A Lady in Love (2 page)

"No, I don't think so,” she said, when he said nothing more. “Why did you shoot at me?” It was all right with her if he wanted to do it, though she'd rather he would look at her and go on speaking in his slow, dark voice that sent answering ripples through her body.

"I assure you I did not. My friend, however, thought you a bird and so nearly made you an angel.” Turning to that miserable man, he lay his fingers over Atwood's shoulder. “Run back to the house and get the doctor."

"But he might be miles ..."

"His gig was before the door when we left. Seeing a sick child, I think. He'll still be there. If the brat's mother is anything like mine, he'll be staying for breakfast.” The unhappy Atwood still hesitated. “I'll keep watch until you return,” the other man said. “You know I cannot walk with any speed."

"Very well,” Atwood said. He rose slowly to his feet. “I'm so sorry,” he whispered before he turned around and ran, crashing through the undergrowth like a bull released from the pasture that separated him from the cows.

Sarah became aware that a rock or a stick was directly beneath her shoulder and had, moreover, been digging into her for some time. “Ouch,” she said, wriggling.

"You should lie still,” the man warned.

For a moment, she subsided, eager to do as he wished. “Oh, I can't,” she burst out, and pushed herself upright. “It's exactly like trying to sleep on a lumpy mattress."

"You may have broken something,” he insisted.

Sarah twisted experimentally, pushing her loosened hair back when it fell over her shoulder. “I don't believe I have.” She bent her knees beneath her skirt, still pinned under her. “No, I am all in one piece, I think.” Holding out her hand, she looked up at him, wanting to be pulled upright. She'd never wished so much for a man's touch before. Though Harcourt and Harold, as well as others, had often taken her arm to help her, she'd always shaken them off, not needing them.

"I can't help you,” he said sternly. She seemed neither shocked nor surprised, so he unbent enough to say, “My shoulder was broken and I can't lift anything too heavy."

"How did you do that?” Sarah smiled, her laughter bubbling up. “Did someone shoot
you
from a tree?"

"No, from my regiment.” For a moment, a shadow passed over his brow, but her only response was a low whistle and a murmured “too bad.” He asked a question he'd wondered about for some moments. “Were you truly up a tree?"

"Of course. Where else do you find apples?"

"I? On my dining table, or on a barrow. Or on the ground, surrounding you."

Sarah looked about her. “Oh, good,” she said. Picking up a piece of fruit, shaken from the tree when she fell, she dusted it nonchalantly on her skirt, leaving a smear, and lifted it to her lips. “Do you want a bite?” she asked, hesitating.

Alaric Naughton, Earl of Reyne, had been offered many a proposition in the past. But few had tempted him less than this nonsensical Eve-child, offering the apple after her own fall. She might be a beauty when she grew up, he thought, but not now, not with dirty face and worse gown, not even with that splendid dark blond hair falling freely over the twigs and leaves that decorated her back. He noticed mildly that her hair was the exact color of the angels’ in medieval stained glass windows.

"No, thank you, child. Eat it yourself. I prefer my fruit to come from my own forcing house.” Cautiously, the earl lowered himself to sit upon a fallen log, resting his gun beside him. His thigh ached dully, the newly healed muscles protesting at the day's walk.

"I've eaten forced fruit at my aunt's. It doesn't taste like anything. Look, I'll climb up and get you another and you'll see how good it is.” Taking a last bite of the core with her strong teeth, Sarah stood up, and the earl had to revise his estimate of her age.

"No, don't,” he said in alarm.

"There's no danger,” she called down. “Your friend left his gun behind."

What was climbing a tree, despite bruises, to fetch him an apple? She would have leapt over mountains, swum through pike-infested rivers, faced untold dangers to bring him anything he wanted. She knew proper young ladies never indulged in athletic behavior before gentlemen, except for walking or archery or such things unlikely to cast doubts upon personal femininity. But she couldn't let him think she was clumsy and weak, like the handless girls she'd met at her aunt's, good only for sleeping and gossip.

Sure-footed and easy, Sarah gathered apples, holding them in a fold in her dress. She glanced down to see if he were watching and felt a thrill of surprise to find that he was. Stepping lightly down, she went to sit by him on the log. “Here,” she said, holding out another apple. “This one is bound to be sweet. See how red it is?"

"It looks dirty."

