A Rogue in Sheep’s Clothing (3 page)

“Can you help me out of a tight spot?” Hugh said, pushing her back through the door.

“Blimey, let me hand over me oysters, at least.” Hortense giggled. “Now here’s a first — Lord Davenport finally takin’ advantage of me charms.”

“You’re a generous doxie,” said Hugh, his eyes twinkling. “Always there for a man when he needs her.”

“Oooo, you’re a wicked one, my lord. Remember, I don’t have a lot of time. I got me oysters.”

“Follow me closely,” he told her.

Hugh sauntered through the ballroom with Hortense trailing behind. As he passed his mother, he swung behind the maid, giving her a little pinch on the bottom. Hortense skipped and giggled as his mother’s lips tightened.

“You were perfection,” Hugh said, outside the doors to the ballroom, beyond his mother’s view. “That pit of cunning baggage would have me shackled and married by morning.”

“Poor lad,” said Hortense. “You’re a fine treasure for the ladies.”

“And they are an unseemly lot of tricksters,” he replied.

“We can duck into the closet near the lady’s retiring room,” Hortense said, pulling Hugh down the hall.

“Nay Hortense, you’ve already served your purpose.”

The maid’s shoulders slumped in disappointment. “But I’ve always had a longing for ye. You talk to us nice in the kitchen — as if we was friends.”

“Well, you are my friends,” said Hugh. “Which is why I can’t stuff you in the closet outside the lady’s retiring room. You’ve done me a favor, so let me give you a token of gratitude.” He fished around in his pocket, producing a shiny gold guinea.

“Lawkes, my lord, a guinea! All’s I did was walk you from the ballroom.”

“And saved me from the Devon marriage market — truly a worthy service.”

Overcome with excitement, Hortense threw her beefy arms about his neck. “Any favor for you, my lord, is a favor to me.”

A strangled “Oh!” interrupted the embrace. Hugh disengaged from Hortense and looked full into the horrified eyes of the damsel he’d led limping from the dance floor.

• • •

Shock rocketed through Ellie. She couldn’t move. Mouth open, she stared at Hugh, deep in the arms of the Mortimers’ kitchen maid — face buried in her breasts — a golden guinea glinting like a beacon in the wench’s wash-reddened hand.

“Like to join us?” Hortense said. “Three’s welcome company.” She threw her frizzed head back and gave a full-throated laugh.

Ellie backed away from the pair. Forgetting her hurt foot, she turned and ran into the ballroom — straight into her sister Peggity.

“Ellie, you look as if you’d seen a ghost.”

“No,” she replied. “I have seen the devil.”

Well after the last snuffed candle had cooled, Ellie lay awake, tossing, turning, and jostling the cats that boxed her legs onto a sliver of mattress. She couldn’t rid her encounter with Hugh Davenport at the Mortimers’ ball from her mind.
What would a cad like that do to her horse? A womanizer, a rogue, possibly a gambler, and drunkard?
She shivered under the blankets, though the night was warm.

Unable to live with her thoughts another second, she hurled back the covers, pushed her feet into slippers, and threw on a dressing gown. Manifesto shouldn’t be alone tonight, and she couldn’t bear to be without him.

Though she approached the barn on tiptoe, the stallion heard her. He nickered in a low, soft rumble, throwing his head over the Dutch door of his stall. In the pale moonlight his dapple gray coat glowed like pearls. The beauty of him stabbed deep. His soft nostrils fanned with the smell of apple in her pocket. He munched his treat into foam, then used her dressing gown as a napkin — his head rubbing up and down her side. She had to brace herself to keep her feet. “Oh you animal,” she said, murmuring into the horse’s muzzle. “How desperately I’m going to miss you.”

She threw her arms around Manifesto’s neck and kissed his soft muzzle. The stallion breathed sweet apple and hay scent on her cheek. She smiled in spite of her grief. “Do you know you’re the best friend I ever had?” Tears spilled from her eyes and guttered into Manifesto’s white mane. Her unhappiness upset him. He pawed his straw and tossed his head.

“You’re right, darling,” she told him, gently rubbing his eyes. “You need to get some sleep. It’s a big day tomorrow.”

Ellie patted the horse’s neck, ran her hand down his back, and tried to walk away. Her feet would not go. She smoothed knots in his mane, and again, tried to leave, but the pain doubled.

What will I do with my days? I can’t sit with my sisters in the parlor sewing, reading, embroidering. I’ll go mad.
Chest cramped with sorrow, she rested her head against the horse’s withers and closed her eyes.

