Sweet Bargain (11 page)

"But you do know him, don't you?" said Fanny.

"You know everyone in the county, I daresay. He's one of Uncle's tenants, perhaps?"

"He's not one of your
beaux
, Bel!" said Louisa.

"No, he's a stranger, really," said Bel. It was small comfort that her worldly cousins could so mistake the identity of the man. She could not quite meet their gaze, or believe that she, Bel Shaw, was compelled to lie to them to protect her honor. She willed the earl and his man to disappear from view.

"Well," said Fanny, "I suppose you are used to such persons addressing you."

"I am used to greeting my neighbors of whatever rank, Fanny. Ashecombe is a small place, after all."

"I daresay the man was so impertinent because he's handsome. A handsome man always thinks more of himself than he should. Did Louisa tell you of Sir James Criswell?"

"No," said Bel, turning to the other girl, and Louisa, straightening her lovely shoulders, leaned forward. For once, Bel could be grateful that her dear village was of so little importance to her grand cousins.

If Nick thought his brief encounter with Miss Shaw in the village had escaped his companion's notice, he was forced to abandon the notion two days later. They had stopped the day's work early to take advantage of a fine evening and a new hatch on the river. Farre was silent as they prepared their rods and lines, but there was an intensity to his silence that told Nick his friend was turning over a problem in his head.

Nick had avoided Farre as much as he could from the moment he had made his bargain with Miss Shaw. He had needed time to subdue the elation that filled him whenever he thought of it, and time to cease to think of it every moment. Then he had had to consider their meeting in the village—Miss Shaw's surprise at seeing him, the way she had stopped as suddenly as he had, her apparent inability to move, the pleading look she had sent him—which she could not have sent without understanding what his own glance had meant to say—and her turning away when she must have seen how eager he was to speak with her.

Farre took his stand along the bank below Nick's favorite spot and made the first cast, landing the fly in a quiet pocket of water. Nick positioned himself above his favorite pool and watched the swift passage of a leaf across the surface. There was a fast drift to contend with, a greater challenge. He had his arm raised and cocked, ready for the first cast, when Farre spoke.

"Was that the cut direct?"

Nick checked his movement, but he did not pretend to misunderstand. A long sliver of silver shimmered under the surface where Nick had been about to cast. "Farre, where did you ever hear of the cut direct?"

"Know more about it than your lordship, perhaps."

"No doubt." Nick kept his eyes on the trout under the surface and a cloud of insects hovering over the water in a narrow shaft of light. When he judged Farre to be busy with his own line, Nick made a cast. The line arced out over the water and dropped the fly with its concealed barb into the midst of a dozen harmless, drowning insects.

"Did you tell her you meant to accuse her brothers of poaching?"

"Yes." In spite of himself Nick jerked his line.

"Well then."

"I haven't accused her brothers, and she knows it."

"And she knows you might. Blackmail, if you ask me." Farre made another perfect cast.

Nick had no answer. Farre's words were too near the truth. But getting Bel Shaw to kiss him willingly—he knew no magic to accomplish that. It would be safer to hold her to their bargain.

"I didn't lie to her."

"It doesn't look as if you're going to get much chance to tell her any truths either."

"I will see her again."

"And get the cut direct?"

Suddenly Nick had a bite. His line straightened, and the rod bowed as the fish dove and headed downstream. Nick pulled in, playing the trout along, working it away from the narrow lip of swift water at the lower end of the pool. Farre put down his own tackle and moved into position with the net. Nick struggled on, exerting a steady pressure that drew the fish toward the shallows, anticipating sudden moves that would allow the trout to tear free. As the line that separated them grew shorter and tauter, the fish jumped twice, then dove toward Nick's feet, turned abruptly, and arched out the water, wrenching free.

"Lost a good one there," said Farre.

Nick took a deep breath. "Farre, sometimes you make me think there would be advantages to being as supercilious as Uncle Miles."

"So you'd like to be 'my lorded' a bit. Well, that's a thing Miss Shaw's not like to do. Now those other two we saw in the village—fine London ladies, I think. That pair will toady to you some."

Nick began to strip his line and consider which fly to use next. Vaguely he recalled that Bel Shaw had been accompanied by two other young women. "No thanks."

