The Bride Insists (14 page)

Two pairs of dark, childish eyes narrowed and fixed on her, clearly wondering if there was some trick hidden in this question.

“Because I have been told I am pretty. Now and then.” Jamie had said “beautiful.” Clare's blood warmed at the memory.

The twins looked at each other, then back at Clare. She'd begun to think that she had at last brought them to a stand when Tegan intoned, “There are exceptions to every rule.”

Clare bit back a laugh.
Should
she
feel
complimented
or
thwarted?
she wondered.

“All right, that's done,” said Selina. She had one other gown pieced together for Tegan, but she wasn't going to fit it now. “Wait! Let me take it off,” she added before the girl could pull out all the pins in her eagerness to shed the unwanted garment.

When Tegan had changed back into her boyish costume, and both twins were poised to bolt, Clare said, “I wanted to speak to you.” They marched behind her to the solar with jutting jaws and burning eyes, clearly primed for a reprimand. Clare felt that she could read them rather well by this time, and she thought they were anticipating injustice. They had kept their part of the bargain, their expressions said, enduring the purgatory of dress fittings. Now they were going to be berated for the
way
they had done so. Had they ever promised to
like
it? Once again, Clare had to repress a smile. She could almost hear their indignant protests, and she so enjoyed upending their expectations.

In her sitting room, she settled herself on the old sofa. “Your brother has been making some purchases for the stables,” she began. This got their attention. “We wondered if you would care to have a pair of ponies for your own use?”

The girls froze. They seemed to hold their breath. “Ponies?” whispered Tegan. Her face showed that she had longed for this so much, for so long, that she didn't dare believe.

“Of course, if you are not interested…” Clare couldn't resist teasing just a little.

“Yes!” exclaimed Tegan.

“We are,” cried Tamsyn at the same instant.

“Splendid. We will get some mounts then for the two young ladies of Trehearth.”

Tegan's dark eyes narrowed. “Ladies,” Tamsyn repeated.

Clare smiled. The twins looked at each other, then went and sat down opposite her like canny traders in the market square. “I expect we will have many more visitors from now on,” Clare continued. “Your brother has been calling at our neighbors' houses. We'll no doubt receive calls in return.”

“
You
will,” responded Tegan. Her sister kicked her ankle. “Ow!”

“The family will. And I think it would show a… commendable respect for others' sensibilities if you wore your lovely new dresses rather than your… old clothes.”

“When there are callers,” said Tamsyn.

“Well, yes, but we cannot always predict when people may call, can we?” Clare pointed out. “So it would be best to be prepared…”

“You want us to wear dresses
all
day
?” burst from Tegan.

“I would like that to be your habitual clothing,” Clare replied, voice firm. “When you are out on your ponies, of course…”

“I will
never
ride sidesaddle,” Tegan declared, eyes flashing as if she would go to the stake over this issue.

“You may wear your breeches when you are riding in the countryside.” It was Clare's big concession, though she doubted the twins would see it so. She hoped to gradually wean them into proper riding habits.

The girls looked into each other's eyes, communing in silent debate. The phrase “riding in the countryside” had obviously exerted an extraordinary pull. “All right,” said Tamsyn finally.

“I have your word?” Clare waited until Tegan nodded as well. “And when you do go riding, you must always tell someone where you're going. And return at an agreed-upon time.”

“What if something happens and we're late?” Tegan said. “Or if I… we forget about the dresses, make a mistake? Will you take the ponies away from us?”

In their faces Clare read a whole history of disappointments, of solitude, perhaps of mockery, of hopes continually dashed. She also thought she glimpsed a heartbreaking desire to trust, though she wasn't certain the twins were aware of it. Why was she bargaining with children? “No, I won't do that,” she said.

The girls' dark eyes said they wanted to believe her. Obviously, they didn't quite dare.

