Angel's Touch (13 page)

‘
It’s so
fat
!’
Wystan uttered in unaffected glee, and began to chant.
‘Greedy greedy pi-ig! Greedy greedy pi-ig!’

Up piped the echo
almost immediately.

‘
Geedy geedy pi-id! Geedy geedy pi-id!’ sang Lady Margaret,
making the assembled company laugh.

‘
Quite so, Peggy,’ the marquis said, grinning. He looked with
revulsion upon the grotesque animal and added, ‘That is quite the
most disgusting sight I ever remember to have seen.’

‘
For
once, sir,’ said a new voice at his elbow, ‘I find myself in entire
agreement with you.’

Turning his head
quickly, Salmesbury found himself looking straight into the clear
hazel eyes of Miss Verity Lambourn.

‘
Good God!’ he exclaimed. ‘I had not thought to run into you
as easily as this.’

He had spoken without
thinking, surprised by her sudden appearance into forgetting his
company. As a twinkle appeared in the bright gaze before him, his
heart gave the oddest leap, and a sensation of warmth struck him at
the sound of her voice.

‘
You will at least do me the justice to own
that I refrained from
running into
you on this occasion.’

He
smiled, conscious for the moment only of her presence. ‘I do,
ma’am, and must profess myself astonished at your
forbearance.’

‘
Oh,
that is easily explained,’ Verity laughed, ‘for you have brought my
little friends with you.’

She turned to hold out
her hand to Wystan, whose attention had been diverted from the pig
as he recognised her voice. She was, coincidentally, attired in the
same forest-green greatcoat dress she had been wearing when they
met before, and she was thus more familiar to him than she might
otherwise have been.

‘
Lord Braxted, how do you do? Do you remember me?’

Wystan grasped her hand eagerly. ‘Course I do. You saved me
from—’ He broke off with a guilty look up at Salmesbury, and added
adroitly, ‘From the gypsies. This is a capital pig, I think. Don’t
you like it?’

‘
It
is perfectly horrid, Lord Braxted,’ Verity said frankly, prudently
ignoring his slip, ‘but I can see you like it
extremely.’

‘
I
should say I do. But you mustn’t call me Lord Braxted, you know.
I’m Wystan.’

‘
Now
that is very friendly of you, Wystan. My name is Verity, you must
know. Verity Lambourn.’

Braxted’s quick glance went this time to his tutor Eastleigh,
by whose precepts he was wont to conduct himself, and he said
uncertainly, ‘Yes, but I can’t call you that. It—it wouldn’t be
polite.’

‘
Oh,
stuff. If I do not care for that, I am sure you need not.’ She
smiled mischievously at Salmesbury, having missed the look at the
clerical tutor. ‘And your mentor will bear with us, I believe.
After all he has undergone at my hands, I am sure it is only what
he would expect.’

The
marquis had by now not only recollected the presence of other
people, but was stricken all at once with the fear that someone in
his retinue might inadvertently betray him. But he responded to her
rallying tone with admirable sangfroid.

‘
One
becomes inured to unconventionality in your society, certainly,
ma’am.’

Verity chuckled. ‘How unhandsome.’

The
gleam appeared in his eye. ‘I have never aspired to be an Adonis,
ma’am, but it is hardly kind in you to tell me so.’

‘
I
did not mean that at all, you wretch!’

‘
Unkinder still.’

He
smiled as she bubbled over, but, catching a grin on his secretary’s
face out of the corner of his eye, he was again brought back to the
danger attendant upon this meeting. It naturally did not occur to
him to make known the members of his entourage to Miss Lambourn,
but the remembrance of their presence made him suddenly aware of
her solitary state and he frowned as he glanced about
her.

‘
I
trust, Miss Lambourn, that this odd streak of eccentricity of yours
has not led you to visit this place alone.’

Verity’s laughter was quenched. A trifle frostily, she
answered, ‘Not at all.’ She indicated a burly man a few paces
behind her whose face was vaguely familiar to the marquis. ‘Dogget
is looking after me. He is Lady Crossens’ groom, you must
know.’