"Then I don't suppose you're interested in the card that's come from the squire today. Fancy piece of paper, too. Looks like the squire might be giving a ball."

Nick was not so foolish as to look up. "I don't dance."

"You look fine in an evening coat, and I'll wager you can walk a girl along a garden path as well as the next fellow."

Blackmail, Nick decided, was more common in human intercourse than philosophers or prelates would care to admit. He could picture Alan Darlington leading Bel Shaw down some grassy path in the fading evening light and knew he could not allow the squire's son such an opportunity.

The Midsummer's Eve ball given by the squire and his lady promised to be a singularly frustrating experience for Miss Fletcher, who was trying to settle whether she should be more pleased that her London cousins would be there to say what was or was not fashionable and look down their noses at the squire, or more dismayed that their dresses were so much finer than the remade gown she was to wear.

"Ellen's dress must have a better border. Don't you think so, Louisa?" said Fanny, staring quite critically at the gown Ellen had flung across Louisa's bed in the Shaws' pretty yellow guest room, where the girls were to dress later for the ball.

"Oh, yes," Louisa readily agreed, "the color is nice enough, almost a willow green, but we should get Beckwith to add that lace from Grafton's."

"What will you wear, Bel?" asked Fanny. At the question the three girls standing beside the bed turned to look at Bel, who sat at a small worktable intent on gathering a length of lace.

"Oh, I've a white jaconet that will do."

"Bel," said Ellen, "not the white. Don't you wish to be truly elegant tonight? The earl will be there."

"I doubt it," Bel replied with only a slight hesitation. "The man is above his company." Since the arrival of the squire's invitation, Haverly had been introduced into conversation too often for Bel's comfort. Each time she found it necessary to busy herself with some trifling activity. This time she held up the length of lace she was working on to check the evenness of the gathers.

"But he
will
be there," Ellen continued, addressing her other cousins. "Darlington told me himself. And besides, the earl came to Shaw Sunday dinner. We all sat at table with him. I'm sure he quite likes the Shaws."

Bel looked up at that moment to protest Ellen's foolishness and saw her London cousins exchange a complacent, pitying glance that severely taxed her patience. She jabbed her needle into her lace.

"I wonder that we never met him in London," said Louisa, moving languidly to the dressing table and glancing briefly in the mirror. "We met so many gentlemen."

"Well," said Fanny, "it would be helpful to know something of the man before one is faced with an introduction."

"The squire will have
Debrett's
," said Ellen, "but I'm sure you will find Lord Haverly a very proper earl. His coats are ever so fine."

Again Bel caught the quick exchange of glances between Fanny and Louisa.

"I hope so," said Louisa, "for it hardly seems there will be enough company for a proper ball. Which of your
beaux
will be there, Bel?"

It was inevitable, Bel thought, that her cousins, having exhausted the subject of their own admirers, should finally ask about hers. The only awkwardness lay in the image of Haverly that came to her mind and left her speechless.

In the silence Ellen giggled. "Bel doesn't have any
beaux
."

"No
beaux
?" Louisa's eyes were at their widest.

"None," said Ellen. She skipped across the room and snatched the lace from Bel's hands. "John Lyde has gone and got himself engaged to Emily Pence, and Bel says Darlington's not her
beau
either."

"Ellen," Bel protested. Swift and nimble from playing with her brothers, she quickly recaptured the stolen lace. She strove for a light tone. "You know I never counted either of those gentlemen a beau, so I can hardly be slighted by Lyde's choice. As for Darlington, I'm sure he's gentleman enough to wish to dance with us all."

"But how dull," said Ellen. "I want someone to dance with me who cannot think of another. Like Lyde and Emily." She paused and when the others looked her way, announced, "I've seen them kissing."

"She allows him to kiss her?" said Louisa, with every appearance of being properly shocked.

"Yes, I saw them just—"

"Ellen," Bel protested in earnest this time, "you shouldn't repeat such things. It might hurt Emily's reputation."

"Don't be so stuffy, Bel. What can it hurt? They will be married soon, and they do kiss so much I'm sure someone else will talk if I don't." Somehow, and Bel couldn't be quite sure how, she and Ellen had ended up facing each other across a wide stretch of carpet, and Ellen was glaring at her.

