His mother stalked off in dudgeon. Anthony wondered what the high sticklers of the
ton
might say if they could see her at that moment, wearing one of Harry’s old shirts—it came down to her knees—and
trousers
, for the love of heaven, with a paintbrush stuck in her hair.

* * * *

Lady Tabitha Leighton, dowager Marchioness of Clare, was a well-regarded member of the upper reaches of the
ton
. She attended any number of balls, soirees, dinners or musicales during the course of an average week, and at each one she dressed and spoke precisely to expectations.

“The very picture of a marchioness!” Sally Jersey once enthused.

“One never sees her place a single foot wrong!” agreed the Countess Esterhazy.

Even Prinney and the Duke were said to be rather in awe of her, as she spoke French and Italian as fluently as she spoke English, and German nearly as well, and was likely to address them at odd moments in any one of those languages.

At home matters were rather different. Lord Leighton’s mother awoke with the chickens most days—it had been noticed she left even the cheeriest ball at an early hour, and this peculiarity was now attributed to her advanced age of two-score and ten—and spent her mornings occupied in the music room, which had northern light, and which she had requested, ultimately with good result, that the marquess allow her to set up as an artist’s studio.