“We might restrict your riding time, depending on the circumstances. You won't be blamed for things that are not your fault. But you will be expected to be responsible.” Surely parents did it that way, Clare thought? And then she went stock-still on the sofa. Parents. She hadn't borne the twins, but she would be in the position of their mother for the next eight years, at least. It hadn't really hit her till now. She'd been thinking of them as a challenging task, a puzzle to be worked out—not as her children. But these weren't her charges as governess, to be cajoled and taught for a few years and then left behind—ultimately the responsibility of someone else. They were, for all intents and purposes, hers. The idea was frightening and oddly exciting at the same time.

The twins were looking at her strangely. “We would very much like to have ponies,” said Tamsyn carefully.

Clare watched her make an effort to speak properly and sit very straight, as one of their late unlamented governesses must have nagged them to do.

“Yes, please,” said Tegan. Aware of her sister, as always, she mimicked her posture.

“We will wear the dresses,” said Tamsyn. “And we will be careful—”

“And take really good care of them!” Tegan broke in.

Clare smiled. “That's settled then. I believe the ponies will arrive tomorrow.”

“You bought them already?”

Was
this
an
admission
of
weakness?
Clare wondered. She found she didn't care. “I thought I could count on you.”

Tamsyn blinked as if startled.

“What…?” Tegan had to swallow before continuing. “What time will they come?”

“I'm not sure about that. I will have to ask your brother. It might not be till quite late in the day,” Clare warned. Then and there, she vowed she would send John Pendennis to fetch the ponies if no one else was available.

Tegan nodded and stood up. Tamsyn rose beside her, then pulled at her sister's sleeve as Tegan turned to go. Tegan met her eyes. Together, they turned to Clare. “Thank you,” they said in perfect unison.

“You're most welcome.” She smiled again when she heard the girls' footsteps speed up into a run once they had passed through the doorway.

***

Despite Clare's warning, the twins were up at six and haunting the stables by eight. They were wearing dresses, however—some of their old ones that wouldn't be harmed by a bit of dirt. They moved rather awkwardly in them and occasionally shook out their skirts as if they were irritants. But they didn't complain.

The ponies arrived at eleven, led by a countryman on a horse not much larger. They were handsome dark brown animals, Clare saw when she came out to look them over, equipped with their own tack. Even better, they didn't take exception to Randolph, a complication that had only occurred to Clare the previous evening,
after
she had promised them the mounts. In fact, they seemed to find the huge dog a source of cordial interest, though he nearly matched their height at the shoulder. They didn't shy as Randolph bounded around the stableyard with his pink tongue hanging out, even when he attempted to lick them.

The twins hovered over their new mounts, touched them as if they might be illusions. Each girl talked quietly to her pony as they bent their necks. They'd come prepared with some bits of apple in their pockets. Clare watched them as they fell in love. “Do they know how to ride?” she asked John Pendennis quietly.

The old man nodded. “I've seen 'em on horseback a time or two. They're naturals, they are. But Albert and I will see that they can keep their seats before they ride off anywhere.” Albert, the new stableman, handled horses with genial expertise. Clare was content to leave matters in their hands.

When Jamie returned from inspecting the foundations for a new tenant cottage a bit later, he discovered his sisters back in their breeches, astride their new ponies, and in a state of mixed impatience and bliss. He could see that they were desperate to ride off immediately into the countryside. Before he put his foot in it by forbidding any premature expeditions, however, he became aware of the subtle cunning with which they were being manipulated. As the girls rode round and round one of the paddocks, getting accustomed to the new saddles and the ponies' gaits, Albert and John Pendennis talked, seemingly to each other, in clearly audible voices.

“A pony's got to trust you know what you're doing,” John said.

“Aye,” Albert agreed. Small and wiry, he was much younger than John, but he seemed to delight in taking on the manner of a codger. “They count on their riders and no mistake.”

“Jerk on the reins and you can tear up their mouths right bad.”

“Very delicate,” Albert affirmed. Jamie watched his sisters ease their grip on the leathers.