A jolt snapped Ellie to attention, catching herself as her knees buckled. Sleep had almost dumped her on the floor. She swept a hand over Manifesto’s pearly coat, down the neck, across the barrel to the haunches, until her fingers dropped from his rump. In the empty stall next to his, she lay down in the straw and closed her eyes. She would stay with her stallion until … until he was gone.

• • •

Dawn pinked the window when Ellie woke to the sound of loud voices. “What in bloody hell’s the matter with you? Get him out and get him going!” she heard Lank shout.

Manifesto snorted and smacked the side of his stall with a vicious kick. “He don’t like to handle for nobody but Lady Ellie,” she heard head groom Jimmy James explain.

“To hell with that,” Lank said. “Throw a rope around him and cut his wind.”

Ellie blazed out of the adjacent stall. “Cease and desist, sir!”

Lank whirled on her. “What in bloody hell are you doing here?”

“You forget, sir, that my father is lord of this estate. I insist you leave my horse alone.”

“He’s not your horse anymore, and you, showing up in the barn in naught but your night shift. That ought to cause quite a stir in the scandal sheets.”

Ellie grabbed a horse blanket and drew it around her shoulders. “I won’t be intimidated by you, Mr. Lank.”

“You’d be better off if you were. Are you going to lead the horse, or shall I?”

“Help you? No, by God.”

“Then the bloody beast needs to learn his new boss.” Lank hauled Jimmy James from the stall. With a vicious smack, he banged a rolled up bullwhip against the enclosure wall.

Manifesto shied, snorting in fury. Crack! went the whip. The stallion aimed his rump at Lank, and the bullwhip landed hard on the horse’s haunches. Manifesto crashed into the walls.

“Are you mad?” Ellie screamed. “Let him alone!” The whip cracked again and again.

She tore at Lank’s arm, grabbed his coat collar, pulled his hair — trying desperately to yank him away.

“Look out!” Jimmy James shouted.

The stallion, ears back, headed straight at Lank. Ellie leaped aside, and Lank dodged behind the half door as the horse charged from the stall.

Manifesto galloped to one end of the barn just as a stable boy slammed the door shut. In a frenzy, the animal tore back down the aisle.

“Calm, sweeting,” Ellie cooed, but her words were choked and frightened. Jimmy James took Ellie’s arm and pressed a bucket of oats into her hand. “Spare the horse another beating,” he said. “Help me tie him to the wagon.”

Lank had moved into the stall and closed the door to protect himself. “You have five minutes,” he hissed, his eyes light with the pleasure of her pain.

Heart in a knot, Ellie wanted to run, not lure her horse to the auction block.
Baron Wadsworth is a dangerous man
, she remembered her mother saying. Her family was in danger.

Voice shaking, Ellie croaked, “Beautiful boy, come to me.” She rattled the grain in the bottom of the bucket. “Come, sweeting.”

Manifesto’s ears swiveled, and pricked forward as she walked toward him. “You’re a greedy boots, aren’t you, poor horse?” she said. “Come for a treat.” The stallion stretched his neck cautiously then dove his nose into the bucket. Hands trembling, Ellie attached the lead. “Please forgive me,” she whispered as she led him to the side of a wagon in the barnyard. “You must not be whipped anymore.”

Lank’s muffled voice came from the barn. “Is he secured?”

“You better go, Miss Ellie,” Jimmy James said. “Ol’ Lank, he won’t like seeing you here, and it might be worse for the horse.” The groom took the lead from her. “Maybe this auction ain’t the worst thing wot could happen to Manifesto. Get him out of here clean, before Lank does his worst wit him.”

Ellie nodded, unable to speak. The lead slipped from her fingers, and like a wayfarer in the dark, she sensed, rather than saw, her way back home.

• • •

“Wake up and don’t yell. It’s me.”

Claire rolled over. The kitty sleeping on her back slid to the bed. “What’s the matter?”

“I’m going to rescue Manifesto,” Ellie told her.

Claire sat up. “You’re not going to do something impetuous, are you? Nothing you haven’t thought through very carefully?”

“No, no,” Ellie told her.

“Because you remember what happened when you went after Mr. Hollingsworth for that filly … ”

“Well, a man can’t dock a sensitive horse’s tail. It drives them mad, unable to swat away flies.”

“Uncle Sebastian paid one-and-a-half times as much as Hollingsworth paid him to get her back.”

“And she’s a valuable carriage horse to this day.”

