(Midwinter Manor)Poacher's Fall (2 page)

Newton nodded. “Well. You must call me at once, should his situation worsen, but failing that, there’s nothing he needs more than rest and nourishing food.”

Philip nodded. “I’ll see to it, Dr. Newton.”

“Then I’ll bid you good night, Mr. Luccombe.”

After the doctor had departed, Philip made his way toward the room in the west wing where Costessey had been placed, but he was met at the door by the housekeeper, Mrs. Standish, whose brusque manner he didn’t feel equal to facing. Catching no more than a glimpse of thick, black hair against a white pillow, Philip was forced to retreat to his own room.

W
HEN
Danny woke up for the second time, everything seemed to be in soft shades of white, and he thought for a moment he was still lying in the snow. He felt far too warm and comfortable for that, but then he’d heard that was how it was when you froze to death: first you stopped feeling the cold, and then you stopped living. Wasn’t a bad way to go, at that, Danny thought, and then reality broke in. “Mam!” Danny cried, struggling to sit up. How in God’s name would she manage, with Danny following his father into the grave?

“Shh, you’re safe now,” a gentle, masculine voice told him as firm hands forced him to lie down once more. Just as Danny’s vision cleared, nausea struck and he twisted and vomited to one side. The hands retreated hastily. “Mrs. Standish!”

Danny was aware of being mopped up by a new set of hands, these belonging to a stony-faced matron. “Sorry,” he said weakly. He was lying in a soft bed, he realized, in a warm room. To his right was a long window looking out upon a garden that defied the season with its beauty of evergreens and landscaping, lightly gilded with snow. It was daylight, Danny realized belatedly. He’d slept through the night.

Mrs. Standish’s face softened a little. “Not to be helped,” she told him grudgingly, smoothing the pillow. “You hit that head a good, hard knock. Whatever possessed you, climbing a tree in icy weather?”

Danny was about to answer, but the first voice beat him to it. “Come, Mrs. Standish. I think we can let him heal for a while before we bombard him with questions.”

The only answer was a sniff, but the motherly figure said no more and moved out of sight.

“How do you feel?” the voice asked, and Danny forced his aching head around to look at the speaker. He saw a pale face, clean-shaven and somehow delicate, with the first suspicion of lines around the eyes that gave the face a strange young-old look. The sandy hair that framed it was just a bit too long, suggesting someone who cared little for his appearance and had no wife to do it for him. Lord love him, it was the lord of the manor himself—Mr. Philip Luccombe, Esquire.

Luccombe didn’t wait for Danny’s reply. “Stupid question, I know. You must feel absolutely beastly. But don’t worry, Dr. Newton’s seen to all your hurts. You’ve a broken leg and three cracked ribs, not to mention that goose egg on your skull. Lucky you didn’t break your neck, falling out of that tree like that. I suppose you were after the mistletoe?” Luccombe paused. Thinking he must be supposed to answer, Danny tried to gather his thoughts from where they’d gone off wandering like a will-o’-the-wisp, but before he could think of what to say, Luccombe was speaking again. “I, ah, I had Drayton deliver your, er, belongings to your family. In case you were worried.”

Danny almost laughed at that. Old Drayton, having to deliver poached coneys to Danny’s mam. The merriment died before he could voice it, though. Like as not, the bastard had just pitched them into a ditch.

“Sorry. I should have introduced myself. Philip Luccombe. And we know who you are, of course. Drayton recognized you.” Luccombe gave a weak smile. “It’s him you’ve to thank for being here, you know.”

Danny stared. “That bastard? Are you pulling my leg? He’d have left me to rot!”

Luccombe gave Danny an earnest look. “No, I can assure you, it was all down to Drayton. If he hadn’t found you last night, I shudder to think what might have happened. You’d probably have frozen to death if he hadn’t alerted us.” He laughed awkwardly. “And I don’t think pulling your leg would be a good idea in its present condition, do you?”

Danny found his head was spinning once more, and he wasn’t sure if it was due to the knock he’d had or to the thought that he might owe his life to the man he hated worst in the world. He lay back weakly and waited for the nausea to subside.

“So I’m afraid you’ll have to be my guest for the Christmas season.” Luccombe seemed embarrassed, though Danny couldn’t for the life of him imagine why he might be. “We’re not terribly festive here, but I’ll do my best to see that you’re comfortable.”