"No! We had rain last night. Just rub off the spots on your sleeve.” She showed him how on her skirt. “I love apples,” she said indistinctly, for her mouth was full. “I'd eat them every day, if I could."

"I prefer pineapples,” the earl said, though privately he admitted that a wild apple had a flavor no other fruit could match.

"That's not my favorite fruit,” Sarah said, tossing her second core away. “They're not too bad candied, though,” she added, reflecting that she would have to learn to like them now. She “cleaned” another apple.

"You'll need a doctor all right before you're through, if you keep eating those."

Sarah laughed, but did not lift the fruit to her mouth. “I'm Sarah East. Who
are
you?"

"My name ... most people call me Reyne."

"Reyne?” She shook her head.

"You don't like it?"

"No. Is it your first name or your last?"

"Neither. It's my title."

"Oh, then I've no objection to it. You couldn't help it anyway.” All the same, she could not help repeating it, tasting his name on her lips. “Reyne."

"My first name is Alaric. If you don't like that one, I've got five or six more.” He shook his head in disbelief. It was impossible to continue sitting here conversing with a female, who, though her figure might suggest otherwise, was obviously no more than a child. He stood up. When he thought about all the women who would have been in high flight to have kept him chatting for one-tenth as long, what else could he do but shake his head?

"Five or six? I've only three myself."

"What are they?” Alaric asked, sitting down again, hardly noticing the absence of pain. A gentleman could not abandon her, though it was plain she needed no doctor. He wondered if she ever had, for she was obviously in the rudest health.

"Sarah Marissa Clivenden East."

"You weren't very lucky either."

"No.” Sarah liked that he listened to her pleasantly, not avidly as if her every utterance were of worth, as did Harcourt and Harold. Nor did he talk to her with the abstraction of a parent or other authority. Sarah tried to think of when she had last spoken to a man who was neither a relation nor in love with her. She had not wished to be agreeable to any of the presentable young men introduced to her at Aunt Whitsun's. None of them had been remotely like this.

Sarah looked at him openly. His face is thin, she thought, and the rest of his hair is darker at his temples. There were lines carved about his mouth and beside his eyes, yet he did not seem an old man. Not very old. Not forty. She decided she liked the lines just as they were. They made his eyes seem kind.

He turned his face to meet her gaze. Sarah smiled. She'd been right. They were the same color as the autumn sky.

"Atwood's taking a devil of a long time,” he muttered.

"They'll be here soon,” Sarah said. “I only hope they don't bring Harcourt and Harold."

"Who are ... ? Oh, yes, the younger sons. How many children have Sir Arthur and Lady Phelps? There seemed a great crowd of young people at dinner last night.” He thought he sounded just as old as he felt: ancient, desiccated like some Egyptian mummy slowly dropping to bits.

"There are five children. Harvey, Harriet, Harcourt, Harold, and Harmonia. Harriet married Mr. Randolph and they are visiting too, for a few weeks, with their two-year-old son, Harpocrates."

"Good God,” Alaric said reverently. “Is it a mania?"

"They named Harvey after an uncle and the habit seemed to grow upon them,” Sarah said in explanation.

"Let it be a lesson to me to know when to quit.” Somewhat stiffly, he stood up again. “As it seems Atwood and the doctor have lost their way, let us go to meet them."

"I don't actually need a doctor,” Sarah confessed. “I think I was only stunned by the suddenness of my fall. I'm not used to being shot at, you know."

"One never gets used to it. Miss East. No matter how hard one tries. If you please, will you pick up Atwood's gun for me?"

The grace she'd shown while ascending the tree was no less when she bent for the unwieldy weapon. Alaric put the stocks together and laid the barrels against his shoulder in a soldierly way. “You know these woods well, I take it?"

"Yes, I've played here since ... as long as I can remember."

"Then you may lead the way. Guide me to Sir Arthur's, if you please."

"I'll take you to my house. You can ride back.” Sarah noticed that he had frowned with discomfort when shouldering his arms and that he did not walk easily. “I'm certain my father will lend you a horse, or even—"

"No, thank you,” Alaric said not unkindly. “After the Peninsula, I swore never to ride on a cart horse again."

Sarah pushed her hair back. For the first time, she realized what she must look like to him. Her dress was torn and muddy, her face grimy, and she could feel the twigs and broken leaves in her hair. He must have mistaken her for a yeoman's daughter, or even a gypsy. With a blush, she knew her behavior had done nothing to disabuse him of that notion. Without speaking, suddenly ashamed and self-conscious, Sarah showed him the way.