“Yes, but only months ago you chased Vicar Smith from the parlor when he tried to divert me from Satan’s path; you told Lank you’d shoot him if you caught him near Manifesto, you … ”

“Claire, I need your help.”

“Oh, I just know this is going to be rash.”

“I’m going to sell the Fitzcarry pearls and buy Manifesto with the money.”

Claire gasped and clutched her chest. “But you mustn’t. They’re Mama’s prized possession.”

“We must keep that stallion. The only way we’re going to stay in this house is to preserve the Albright pedigree. That’s our income, and it’s far more valuable than pearls. Mama let me wear the necklace to the Mortimers’. I feel certain she was trying to tell me to do something with them.”

“What did she say exactly?”

“Well, she didn’t use words. It was more of a feeling. Anyway, are you going to help me or not?”

“Oh, Ellie, when you get going, a charging bull couldn’t stop you, but I’m begging … ”

Ellie sprang off the bed. “Well, I need you to tell Mama and Papa that I left for Aunt May’s early this morning. I’ll probably be gone for a few days. Could you do that for me?”

“Oh dear.”

“Thank you,” said Ellie, patting her sister’s shoulder, “and don’t forget to tell them. I don’t want them to worry.”

Claire shook her head in despair. “Oh dear.”

• • •

Ellie hurled a fistful of pebbles at Toby Coopersmith’s window. The majority fell short, but one or two pinged on the pane. After a minute the window opened and Toby’s sleepy voice called out, “What?”

“Let me up, Toby, quick!”

Moments later Toby opened the door, still dressed in his nightshirt. The two slipped upstairs to his room.

Best friends with Ellie since toddlerhood, Toby carried the unmistakable mark of an Albright — white blond hair, blue eyes, and a pale complexion. Ellie had exploited Toby’s nearly identical looks. Expected to ride sidesaddle — a societal norm she had no intention of following — she’d robbed Toby’s wardrobe, pretending to be him when she galloped into Exeter.

Toby was Uncle Sebastian’s illegitimate son. Though the former earl had a reputation as a rake, he’d truly loved Toby’s mother, Celia Coopersmith, but the girl’s father bellowed so many objections during the wedding ceremony, the clergyman stopped in embarrassment. Celia moved into the Tudor mansion all the same, and then along came Toby. He’d make it up to her, Uncle Sebastian said, especially when Celia could travel again. And of course, no one guessed the life of a horseman like Sebastian Albright would end with him being dragged by a boot in the stirrup as his mount took a stone wall. The plans for Celia and Sebastian to wed in Gretna Green ended that day, as did Toby’s chance of becoming heir apparent. But being an earl had never been Toby’s ambition. He, like his father, was a horseman, and he intended someday to be the finest jockey in England.

“I’m taking Papa’s gelding for a few days,” Ellie told Toby. “Papa won’t miss him, and I can’t bear to be here without Manifesto.”

“Can’t blame you for that. It’s a grim future for me without him. I was going to ride that horse to victory in the Haldon Gold Cup. Nice whopping purse with it, too. Would have done the farm a world of good. My breeches are on the chair,” he added, throwing a shirt and jacket to Ellie.

“Turn your back,” she said, before slipping on the garments. She secured the Fitzcarry pearls deep in a pocket, then stuffed her dress into the bottom of Toby’s closet.

“Now I need a hat,” she said.

Toby fetched a tweed cap.

“No, something big, I have to hide my hair completely.”

Toby eyed her suspiciously. “Why?”

“I’m riding the public streets to Aunt May’s.”

He grabbed a broken down tri-corn from a nail. It flopped over her cheeks like the wings of a crow, effectively hiding her hair. She secured the hat with a black pin through her gathered coiffeur.

He scratched his chin and eyed her suspiciously. “When are you leaving? I’ll go with you.”

“No, Toby.”

“The hedges are filled with starving soldiers. I should come.”

“I’ll ride over the moors.”

“Well then, you won’t need a hat.”

“Toby, I don’t have time for all this. Now, if you’ll be kind enough to step out of the way, I’ll go saddle up.”

“I don’t like the sound of this … ” he said, moving to block her from leaving the room.

“Step out of the door before I punish you with my fists,” she commanded.

Toby laughed, but Ellie fixed him with her most dangerous look. It had been a while since they’d tussled, but she could hurt him and he couldn’t hit back. He humphed, and slid one foot over, shifting out of the doorframe.

“I’ll look for you in a few days,” he said.

“That would be just dandy,” she replied, and bolted past him.