Danny smiled ruefully from his goose-down pillows. “Only wish my mam could be half as comfortable.”

“Are your family in need?” Luccombe asked, looking for all the world like he actually cared. “I’m sure we could send some assistance if they’re suffering any kind of hardship—”

“We don’t need no charity.” It was a knee-jerk reaction, and Danny’s stomach flipped as he recalled what he’d been doing when he’d had his fall. No, thieves didn’t need charity, and they didn’t deserve none, neither.

Luccombe cleared his throat. “Well, I’m sure you’d like to get some rest. I’ll pop in and see you later.”

P
HILIP
retreated to the drawing room, wiping his palms on his trousers and stopping when he realized what he was doing. Stupid of him, to feel so… stupid. The man—the boy, really; after all, he couldn’t be more than eighteen—was nothing but a common poacher. And on Philip’s land, to boot. If anyone should be embarrassed in this situation, it was Costessey. Not that he had been, of course. He’d seemed absurdly self-assured. Still, he’d been the man of the family for what, two, three years now? Philip supposed that was bound to have an effect.

Or perhaps it was merely the father’s heritage? Philip had shivered upon seeing him properly for the first time. Daniel Costessey was the image of his father, although there was more of a softness about the young man’s features, and his hands, too, had a delicacy that Costessey senior’s had lacked. But the mop of unruly dark curls, the stubble that showed even on a freshly shaven chin, and the full mouth that seemed but a breath away from laughter even in repose, those were all unmistakably from the paternal line.

And those shoulders, and that darkly haired chest—why the devil hadn’t Mrs. Standish dressed him decently in pajamas after Newton had strapped his ribs? Philip drew a deep breath. It wasn’t proper, where a maid might walk in at any moment.

Robert’s teasing voice filled his mind. “You pay far too much mind to accepted notions of propriety, Lux!” Lord, how Philip missed him. They’d been everything to one another, ever since that first day as awkward undergraduates at Oxford. Well, Philip had been awkward. Robert, of course, had been in complete mastery of the situation. The first time Philip had seen him, he’d been holding forth in the bar upon some Eton exploit that had all those present in stitches. A Winchester man himself, Philip hadn’t been particularly disposed to like Robert upon first sight, but like everyone else, he’d been won over by Robert’s easy charm. By Lent, they’d become inseparable, and the following summer had seen an invitation to Robert’s estate in Herefordshire and an introduction to his mother.

Philip’s blood chilled suddenly. The bell not producing an instant response, he strode to the door and flung it open. “Standish?” he yelled. Propriety be damned.

“Yes, sir?” There was a world of reproach in those watery eyes.

Philip coughed. “Costessey’s mother. She must visit him. At once, you understand?”

Lord, where did servants learn to keep such poker faces? “Very good, sir,” Standish replied after the barest possible pause, and he departed.

D
ANNY
’
S
eyes had widened when Mrs. Standish told him his mam was on her way. It was queer enough to find himself given the hospitality of the manor; he’d not expected his family to be allowed to visit him too. Mrs. S had insisted on helping him somewhat painfully into a pajama jacket in honor of the occasion, despite his protests of it only being his mam.

“There’s such a thing as standards, young man,” she’d said sternly, but she’d smoothed his hair back gently enough as she left to fetch his visitor.

Helen Costessey marched into the room like she’d every right to be there, but then maybe it wasn’t so strange to her, seeing as she’d likely changed the sheets on the very bed Danny lay on in her youth. She left her son little time to reflect on the matter, though, her face grim.

“Daniel Costessey, what in the Lord’s name did you think you were about? Risking life and limb climbing trees like you’ve no more brains than you were born with! Did it never occur to you to wonder what’d become of your sisters and brother and me? How I’ll make ends meet now I don’t know, for all Mr. Luccombe’s being so kind as to let us off the rent this quarter day.”

“He said that?” That was a kindness Danny would never have expected.

Mam wasn’t, it seemed, of a mood to repeat herself. “And you with a broken leg! I just hope you managed to knock some more sense into that head of yours while you were about it.” Her voice cracked a bit on the last few words.

“Mam?” Danny ignored the pain in his ribs to reach over and clutch her hand.

She sniffed, then. “When I heard…. All I could think of was your poor father.”

