The Belligerent Miss Boynton AND The Lurid Lady Lockport (Two Companion Full-Length Regency Novels) (55 page)

She wouldn't have been left destitute and at the mercy of the whims of a twisted mind, and she surely wouldn't have been forced into a marriage she hadn't desired for the sake of gaining a surname that had in reality been her birthright.

In fact, if Gilly were proved to be legitimate by this so-called fortune of Sylvester's, it would raise problems between them that Kevin felt were better left buried. How could he ever again look her in the eye, knowing that she'd been forced into marriage? She couldn't help but resent him, God knew she'd have ample reason, and he'd feel honor-bound to offer her a divorce so she could take her title and her money and her birthright and seek out a life of her own choosing.

"Kevin? I say—Kevin! You're looking rather queer. Something wrong."

"What? Oh, Jared. No. No, nothing's wrong. I was just thinking of something." Kevin rolled up the parchment he was holding and put forth the idea that they all adjourn to the Conservatory so that Bo and Anne could make some suggestions as to how to set that neglected chamber to rights. Jared opened his mouth to protest, but Kevin shot him a look his old friend easily interpreted, and then quickly seconded Kevin's words.

"Oranges, of course, and pineapples," Kevin suggested amicably, leading Anne from the room by her elbow. "Some pretty greenery too. And some flowers. Roses I think, don't you? And orchids."

The rest followed on behind, all of them exchanging glances and silently wondering what had occurred to dampen Kevin's usual good spirits. He was hiding something, that was clear enough. But what was it?

In the time they had known him, his friends all had come to believe they could tell his every mood, no matter how well he hid his real thoughts from the rest of the world. But even Jared was at a loss to recognize the man's sudden withdrawal in the main saloon, the cloudiness that had invaded his eyes, and the bleakness that had marked his smile. Yes, he had covered up almost immediately, as Kevin was a past master at that. But even if they'd been privy to a longer glimpse, it's doubtful any of his friends would have known what he had been feeling in that unguarded moment.

They shouldn't have felt badly about their lapse. After all, before that moment in the saloon, Kevin had never once in his nine and twenty years given away any notion of being anything but fearless; not during battle, not even when Amanda had been kidnapped. Never. No, never before meeting one Miss Gilly Fortune, falling in love with that same Miss Gilly Fortune, had Kevin Rawlings been so careless as to let fear show so plainly on his face.

For a week and more, Bo and Anne had been disappearing immediately after breakfast, reappearing in the red drawing room only in time for meals and for a short time after dinner before making an early night of it.

Being lovers of plants in most any form—indeed, it was their shared interest in the subject that had first attracted them to each other—the neglected gardens at The Hall attracted them like bees after honey. Early in their visit Bo and Anne had corralled Lyle and Fitch and, amazingly, seemed to have very little difficulty in getting them to do their bidding. The Chevingtons didn't realize how very odd the sight of Lyle and Fitch bending their backs to any sort of labor was, and they most certainly were unaware that this burst of industry was caused by their fear of Bo.

Anyone who was even minimally acquainted with Bo Chevington knew he was the most docile of men, but his clipped speech (a defense against a childhood stammer) frightened the gardeners, who believed the red-haired cherub to be slightly off in his upper stories and therefore liable to turn on them if they angered him. This assumption was based on their experience with the village butcher, Quiet Dick Turner, a man of few words who nonetheless expressed himself quite eloquently with his meat cleaver whenever someone or something was so foolhardy as to arouse his volatile temper.

Kevin, knowing a good thing when he saw it, promptly assigned ten foresters to temporary duty under Bo's direction, and almost miraculously the gardens began to be reclaimed.

But the recreation of the Troy Town maze was Anne's first love. From the moment she clapped eyes on the overgrown tangle of hedges, she itched to see the two acre sprawl restored to its former glory.

For three days, Lyle and Fitch and a few more hapless fellows commandeered into the effort chopped and clipped and lugged heavy branches until, at dusk of the last day, a bonfire was lit to dispose of the small mountain of debris taken from the maze.

Kevin decided to treat the bonfire as an event to be celebrated by everyone at The Hall. That night there was quite a crowd of merrymakers singing and dancing about the blaze, and mead, cowslip, and home-brewed beer flowed freely.