"We're her friends," Bel urged gently. "It isn't right for us to ... gossip."

"Well, you shouldn't talk at all, Bel. You let Lyde kiss you," said Ellen, casting a sidelong glance at Louisa.

Bel lifted her chin. "That was years ago," she said.

"I was Auggie's age, and those kisses were not what a gentleman shares with his betrothed."

"How do you know that, Bel?" asked Fanny, with an arch of one eyebrow that seriously undermined Bel's resolve to keep her temper.

"I don't know
that
, Fanny," she said, "but I hope the experience Ellen is so eager to have is a great deal more exciting then John Lyde's kisses of five years ago." She paused. "Please excuse me—I will see that Beckwith comes for Ellen's gown."

Bel let the door close on the sudden silence that followed her abrupt exit and leaned against the cool paneled surface. Thus she heard Fanny's next words quite distinctly.

"Bel Shaw is entirely too proud."

"I'm sure she shall be humbled tonight," came Louisa's reply. "That dreadful white gown and no
beaux
."

"I'm sure," said Ellen, "when Haverly sees how fine you are, he won't ever look at Bel again."

Bel pushed away from the door and strode down the hall. She was justly served for lingering to hear her cousins. With the back of her hand she dashed away hot tears.
She
, proud? She, who wore old gowns, who refused to expand the borders of her skirts till they reached her knees, and who would not depend on another woman's labor to curl her hair? She, who would bear the dust and mud of a lane for the pleasure of walking, who would greet her fellow villagers whatever their station in life, and who could boast no
beaux
?

Her steps slowed. It was true. She
was
proud. She had the Shaw pride, and it would sustain her. She would go to the squire's ball. Let Fanny and Louisa and Ellen sneer. Let Darlington and Lyde snub her. Let the earl... let the earl choose to bestow his attentions where he would. She would laugh and dance and be merry—though perhaps she should ask her father not for the carriage but for a tumbril.

Chapter 12

BEL STOOD, A little apart, in a circle of her cousins and other guests on the terrace of the squire's hall. Green folds of earth descended to the gleaming Ashe a half mile below, and beyond the river, haymakers were still at work in the fields. Plainly Nature had no sympathy for Bel's troubles. Golden light suffused a clear sky. Not a cloud hovered.

Except for the merest civilities her cousins had not spoken to Bel since she'd left the guest room that afternoon. She considered escaping to the secluded walks of Mrs. Darlington's garden, off to one side of the terrace, but rejected the impulse to flee as craven.

All talk centered on Haverly. Her cousins, having found an account of his properties in the squire's
Debrett's
, were attempting to estimate the extent of his wealth when Reginald Grant arrived. An amiable young man of modest fortune, Reginald soon persuaded Fanny and Louisa to describe the delights of London. Bel listened briefly, caught the drift of the talk, then let her thoughts go where they would as she looked out over the river and fields. She smiled at Phillip as he joined them.

"Louisa," she heard him say, "that's not fair. Ashecombe has some fine houses. I'm sure no gentleman's house in London has a prospect like this." He flung his right arm in a wide sweep, encompassing the squire's fields and wooded acres and ending with a smack against Ellen's shoulder.

"Phil," Ellen complained, adjusting her shawl, "don't be tiresome. Ashecombe is nothing to London."

Phillip cast a pleading look at Bel, but Bel resisted the urge to speak in his defense. Any word of hers in his support would only result in Phillip's being snubbed, too.

"Who's being tiresome at my ball?" asked Darlington, stepping into the circle. "Bel? Not allowed. If you're tiresome, Bel, who will dance with you?"

"Not Bel, Darlington," said Phillip, "me."

"Shaw," said Darlington, "are you asking me to dance?"

Phillip reddened and fell silent. Ellen giggled, and Bel frowned, wishing there was some way to shake Ellen out of her mocking temper.

"Who's to dance the first set?" Darlington asked. "I suppose the Miss Shaws of London are promised already," he suggested, turning to Fanny and Louisa.

"Our numbers are uneven, Mr. Darlington," said Fanny.