The lessening of
warmth in her voice was not lost on Salmesbury. The black eyes
looked an apology, though the suspect gleam was back in them. He
moved a pace closer and spoke in a lowered tone meant for her ears
alone.

‘
I
do seem to have an unhappy knack of touching on precisely those
matters which you justly believe to be no concern of mine, do I
not?’

At
once the colour stole into her cheeks. ‘Oh, no, you are very right.
My patroness was most insistent that I have an escort.’

Then
before he could say any more, she quickly turned her eyes on the
infant, still held in her nurse’s arms. ‘And here is little Peggy.
Do
you
like the
fat pig, too, Peggy?’

Lady
Margaret eyed her a moment. Then her finger shot out, pointing at
the animal. ‘Pid.’

‘
Yes, it is a pig,’ agreed Verity. ‘A very fat one, too. Do
you like it?’

‘
Peddy no like pid. Pid geedy,’ the little girl confided.
‘Wissen no like pid.’

‘
Yes, I do!’ argued her brother hotly. ‘Wissen like pig very
much!’

‘
No!’ shouted Peggy. ‘No like pid.’

‘
That will do,’ intervened the marquis as Braxted opened his
mouth to retort.

‘
I
should think so,’ Verity put in with a merry laugh, as the two
children glared at each other. ‘I hope you do not mean to quarrel
over the bearded lady, too.’

‘
Have you seen her?’ demanded Braxted, diverted at
once.

‘
Oh,
yes, and I am sorry to say she is sadly disappointing. I was much
more taken with the sword swallower.’

‘
Sword swallower?’ echoed Braxted, eyes sparkling. ‘Where is
he? Oh, may I see him?’

‘
I
am sure you may,’ Verity said, smiling at his enthusiasm. ‘There is
a fire eater as well. Would you like me to show you?’

‘
Oh,
yes, if you please.’

Miss
Lambourn looked to Salmesbury for permission. ‘May Wystan come with
me? I will take every care of him, I promise.’

‘
I
have no doubt of that, and I have only to thank you,’ said the
marquis at once, almost glad of the excuse to get rid of her, for
every moment the peril of discovery loomed large.

Not
that he wanted Miss Lambourn to remain in ignorance of his
identity, but he would choose to make the disclosure in private so
that he might have an opportunity to explain himself. He hardly
recalled his decision to keep away from Tunbridge Wells in order to
avoid her company and so spare them both embarrassment. He only
knew now that he must tell her the truth at the first opportunity,
for it had become, in some inexplicable fashion, intolerable to him
that she should hold a false impression of him.

Advising Miss Lambourn
quickly of the rendezvous they had all agreed, and appointing a
time for a reunion, he said he would himself repair to the
racecourse to watch the coming events, and the party separated.

It was some time
before Verity was able to drag young Lord Braxted away from the
performances of the man who swallowed swords and his colleague who
put out burning torches in his mouth. He was in such spirits that
he seemed almost a different boy from the child she had met on the
road. Then he had seemed too serious for his age, behaving in a
manner worthy of an adult. Today he was far more juvenile, and
consequently much more approachable and friendly.

He was finally induced
to come away by a timely reminder from Dogget to Miss Lambourn that
they would miss the donkey race if they did not hurry.

‘
Oh, no! I wanted
partickerly
to see that,’ groaned
Wystan.

‘
Then let us make haste,’ Verity advised.

The boy took her at
her word, and, grabbing her hand, rushed her through the crowd as
he made for one of the beribboned poles, so that she arrived
flushed and out of breath by the edge of the makeshift
racecourse.

‘
Gracious, Wystan, do you wish me to expire on the spot?’ she
protested, laughing.

‘
Pooh!’ scoffed the boy.
‘You
have not a game
leg.’

She
knew not how to reply to this oblique reference to poor Mr
Haverigg’s disability, for, while she felt the callous remark
deserved rebuke, she was loath to jeopardise the good relationship
she had established with Braxted. Fortunately, he was far too
interested in what was going forward to notice the lack of
response.

