A Heart's Treasure (17 page)

“Thank heaven!” Penelope said, and Laura nodded emphatic agreement.

“Leave your wet things here. There are dry rugs in the other coach.”

Laura was the first one out, making a face at being back in the rain, however temporarily. Michael greeted each as he handed them up into the second carriage, for once not telling them they looked like drowned rats. They gave little cries of delight to find not only the lap rugs but dry linens and warmed bricks inside, and swiftly shut the door against the elements.

Genevieve looked out the window, the rain splatter making the scene difficult to decipher, but she could see that several men had come back with Haddy and Michael. It was obvious from their actions they intended to assist in repairing the first carriage, the robed Xavier in their midst.

She pulled down the window and called out. Michael was just handing to Haddy the leading strings of the horses which would pull the first carriage once it was repaired when he heard her call. He moved to the carriage window, and inquired, “Yes?”

“Michael, how many men will it take to repair the wheel? Have you enough?”

“Yes.”

“More than enough?”

He glanced over his shoulder, assessing. “I suppose,” was his answer.

“I’m concerned for Xavier. He has been drenched for well over an hour. Ought he to ride with us back to the inn?”

“Ought he, yes. Shall he allow himself that privilege, I cannot say.” Michael shrugged, his right ear almost touching his shoulder. “You know how he gets. But, sister dearest, I will inquire if that is his pleasure.”

“Please.”

“Pull up that window while I ask.”

He returned in a minute, pulling open the carriage door. “It seems your suggestion met with the fellow’s standard for good sense, if modified.”

“Is he not coming in?” Her brow wrinkled with a frown.

“He’s going to drive the carriage. Claims he’s already soaked through, so what difference a couple miles’ drive or so? He says he’ll be slow and careful about it,” he said, pointing to his left eye, indicating Xavier was aware his handicap must be compensated for by a lack of speed or light. Genevieve shook her head, dismissing any concern about that, for, like his shooting, Xavier had long practiced his driving, even if he seldom did so in town. Michael followed this news with a dramatic moue. “Which means, you see, that I am to stay behind and assist with the repairs.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Genevieve said, but in truth, better he than Xavier, who needed a fire and a cup of something warm.

“Whatever this fools journey next presents as a difficulty, I’ll remember I’ve already had my share of the torture, and I’ll cry off accepting more,” he warned his sister as he closed the door.

It was a moment longer as the men exchanged unintelligible words, but then the carriage lurched forward.

It wasn’t a long drive to the next village, which turned out to be Long Itchington. Just as they pulled up before an inn boasting a hanging sign that read
The King’s Head
,
Genevieve realized the rain had stopped.

“Can you fathom that?” she exclaimed, pointing out the fact to the others.

“And can you believe it’s actually warmish, once one is out of the direct wet and the breeze,” Summer said.

“Humid,” Laura agreed. “Most unpleasant. I can scarce wait to remove these clothes.”

Now that they had the promise of dry clothes just moments away, Penelope remarked, “I confess that, now that I’m no longer shivering, I’m rather remarkably famished.”

Penelope was the first through the door of the inn, announcing to the waiting innkeeper’s wife that food and hot water were promptly needed, “In that order, if you please.” They were hustled up the stairs to a large room with two large beds in it and an area that was meant to serve as a kind of sitting room, where their bags were already waiting for them. The innkeeper’s wife introduced herself as one Mrs. Denny, and obviously had a few years’ experience at her trade, for she brought a large basket into which she requested they deposit all their wet things while she fetched them some supper.

Mrs. Denny found four bedraggled but dry females when she and a servant brought up two large trays of food. The ladies immediately moved to sit themselves in the various chairs in the sitting area, eyeing the roast beef on thick-sliced bread topped with rich gravy, accompanied by roasted potatoes and honeyed carrots, with an avarice that in years gone by would have set their nannies to scolding. “Do serve,” Laura encouraged the servant who had come up with Mrs. Denny.

As the girl began to fill the plates, Mrs. Denny inquired if the ladies would care for either tea or chocolate. Both were promptly requested, but before the woman could leave to fulfill this request, Genevieve caught her arm.

“The gentleman? Is he being served as well?”

“O’course, my lady, and fair famished he were, too.”