Alaric felt tired. He'd walked farther than he'd wished, in search of nonexistent game, on top of traveling which had wearied him more than he'd ever known it to do before. And the previous weeks had not been conducive to rest. He'd left London for Brighton on a repairing lease, only to find it madly giddy, with routs, races, and revelry every night and day. He'd met a thousand old friends, some with the regiment there, and had been swept into a social round he'd all but forgotten existed.

Then a chance invitation to join a party traveling to visit Harvey Phelps, whom Alaric had never met but heard described as an out-and-out cock of the game, though he'd not seemed so last evening. Sir Arthur was undoubtedly plump in the pocket, and his wife, an old tabby, seemed more than pleased to entertain a houseful of eligible young men, though she only had one unmarried daughter herself. The noise and hustle at breakfast had tempted him to go out for a peaceful morning's shooting with Atwood, though he'd soon lost patience with the silly fellow. And then to be left with this strange girl who he half-expected to see turn into a wood elf at any moment.

They topped a low rise at the rear of a sprawling two-story house, a grey slate roof blending harmoniously with the stone walls and shaven grass. From where he stood, still among the trees, Alaric smelled roses and smoke. Off to the left, he saw a neat stable, topped by an octagonal dovecote.

In answer to his look, Sarah said, with unconscious pride, “This is my house."

"Your house? You mean you work here?"

Though she'd hoped he had not assumed what he'd so obviously assumed, Sarah could not help laughing at the surprise on his face. “No, I live here. With my father and my mother. I have two brothers as well. They're both lieutenants in the navy. Mortimer, he's with His Majesty's ship
Restitution
and Sam is in
Ganymede.
We received a letter from Mortimer last week. He's just put in to Constantinople."

A female figure with a basket over one arm left the house and, walking on a few steps, bent down over a patch of green. “There's Mother,” Sarah said. “She mustn't see me looking like this. She worries, you know. Listen, go down there and tell her who you are and that you'd like to borrow a horse to take you back to Hollytrees."

"I can't do that. She doesn't know me."

"That doesn't matter.” Sarah gazed at him in wonder. Was it possible he did not realize that he could have anything he wanted just for the asking? “Tell her you're staying at Hollytrees, and she'll probably give you half a dozen commissions to Lady Phelps. Don't take any notice. She'll have forgotten most of them by the time they see each other tonight."

"Tonight? Oh, yes, there's some kind of entertainment. ...” The long grey house, viewed through a haze compounded of autumn air and wood smoke, was like an image from a half-remembered dream, or a picture glimpsed long ago. Alaric started down the hill and never heard Sarah say, “I'll save you a dance, shall I?"

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"What in the name of mercy happened to you, Miss Sarah?” Molly asked, catching sight of the girl slipping up the stairs. “If one of them boys ... what's that there on your skirt?"

Sarah put her back against the wall and looked down at the broad face of her mother's servant. “Mud, I think. Oh, Molly, Molly, what shall I wear tonight?"

"Tonight? I thought you weren't going to Hollytrees tonight."

"Not go?"

"That's what you said this morning. Talking on about how dull it all was likely to be."

"But that was this morning.” Sarah dashed away to her room, leaving the heavier woman to climb up after her. By the time Molly came in, Sarah had shrugged off the yellow gown and was scrubbing her face in the basin with more enthusiasm than she'd ever shown before. Drying her face, she peered at herself. “I'm not absolutely ugly, am I?” she asked in sudden doubt.

"Handsome is as handsome does,” Molly said, sniffing. “If you'd keep yourself neat and wear your stays, you'd be the better for it, though I don't hold with looking at yourself every moment."

Groaning, Molly leaned down to pick up the discarded gown. “Take me the good part of tomorrow to wash this, and look at what you've been an’ done to your shoes!"

Sarah was not listening. Her quick ears had heard the sound of a horse's hooves, and she went to the window to look out. The shortest road to Hollytrees ran beside the house. Lord Reyne rode by, the sun striking red from his dark hair. He half-turned in the saddle to wave to someone out of her sight and then went on. Sighing happily, she saw that he sat the horse better than any man she knew. Sarah watched until she could see him no longer but, remembering they would meet again tonight, let him go with no more than a single pang.