Gilly was standing a bit away from the crowd when Amanda approached her and handed her a mug of delicious but extremely potent honey-sweet mead.

They watched the festivities in silence for a while, seated on an ancient stone bench under the trees, sipping at their drinks. Gilly had never had mead before, but she liked the taste. She liked the warm, cosseted feeling it raised inside her. She even liked the way her head was beginning to buzz ever so slightly as she stared into the flames of the bonfire.

Finally, Amanda spoke, her question so unexpected that Gilly couldn't hide her dismay. "Am I right in thinking, no matter what the circumstances of your marriage, you've developed more than a small affection for our friend Kevin?"

"Affection?" Gilly blustered, draining the last of her mug. "Amanda, how many mugs of this mead have you had? How could you believe anyone would ever feel affection for that impossible man?" She jumped up from her seat and began pacing back and forth in front of her new friend, the picture of outrage and frustration. "First he complains about my chilblains and orders me to do something about my hands. But when I put goose grease on them like Hattie Kemp said to do, he made me take a bath—at midnight—before he'd allow me in bed. He said I smelled like a barnyard."

Gilly didn't hear Amanda begin to laugh, as she was really getting the bit between her teeth now and her words fairly tumbled over themselves in their hurry to be said. She looked at her empty mug, wishing she had more mead, but then decided she'd perhaps already drunk too much. She couldn't seem to stop her tongue, not even when she bit it, trying not to say anything else about Kevin.

"He smiles at Anne when she comes in all grubby and stained from the garden," Gilly went on, really, really wanting to say just what was on her mind, "but has refused to allow me to work around the farms or even help in The Hall. When I confronted him, he said what Anne was doing was
different
—but when I demanded he explain
how
it was different he shouted at me, 'I don't know, it just is!' and stomped off."

"How rude and unpleasant," Amanda put in, shaking her head. Gilly thought her friend might also be laughing, but she wasn't sure.

"You're right!" she went on, the bit now most firmly between her teeth. "There's no pleasing the man, Amanda. It's gotten so I'm afraid to do anything at all, because I can't tell which way he'll jump when he hears about it. I used to take my troubles to my mother—she's buried in the church graveyard—and by the time I'd get through telling her about them, an answer would present itself. I guess maybe thinking out loud helped. But there's no help in understanding that arrogant, pigheaded creature I'm shackled to—none!"

"And no affection, either?" Amanda prompted, politely handing over her own half-full cup of mead.

"Affection for Kevin, you say? Hah!" Gilly fumed impotently, then downed the contents of Amanda's mug. "I don't care a button for the man. I...I—
oh, no!
I think I'm going to cry." She looked at her friend, willing her to understand. "I can't cry. I
never
cry!" So saying, she slumped down on the bench, put her head in her hands, and began to give a very credible impression of a female dissolved in tears.

Amanda put her arm around Gilly's shoulders, patting her soothingly until Gilly was once again in control of herself. "I'm pro-prodigiously sorry, Amanda," she hiccupped at last. "Kevin said I shouldn't drink any of the mead or beer, but I didn't want to listen to him. I hate it so much when he's right!"

"There, there, dear. It's quite all right. My goodness, I never before realized that Kevin and Jared are so very alike. Perhaps all men are equally unpredictable and hard to understand. My experiences with Jared in our first days together were measured in highs and lows—there never seemed to be a safe middle ground where we could meet and understand each other. These adjustments take time, Gilly, so don't needlessly tear yourself down. All you need is a little direction and you'll have him brought neatly round your thumb in no time. Not that we're so silly as to ever let our men
know
they've been so securely wrapped, of course."

"You'll pardon me if I find that a trifle hard to believe, Amanda. Either the wrapping, or the possibility of Kevin not knowing what I was about and laughing at me until I had nothing else to do but strangle him," Gilly quipped before tossing the empty mug to the ground.

"Kevin's a man used to hiding his true feelings behind a mask of foolish banter," Amanda told Gilly. "Jared says it has ever been so. I imagine he's just a very private person, for one reason or another. I do know this, though. Kevin doesn't give his affection often, but when he does it's given for life. I believe you're extremely precious to him, Gilly. After all, I've seen how he looks at you when he believes no one to be watching. But he will try his best to keep this knowledge from you until he is convinced you won't rebuff him."