“That’s well.” Genevieve settled back with a sigh, accepting a plate with willing hands.

* * *

In a room downstairs, Xavier, now dressed in dry clothes, with his dark hair still wet yet once again neatly combed, a dry eye patch in place, motioned to the boy who had brought him a bottle of port. “Can you tell me, are the ladies being seen to? Have they received a meal as of yet?”

“Aye, m’lord.”

He flipped the boy a small coin extracted from his vest pocket, which the lad was quick to catch.

He ought to call on them, check for himself… But perhaps he’d leave that duty to one of the other gentlemen of their party once they arrived with the repaired coach. He didn’t want to be near Genevieve, not when he yet felt so acutely unsure what had happened in those few long moments in the rain when she’d… She’d what?
Really
looked at him? With consideration? She’d looked at him a thousand times in their lives—but he wanted to believe there had been a
moment
…

He shook his head, told himself to cast aside fancies, and reached again for the port.

Chapter 12

I know my life’s a pain and but a span,

I know my sense is mock’d in every thing;

And to conclude, I know myself a man,

Which is a proud and yet a wretched thing.

—Sir John Davies,

Nosce Teipsum

“My eye?” Xavier cried, coming to his feet, not two hours later. “By gum, yes, I’ll tell you how I lost my eye.”

The stable boy before him half cringed, his eyes wide, but as much with eagerness as fear, for it was obvious the gentlemen before him and the others in the inn’s main room was playacting. The toff’s motions were oversized, his one good eye rolled dramatically as he took in his audience, and he propped one foot on a chair in the classic storyteller’s pose.

Kenneth leaned forward, though his expression said he was not truly hopeful of finally hearing the true tale. Haddy passed Michael a pouch of tobacco, and the two proceeded to stuff and light their pipes. All the men were washed and wearing clean clothes, having arrived soaked and filthy.

“It was a dark night, like tonight, but cold, bitter cold,” Xavier continued, his hands curling into fists as he pretended to shudder. “The land was gripped in a terrible, lasting ice storm. No man nor beast ventured out on this night, for the wail of the wind was like the cry of the dead. Women closed their shutters to that wind, hearing it sigh promises of a frozen death for any of the foolhardy who thought to step out from the safety of their homes.” Xavier moved his head, looking from face to face. “All the farmers, they feared their cattle would be frozen by morning, but even so none dared to brave winter’s icy touch. None, that is,” Xavier paused for a beat, “save my brother.”

A murmur ran through the crowd, and someone was heard to say they remembered the year of the ice storms.

“Even so, good sir,” Xavier nodded his way.

Kenneth sat back then. “He has no brother, nor ever did,” he said under his breath to Haddy, who merely nodded.

“He was a big lad,” Xavier spread his hands vertically, “and promised to be bigger yet when he’d grown to full manhood. And prodigious strong. He’d never been bested in a wrestling match. He was the one they called when an animal or a man needed to be held down for doctoring. He could lift fourteen stone, and he only fifteen years of age. He’d never been ill a day in his life, and had never had reason to know fear.”

Xavier straightened and shook his head as though at a terrible memory. “When he saw that one of our horses—a favorite of his, as not many of the horses could carry such a big, strapping lad as he—had been left in pasture, he was determined to bring the animal in. Mama begged him not to go. Papa told him he was being foolish, but there was no stopping him once he’d made up his mind.” Xavier paused again, then said in a lowered voice, “I cannot swear to it, but when he opened the door to leave us the wind blew in the storm, and I thought I saw icy tendrils shaped as arms reach out and pull him forth.”

“Wot ’appened?” the stable boy asked in wide-eyed expectation.

Xavier allowed his jaw to work as though from strong emotion. “He was dead, of course, next morning. We found him, his arms raised and frozen before him, as though he’d tried to shield himself from…something. Something that had come out of the ice storm and frozen his heart solid.” Xavier thumped his chest over his own heart, nodding at the murmurs and hesitant laughs around him.

“But wot of yer eye, guv’ner?” the boy pressed,

“Ah yes, my eye. You see, it was so very bitterly cold, that as soon as I saw my brother thus, tears welled into my eyes and froze as they fell. They froze my face, turned my left eye into one long icicle, and when I tried to break it off the eye itself came away and I was left with the resultant scar you see today.”

