The Savage Miss Saxon (17 page)

Sir Alexander made no answer to this but just grumbled something about going to the kitchens for more Hollands. Nicholas, happy to have the subject shift away from his being responsible for today’s near-disaster, got up from his seat and walked over to stick his head inside the wigwam.

“Hello in there,” he called softly, causing Alix to turn her head in the direction of the opening.

“Shh!” she hissed angrily before turning again to continue wiping Harold’s brow with a cool wet cloth. This action had caused the black paint on Harold’s forehead to come away, leaving him in, as it were, only half-mourning, but Nicholas decided to keep this observation to himself as he could see Alix was in no mood for levity concerning her Indian friend.

Alix continued to minister to Harold for some few minutes more before backing out of the wigwam and facing Nicholas, a belligerent look on her face. “I suppose you are come to ring a peal over my head? Well, I can tell you that you have wasted a trip. Between m’grandfather’s ravings and my own guilt over involving Harold in the scheme, I am truly chastened.”

“Funny,” Nicholas returned with a grin, taking in Alix’s flashing eyes, “you don’t
look
chastened.”

Alix loudly plunked down the bowl of water she had carried with her out of the wigwam. “Of course I don’t,” she countered, her cheeks flushed with heat. “That’s because I’m mad—darn mad! How dare those—those lowlifes take potshots at Harold like that?”

“Why, I do believe those lowlifes might have called it self-defense,” Mannering replied with some humor. “After all, you were out to capture them, weren’t you? Or perhaps I am mistaken in my notions and you all only wished to make their acquaintance so that you could join them in their exploits, um? Upon second thought, the latter seems just like something my brother and his idiot friends would try.”

Now Alix’s face contorted in fury as she advanced menacingly in Linton’s direction. “Don’t be any thicker than you can help, Nicholas. I didn’t mean the highwaymen had no
reason
to shoot at us. It’s just that—well, they had no
right
to do so. Do you see what I mean?”

Nicholas put his arm around Alix’s shoulder in sympathy.

“Poor infant, your concept of right and wrong is so touchingly innocent. Of course you were in the right and the nasty robbers were most clearly in the wrong. But being right doesn’t necessarily ensure victory. Sometimes the bad fellows do triumph—but it is usually a short-lived victory.”

“Exactly so,” Alix said firmly, disengaging herself from Linton’s embrace. “Our turn is coming—mark my words!”

All traces of humor disappeared from the Earl’s handsome face and he looked quite fearsome wearing the scowl of anger that replaced it. “God give me patience,” he ejaculated. “The chit means to continue with this madness—don’t you, girl?”

“Oh, come now, Nicholas. You didn’t really think I would let Harold remain unavenged, did you?”

“I forbid it,” Nicholas told her feelingly.

“You have nothing to say in the matter, Nicholas,” she replied with maddening calm. “You may, of course, do as you see fit concerning the boys, but as for Harold and myself—why, Nicholas, do you seriously believe you can exert your control over
us?
”

“If I have to tie you both up and chain you to your beds,” he gritted back, his golden eye narrowing to a mere slit as he leaned down into her face.

“Let me go my own road, Linton,” Alix warned, tilting her chin.

Suddenly Mannering’s expression changed and he placed one finger under Alix’s chin. “Ah, love—would that I could,” he breathed huskily before indulging himself in the unknowing invitation of her softly parted lips. As had been the case with them since the very beginning, this close physical contact set off a mutual flare of passion that burst even more immediately into flame owing to their already highly charged emotions.

The kiss may have had its roots in anger but it swiftly grew into one of mutual desire—with their two bodies fused together in an embrace so close-knit that it seemed as if they would melt together and become one. There, in the middle of the Great Hall—with Sir Alexander apt to come upon the scene at any time and Harold lying injured not ten feet away from them—they stood locked together, oblivious to all but their sudden hunger for each other.