Gilly wet her suddenly dry lips with the tip of her tongue. "Really, Amanda? He looks at me? How?"

Amanda patted her hand. "You don't need me to answer that, Gilly, now do you?"

Gilly blushed, diverting her gaze. "No. I suppose not."

"I didn't think so." Amanda chuckled, patting Gilly's hand. "Now, as for the goose grease or his ideas on the division of labor among females? Gilly, I challenge you to find a single man in England, indeed all the world, who has the slightest grasp of common good sense. Oh, no, they're too busy starting wars and building fortunes to bring any consistency into the everyday realities of life."

Gilly giggled, and then rubbed at the end of her nose, which was beginning to feel quite extraordinarily numb.

"But that's of no matter, Gilly," Amanda went on. "We women cannot change them. We must simply learn how to ignore their little lapses and go on as if they never occurred. Once you have children you will, in raising them, find many similarities in the methods used to get them to do what you know is best for their fathers. Yes," she said, sighing theatrically, "it seems to be a woman's destiny to go around behind a man sweeping up after him and keeping some semblance of order in his life. Why else did God feel it so necessary to create an Eve, if He had not already decided that, left on his own, Adam was making a sad shambles out of Eden?"

Amanda's voice had been becoming more slurred and sing-song as she went on with her impromptu homily, and by the end of it, both women were sitting arm in arm, their empty mead cups at their feet as they were enveloped in a pleasant fog of bonhomie.

"All right, O Wise One, I shall in future try to overlook Kevin's ridiculous outbursts. But how do I get him to admit he, er, to admit that he...well, that he likes me? If, indeed, you're correct about his feelings?"

"Loves, dear, the word is
loves
you," Amanda scolded mildly. "The answer to that is simple, and as old as time itself. Make him jealous!" she crowed triumphantly.

"Jealous? Surely you're funning me. Jealous of whom? Rice? Lyle?
Fitch
?"

Amanda leaned over and whispered in Gilly's ear, "Rory, Gilly. R-o-r-y, Rory. Trust me. That's the one. Just bat your eyelashes at that pretty looby a time or two and watch Kevin fume."

Gilly grimaced. "Rory O'Keefe? But, Amanda, the fellow's
revolting.
"

"All the better," Amanda trilled, clearly pleased with herself. "Kevin will be furious if he thinks you prefer that brainless jackanapes to him. I guarantee it, Gilly. You'll have Kevin declaring his love for you on bended knee within a week. Just like that." She tried to snap her fingers, succeeding on the third attempt, and then rested her woozy head on Gilly's shoulder.

Gilly thought for a moment and then declared, "Amanda, your plan is deceitful, low, dishonest, underhanded, and totally des–des-des
picable
. I'll do it!"

Completely in charity with each other and indeed with the entire world, Amanda and Gilly catnapped as they sat, rousing only when Glynis, who with her brother had somehow inveigled an invitation to the celebration, shook Gilly by the shoulder, saying, "Wake up sleepyhead, I have a message for you."

"What—what is it?" mumbled Gilly, who was finding it hard to return from a dream in which Kevin figured prominently, finding him in scene after scene, rescuing her from dragons, evil knights, and wicked sorcerers before carrying her off on his snow white charger.

"Clemmie Jenkins asked me to find you and tell you her mother's time has come."

Gilly came instantly awake. "Oh, my stars, and me half in my cups from Granny Swithins's mead. Amanda, wake up. I've got to go to a birthing."

This news served to delight Amanda, who insisted upon accompanying Gilly to the Jenkins cottage at the far end of the estate. "This is Peg's eighth in as many years and the babe will come fast," Gilly told her as they walked toward the stables. "We'll have to hurry or we'll only be in time to congratulate the proud parents. Glynis, would you please find Kevin and Lord Storm and tell them where we've gone? I'm sure Clemmie's brought up the wagon I've let them keep at the ready at the cottage these weeks past, and we'll have no trouble managing on our own. Tell them we'll be back as soon as we can."

"Of course, I will, Gilly dear. You know you can count on me," Glynis promised fervently.