It was not so for
Verity, who, reminded of the man once more, found it hard to shake
him out of her thoughts. She had seen him with the children quite
by chance as she was passing the booth, and at sight of the slight
figure with its supporting cane, her pulses had quickened—with
shock, naturally—and she had moved to speak to him almost without
volition. He had answered her in so friendly a way that she had
found herself relaxing at once. She was delighted to see the
children, too, but she was conscious of a wish that she might find
a further opportunity to converse with Mr Haverigg.

There was the usual delay to the start of the asses’ race,
and a good deal to provoke hilarity among the onlookers. They
greeted with gleeful jeers and catcalls the attempts of the
would-be jockeys—not in fact females but lusty young teenage
village lads—to mount, and the recalcitrance of the beasts, who
proved either stubbornly static or so precipitate that their riders
were unable to get them neatly arranged at the starting
line.

Verity, deriving more amusement from Wystan’s unaffected
delight than from the antics of the entrants, noticed his hand go
up in a surreptitious wave. A little surprised, she followed the
direction of his gaze and noticed a small boy, dressed in near
rags, grinning and signalling.

‘
Who
is that?’ she asked, nudging Braxted.

He
looked up and away again, shrugging. ‘No one. At least, no one I
know.’

Verity saw him glance
across at the boy, who had obviously taken in the situation and had
averted his eyes.

‘
Wystan,’ she said seriously, ‘it is not becoming to disown
one’s friends. Particularly if they are of humbler station than
yourself. That is to appear insufferably high in the
instep.’

Braxted reddened and
shuffled his feet, looking at the ground.

‘
Who
is he, Wystan?’ she asked again.

‘
Jed,’ the boy answered in a low tone. ‘He’s—he’s a climbing
boy.’

‘
Well, that is not his fault. How did you meet
him?’

‘
Fell down the chimbley in my chamber one day,’ explained
Wystan, gaining the courage to look up at her. The blue eyes
pleaded. ‘You—you won’t split on me, will you?’

‘
Do
you take me for a talebearer?’ Verity demanded indignantly. ‘Of
course I shall not. But I wish you will call Jed over. Only think
how badly he must feel if he thinks you are ashamed to speak to him
in public.’

‘
I
thought if they knew of it, they would forbid him to come to the
Park,’ Wystan confessed frankly, ‘and then I should have no friends
at all.’

‘
He
comes there to see you?’

Braxted nodded with enthusiasm. ‘They think he is cleaning
the chimbleys. And ’course he is,’ he added hastily,
‘
some
of the
time. But we go birds’ nesting in the woods and—and such things as
that.’

‘
How
splendid,’ Verity said encouragingly, thinking hard thoughts
meanwhile of that horrid marquis who was so busy mourning that he
neglected to provide his son with suitable companions for his
age.

But
no one was more surprised than Jed when his friend signalled to him
to join them. He looked furtively about him as if seeking the
custodians of his friend’s person, and Braxted had to beckon
furiously before he would cross the race track to join them. Verity
welcomed him with a friendly smile and Wystan performed the
introductions.

‘
Didn’t think as how you’d make ’em bring you, Wys,’ whispered
the urchin in some surprise. ‘How’d you manage it?’

Braxted grinned. ‘I telled Inskip and he fixed it. It’s my
birthday treat, see. Mind, I never thought
he
would let me.’

‘
Nor
me,’ said his friend, awed. ‘Ain’t you glad I tipped you the
wink?’

‘
Of
course I am. It’s a capital go.’

Verity overheard this exchange with a swelling of
indignation. If she could but have an opportunity to confront
this
he
herself!
For she had no doubt Wystan meant the marquis.

She was diverted then
by the beginning of the race. Both boys became so excited, jumping
up and down and shrieking imprecations at their chosen donkeys,
that Jed completely lost his initial shyness of his exalted company
in heated debate with his friend over the outcome when both their
favoured mounts lost.