It was Alix who returned to her senses first—some niggling thought deep in her brain telling her that if her grandfather did happen upon the scene it would only be to comment that Nicholas was “handling” her just as a fiancé should. Well, Alexandra Saxon would not be
handled
—at least not once she loosed herself from Nicholas’s physical grasp. Breathless but determined, Alix pushed hard at Linton’s shoulders until she was released and gasped, “Is that your answer to everything, Nick—passion?”

Linton raised one eyebrow and grinned, “I doubt if the method would work during times of war, but yes, I’d say my idea is worthy of some merit. It shut you up, for one thing, and as a way to settle arguments, you’ve got to admit it has pistols at ten paces beat all to flinders.”

Alix was nothing if not honest. “I agree that these—er—interludes you seem to favor do have their benefits. They do not, however, take the place of honest argument and sane, sensible solutions equitable to both parties.” Drawing herself up to her full height, she concluded, “In plain words, Linton—you may kiss me till I turn blue, but that will not alter my determination one tiny jot. I want those highwaymen and I mean to have them. You may be able to conquer my body but you shall never gain control of my mind. Did you really think I would be controlled so simply?”

“You don’t mince matters, you Americans, do you?” Linton admitted with a shrug. “Very well, my love, since you see so neatly through my strategy—although I admit to a fluttering in my breast as I think of how you so freely admit I do have some control over your body—I will bow to your independence of mind and spirit. It was shabby of me to treat you so cavalierly. Obviously you are a woman of great strength of mind. But,” he seemed to ponder the question, “do you trust those three young buffoons to be a workable portion of your plans?”

Alix laughed and shook her head. “I wouldn’t
trust
those three to find their way home from the village. No, it is up to Harold and myself to capture the baddies, I fear.”

“And a pretty botch you have made of it so far,” Nicholas informed her without rancor. “As it will be some days before Harold is up and about, may I suggest you leave off your thief catching for a while—only if this is agreeable to you, of course—before allowing me, poor one-eyed specimen that I am, to join you in your quest?”

Alix appeared to consider the idea for some moments before slowly nodding her head in agreement just as her grandfather staggered back into the Hall, much the worse for having had free access to his Hollands for the first time in over two weeks.

“What ho!” he shouted as he weaved his way toward the pair. “Is the savage all right then? Hate to see him tucked up to bed with a shovel just when I’ve found a. new partner at cards. Don’t talk so much as Nutter—don’t play half so well neither. Bloody waste to lose him now, if y’ask me.”

“Grandfather! You’re drunk!” Alix accused the old man.

“O’course I am, you conniving female,” he countered belligerently. “What the devil else is there to do around here anymore? Can’t feed my belly without you yapping at me to stop tossin’ m’chicken legs on the floor. Can’t wager with the vassals without you comin’ down on me like some fire-belching Baptist. Can’t even play at cards now that your black-faced Indian went and got his fool self shot. O’course I’m drunk—nothing else left to do.”

Nicholas looked at Alix and saw how tear-bright her eyes were as she valiantly held on to her self-control. She’d had, all in all, a very trying day. Deciding to ease the tension a little he told the old man, “If it’s excitement you’re after, Sir Alexander, Alix and I were just discussing our plans for trapping the highwaymen. I’m confident your addition to our party would be greatly appreciated—wouldn’t it, my love?”

Sir Alexander leaned forward to study Linton through narrowed eyes. “Sink me if the lad ain’t serious!” he exclaimed, nearly toppling over backward as he tried to straighten his enormous body. “You really mean to take m’granddaughter along to track down thieves? You must be bloody lushy!” He tilted his head and peered slyly at the Earl. “You found where she hid my private stores, Linton, is that it? You’ve been tipplin’ at my Heart’s Ease, haven’t you? Out with it, man!”

Nicholas spread his empty arms wide, proclaiming his innocence. “I am quite sober as you can see, sir. It’s not drink that has me asking your assistance—it’s just that I can see no other way of keeping your granddaughter from having a hole blown through her when she goes haring out after the highwaymen. She is quite determined to capture them, you know.”