“Take 'em too fast over a bad spot of ground, and they can step in a rabbit hole and break a leg,” John Pendennis added.

His companion blew out a breath and shook his head. “Not much you can do when that happens.”

“It's a sad, sad thing to have to put a horse down.”

“Aye. It is that.”

The horror on his sisters' faces told Jamie that there was nothing he need do here. His sisters were in capable hands. He went inside to find Clare. “I've finished my round of calls,” he reported. “I stopped to see Graham Fox on my way south this morning.” The visits to his neighbors, which he'd resisted as long as possible, had turned out to be less difficult than he'd feared. He'd found the nearby landowners open and ready to welcome him, if he intended now to become an active part of the neighborhood.

“Oh good. I had a card from Marianne Palgrove inviting Tamsyn and Tegan to a children's party next week. It's Margaret's birthday.”

“Mar…?”

“The Palgroves' daughter.”

“That pretty little girl at church?” Jamie winced. “Are you joking? The twins will make mincemeat of her.”

“I don't think so. The arrival of their ponies has made a big difference. Thank you for finding them.”

Her smile warmed his heart but didn't still his doubts. “Clare, my sisters will see a children's party as an irresistible invitation to pull a prank. Everyone will end up covered in mud from the mill pond or… worse.” His mind boggled at the possibilities.

“I have some thoughts on that,” replied Clare serenely. Or perhaps insanely, Jamie thought. “And I will be there,” she added.

“Better you than me.” Jamie shuddered. “On your head be it then.”

“They have to learn to go about in society, Jamie.”

He knew that was true; he just didn't believe it could happen, despite recent improvements. “You haven't had to explain to the mistress of an infant school that your little sisters do
not
have permission to keep a pet snake. Or retrieve their brand-new bonnets from the manure pile.”

Clare couldn't help but laugh. “Surely
you
didn't…?”

“Who was I to ask to wade into the muck? John? Anna? Ruined my old buckskin breeches. The smell never came out. Yes, I can see how amusing that is.”

“I'm sorry. I'm sure it was quite horrid.”

“You have no notion.”

“I think they will try harder now that they have their ponies to… deserve.”

“I hope you're right.” Jamie didn't want to think further about his sisters' low standard of behavior and how much of it might be his fault.

“I promise I will keep an eye on them.”

She would, Jamie thought. And she had made great inroads already. It was a minor miracle. He wished he had something to give her in return, but he had not yet discovered a horse that matched his vision of a proper mount for his wife.

***

“It went well, generally,” Clare was able to report the following week. She and Jamie lay together in the tumbled sheets of her bed, bare skin painted by the firelight, senses sated by tumultuous lovemaking. Her whole body sang with the aftermath. Almost as pleasurable was the habit they'd begun to form of talking over the day as they drowsed toward sleep. “There was some difficulty when they were not allowed to ride their ponies to the party.”

“Mutiny, you mean,” murmured Jamie. He ran a fingertip along the curve of her shoulder and enjoyed seeing her shiver at his touch.

“Nearly,” Clare admitted. “And I thought they were going to take even further against their new dresses because they cannot ride in them. But we found a compromise.”

“They held you up for some concession,” Jamie translated.

“I am not so easily outsmarted.”

“Of course you are not.” He let his fingers wander down her silken arm and back up. Perhaps he wasn't particularly sleepy after all.

Clare's breath caught. His touch never failed to enflame her. “We agreed that they could make an expedition to an old stone circle on their ponies and take a picnic lunch, if they did well at the party.”

“Which stones?”

“The Merry Maidens.”

Not too far then, a matter of two miles, perhaps. Still, he couldn't quite imagine loosing the mounted twins on the countryside on their own. “I'm not sure…”

“Ah,” said Clare.

“Ah?” Jamie allowed his hand to rove over the curve of her breast, wanting to hear that syllable in a quite different tone.