“Blimey!” the boy said, but he’d not been fooled because he laughed, and others laughed with him. Xavier returned to his chair to scattered applause, putting out his hand toward Haddy, who promptly passed over his glowing pipe.

“That was a grisly tale,” Kenneth commented dryly as Xavier puffed on the pipe, and handed it back to Haddy.

“It seemed the night for a grisly tale.”

“I must agree with that,” Michael said around his own pipe stem. “We were chilled, drenched, and my best velvet cutaway ruined beyond redemption by mud. The only thing keeping me from promptly hiring a chaise back to London is the fact you had this very gratifying port awaiting us as soon as we came through the door.” He lifted his glass, making a dip of a salute in Xavier’s direction.

Xavier inclined his head, but when he looked up it was to rise abruptly to his feet. Seeing the ladies had come down to the common room to join them, the other men stood at well.

Genevieve led the ladies, her head held high so that Xavier had to grin despite the sudden pounding in his chest, not doubting for a moment this venture had been her suggestion, for even Penelope looked a trifle sheepish at their daring. The impropriety of ladies coming into the common room created a buzz of muted exclamations, but Genevieve refused to acknowledge it, coming directly to their table. She stopped before them, hands demurely folded. “We’ve grown beyond bored, and don’t care to sleep,” she announced.

Michael shook his head, removing his pipe and setting it in a glass bowl, saying directly to his fiancée, “Summer, this is most—”

“Irregular, yes,” Genevieve cut in. “But, you see, we’ve decided we don’t care.” She blinked twice, silently daring her brother to refuse her. Summer’s color was high, but she didn’t speak or turn to leave.

The brothers looked pained, but the moment was decided for them when Xavier nudged out the bench on which he’d been sitting and swept his arm in a gesture above it. “Cards, my ladies?” He didn’t even try to fight his own desires, and although he’d not wanted the ladies’ company either—but more than peace or quiet, he wanted to see Genevieve pleased enough with him to smile, to perhaps see again that moment of…attention…in her eyes.

“And claret,” Genevieve said, giving him a gracious nod made all the more pronounced by the twinkle in her eye.
Exactly what I wanted, and oughtn’t want.
Her gratification was in contrast with the way Laura held herself, obviously less comfortable with this act of public bravado than was Genevieve.

“And claret,” Xavier confirmed, waving down Michael’s obvious protest before he could utter it.
Once you’ve fallen over the cliff, why not enjoy the rush of air in your face while you can?
 “Oh, come, man,” he joshed Michael. “Let this be a small scandal we recall of our youth once we’ve grown old.”

Michael may have given him a curled lip, but Genevieve’s bright smile was as he’d hoped for. Xavier raised his hand to signal the innkeeper for service.

“As you will, then,” Haddy muttered, giving in to the moment. “But I’ll not be putting out my pipe.”

Summer made a point of sitting on Michael’s far side, away from Haddy.

Michael looked down at his own pipe, which had ceased to burn, and glanced at Summer, who said naught but wrinkled her nose. He sighed with apparent annoyance, but the pipe remained in the bowl.

Cards were provided, which Haddy, as usual, inspected, though this time a trifle more discreetly than he’d inspected the dice in Wycombe. Satisfied, he suggested, “Cassino?”

“That is for groups of four. We don’t wish to be divided, do we?” Xavier said quickly.

“Oh no,” Summer said at once. “Cast and Catch?”

Michael looked down at his betrothed again with a modicum of censure, but then heaved a sigh and gave in yet again. “We might as well. It’s a mindless game, which might well suit this group.”

“It will leave us free to chat,” Genevieve approved as Haddy made a growling noise, but otherwise didn’t speak against the children’s game.

As they played, they recounted the evening’s experiences. Michael told them how his foot was nearly run over, and Haddy explained how many men it took to hold the carriage up while the new wheel was fixed on the axle.

“It was unfortunate,” Kenneth said, grinning despite his own words, “but one of the stable lads couldn’t keep his feet under him. The poor fellow fell at least three times, and was covered in mud from cap to shoes. I’ve never seen so woebegone a face.”