The old man took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Just like her grandmother. Once set a trap for a poacher, y’know. Caught him too, she did, and then had him horsewhipped. Nasty piece of work your grandmother, when she got her dander up.” Turning from Alix, he addressed his next words to Mannering. “You’ll not tame this one any easier than I tamed her grandmother, boy. Come to think of it, never did quite break her to bridle—more the other way around.”

“Then you see the wisdom of riding with Alix rather than simply forbidding her to act, knowing full well she’ll disobey the moment our backs are turned?”

“Would you both please stop talking about me as if I were not here?” Alix interposed angrily. “And stop acting as if I were some incorrigible hoyden or, worse yet, some scatterbrained ninny who would needlessly endanger herself just to be obstinate.”

“If the shoe fits—” Nicholas drawled, bowing in her direction.

Before Alix could make a suitably cutting retort, her grandfather belatedly answered Nicholas’s last question in the affirmative—declaring in a loud, clear voice that he would be honored to be a part of the party that would rid the community of the dastardly highwaymen—before his face took on a slightly greenish hue and he lurched from the room, one pudgy hand clamped tightly over his mouth.

“Now see what you’ve done,” Alix cried at Mannering indignantly. “You’ve just exchanged three fairly harmless youths for one overage knight errant. It’ll be no small miracle if he doesn’t ask me for a favor to wear on his sleeve as he rides out to do battle encased in full armor with Nutter riding beside him as page. Oh, Linton, you have really gone beyond the excusable now. I warn you—if anything happens to my grandfather, I shall never forgive you!”

With that, Alix quit the room—her skirts whipping about her ankles as she slammed up the stone stairs in a fine fury—leaving Nicholas quite alone in the Great Hall.

But not quite entirely alone. Just then the flap over the opening to the wigwam was drawn back and a half-black face appeared in the doorway. Harold looked the tall, well-dressed man up and down as if measuring him before slowly shaking his head and commenting sadly, “
Yengees—geptschátschik
,” and withdrawing back into the wigwam.

“I don’t know what you said, friend,” Nicholas told the absent Harold as he picked up his hat and prepared to take his leave, “but it’s a guinea to a pennypiece you’re absolutely correct.”

Chapter Seven

T
hree succeeding days of November weather so wet, damp, and dreary even Sir Alexander could not find it in himself to protest at Alix’s disparaging remarks about his “damp island” were to pass slowly before Saxon Hall was again blessed with a visitor from the outside world.

This time Alexandra could not hide her surprise as Nutter ushered in not Jeremy and the boys, not Nicholas—dragging with him an audience of Mrs. Anselm and daughter as he playacted at being a loving fiancé—but the last person Alix would have expected to set foot in the Great Hall—Rupert Anselm.

“Beastly weather we’ve been having, don’t you know,” he trilled merrily as he minced into the room on high, red-heeled slippers. He bowed over Alix’s reluctantly held out hand before turning to Sir Alexander—who was just then sprawling at his ease on one of the huge thronelike chairs, his left leg draped over one carved wooden arm. Rupert swept Sir. Alexander an elegant bow before looking pointedly at the open fire in the center of the room and, lifting his scented handkerchief to his rouged lips, coughing discreetly a time or two. “A bit—er—
smoky
in here, eh?”

“Too smoky by half,” muttered Sir Alexander, taking in Rupert’s elegant, silk-covered figure. “What d’ye want here, you man-milliner? Mama sent you, I wager. But to what end—that’s what I want to know. Sink me, if I don’t.”

Rupert’s thin face took on a look of injured sensibilities. “Why, sir, you wound me deeply. I have come, of course, with my mother’s wish to inquire after Miss Saxon’s servant speeding me on my way. But I assure you, sir, the idea for this visit was entirely mine.”

“In a pig’s eye,” Sir Alexander muttered into his soiled ruff before pushing his velvet cap down over his eyes and withdrawing from the conversation.