It wasn’t just Danny’s cracked ribs causing the pain in his chest now. “My leg’s broken, not shot. Don’t you worry, Mam. I’ll be right as rain soon as it mends, you’ll see.” He squeezed her work-roughened hand in his own. “I just wanted to get you some mistletoe to brighten up the cottage.”

“Mistletoe!” It was almost a sob, and it tore at Danny’s heart. “A fine thing it’d be, if I ended up with no cottage to put it in.”

“Mam! That’s not going to happen. Mr. Luccombe ’ud never have had me brought in here if he meant to turn the rest of you out of house and home. He’s a good man. Good-hearted. He won’t see us starve.”

“You’ve met him?” she asked sharply.

“Aye. He came in to see how I was this morning. Seemed right worried about me.”

Her face softened. “He was only a boy when I worked here—not much older than our Toby—but he was a considerate young lad. Always said
please
and
thank you
, and never one to make a mess.”

“Reckon folks in the village don’t know what they’re talking about when they say he’s cracked,” Danny said without thinking.

Mam’s face sharpened. “All the more reason for you not to go repeating their gossip. When you’re lying in the man’s own house! For shame, Danny Costessey.”

“Sorry, Mam. Did he have Drayton bring you them coneys I trapped?”

She nodded, giving a faint smile. “That he did, and near frightened the life out of me, too, seeing that man on my doorstep with a bag full of rabbits.”

Danny laughed. “I’d give ten shillings to know what Drayton must have thought about it all. First saving me, then delivering them coneys—I reckon the old bugger’s gone soft in the head.”

“Danny Costessey! I will not have you using language like that. And in Mr. Luccombe’s house! You’re not too big for a clip ʼround the ear, young man.” She had her hand half-raised to do it, too, so Danny spoke up hastily.

“Mam! I’ve a broken head already—don’t you go making it worse.”

“Oh, Danny,” his mam sighed, the anger going right out of her. She surprised him, then, leaning over to give him a kiss, her dry, pinched lips just brushing his forehead. “Just get yourself well, love. Mrs. Standish said as you’ve to stay here for Christmas. Lord knows it’ll be quiet back home without you. Though I daresay Toby will be pleased as punch to be man of the house for once—” She broke off as the lord of the manor himself poked his head around the door. Rising, she bobbed him a quick curtsy Danny reckoned must be a leftover from her days in service here.

Luccombe, Danny noticed, looked a bit uncomfortable at that, his fine, handsome features forming a small frown of dismay. “Oh—please, Mrs. Costessey, don’t get up. I didn’t mean to interrupt. I just wanted to be sure you had everything you needed.”

“Yes, sir. My boy’s been well looked after and we’re both right thankful for that. I’m just sorry he’s been causing you such a bother. You’ve been more than generous to our family,” she added, most likely in reference to those coneys—Danny couldn’t blame her for being ashamed to mention them out loud. Then again, looking at the spots of color high on Luccombe’s cheeks, he couldn’t help but think the man was more embarrassed than Danny and his mam put together.

“Well, please, ah, carry on,” Luccombe said. He took a deep breath. “Stay as long as you like,” he said earnestly, and fled.

Mam didn’t sit down again. “Well, there’s no denying his heart’s in the right place,” she said softly, an eye on the door. “Any road, I’d best be off now—I can’t leave Toby all on his own to mind those sisters of yours, willful little creatures that they are. Well, Edie’s a good girl, but Lord knows the other two haven’t any more sense than their eldest brother.”

“It’s been grand to see you,” Danny said. His mam’s care-worn face as she wished him a Merry Christmas made him feel like he deserved two broken legs for adding to her troubles.

It’d be a strange Christmas, and no mistake. They might not have much, his family, but it was always right cozy in their little cottage, with the fire blazing bright and a few rare treats on the table. Danny didn’t like to think of missing all that, and the looks of wonder on his sisters’ faces as they found the little toys he’d made them in honor of the season.

He felt a bit forlorn after Mam left, alone with his guilt and his aches for, well, he didn’t know how long, but it felt like a week or more. So when Luccombe walked in carrying a small stack of books, Danny flashed him a big grin in welcome even though the top volume was clearly a Dickens.

Luccombe coughed. “I, ah, thought you might welcome some reading material. I’d have brought you the
Times
, but I felt that in the circumstances something lighter might be indicated.”