The Kidnapped Bride (23 page)

“But that’s disgraceful!” exclaimed her ladyship. “Things were never used to be so bad as that.”

“No, but since the patrols have been reduced or eliminated, things have become much worse. We’ve asked for the Army to send in a unit or two, but so far our requests seem to fall on deaf ears.”

Something in his expression made Sarah think Nicholas was either dissembling or neglecting to tell the whole tale, but she didn’t feel that she had enough courage at the moment to call him on it, and his redoubtable mother didn’t seem to notice.

Sarah and Miss Penistone did not normally stay so late at the main house, so after they had finished their tea, Sarah responded immediately to her companion’s subtle signal and began saying their good-nights. Nicholas stood when they did, of course, but it quickly became clear that he meant to accompany them.

“It isn’t necessary, my lord,” Sarah protested. “Our front door is scarcely more than fifty yards from here!”

“It is a good deal later than usual, Countess, and the woods are very dark. I shall be easier in my mind if I know you have arrived safely.” He spoke calmly and even smiled, but Sarah knew it would be useless to argue with him.

“I own it will be comforting to have your lordship’s escort,” Miss Penistone said serenely. “One never knows what might be lurking behind the next tree.”

Lady Packwood chuckled. “Most likely, my grandson would be the only bogey out there, Miss Penistone, and I doubt he has it in him to frighten you. Besides, after what I hear about last night, I daresay he has gone very sensibly to his bed.”

“He better had,” observed his lordship with a grim smile. “It would do him no good to let me catch him in the woods tonight.”

“What’s that?” Sir Percival seemed to have slipped into a doze and been startled awake again. He brushed crumbs from his neckcloth and reached for his snuffbox. “Who’s in the woods? Not murderers again, I hope. Told you to be careful, my sweet,” he added accusingly, opening the case with a practiced flick of his thumbnail. “Don’t hold with murderers.”

Lady Packwood patted his knee comfortingly. “No murderers, my love. Nicky is merely preparing to escort Sarah and Miss Penistone to the Dower House, because the path is a trifle gloomy.”

“Dower House?” He helped himself to a generous pinch of snuff. “Thought you said the place was a wreck. Pretty young thing like that oughtn’t to live in a rat trap. Speak to Moreland about it. Might listen to you. Daresay he wouldn’t to me.”

Sir Percival seemed to be still half asleep, and Sarah nearly laughed when Nicholas left the task of explaining matters to his mother and escorted them outside. The moon shone brightly between drifting clouds, and she was very conscious of his presence. Once, when she nearly stumbled on a tree root, his hand was at her elbow immediately to steady her. He took it away again at once, but she could still feel the warmth of his hand where he had touched her.

They reached the broad stone steps, and Betsy opened the door to greet them, spilling light from the front hall onto the porch.

“You should have a manservant to tend that door,” Nicholas said suddenly, his voice loud in the night. “A houseful of women—there should be at least one man. That Betsy would be no match for an intruder.”

“As you please, my lord,” Sarah said meekly, though she was thinking that Lady Packwood was very likely right and Colin the only probable intruder. It seemed hardly possible that Erebus had treed his ghost only the night before. She smiled at the memory, as the big dog lumbered forth from his place under the stairs to greet them.

“He seems very much at home,” Nicholas commented as he reduced him to abject slavery by scratching between his ears and down the center of the broad back.

“He sleeps outside,” Sarah said firmly. “Come on, dog. Out!” She turned to say good night to his lordship but was confounded when he simply escorted her inside and shut the door on the long-suffering Erebus.

“I wish to have a word with you, Countess, if Miss Penistone will excuse us.” He glanced at Penny, and to Sarah’s astonishment, her protectress merely nodded acquiescence and turned away upstairs. “In the drawing room, my lady?”

He opened the door for her, and still in a state of shock from Penny’s desertion, she obeyed him silently. The lamps were still lit, and their light cast a rosy glow over the comfortable room. Sarah turned to face him, squaring her shoulders.

“If you are displeased with me for telling your mother about this morning, my lord, I apologize. She is very easy to talk with, and I told her without thinking how you might feel.”

“That doesn’t matter,” he said brusquely. “Did you really think I would forbid your riding altogether?”

So that was it. She turned away, biting her lip, amazed that he would care what she thought about his arbitrary orders.

“Well, did you?”

She shook her head. “Not really, I suppose, though I wasn’t sure, of course.”

“My God, Sarah, I am not your keeper, nor am I a brute!” His words were gruff, as though he were really shaken. “How could you think for a moment that I should be so harsh with you?”

“You were angry,” she muttered. “You behaved so strangely, I didn’t know what to think. And then …” Her voice faded. She caught her breath. He was standing right behind her. “… and then, it was so humiliating … what you said in the stableyard.”

At that, she felt his hands gently upon her shoulders, and to her own amazement and his lordship’s consternation, Sarah’s eyes overflowed and tears streamed down her cheeks.

“W
HAT A BEAST I
am,” Nicholas said gently, dislodging a large linen handkerchief from his waistcoat pocket and dabbing at her cheeks with it. “I am truly sorry if you were humiliated. I only meant to be certain my orders were obeyed. As for the other, I can only ask your forgiveness. I don’t know what came over me, but I had no right.” He paused and seemed a bit uncertain. Sarah took the handkerchief and rubbed her eyes and cheeks. She could not quite bring herself to blow her nose on Nicholas’s handkerchief, so she sniffed instead, handing it back to him.

He shook his head at her. “Poor, foolish little Countess. Your world has indeed been turned upside down. I shall try not to make matters any worse.” But he stood looking down at her in a way that made Sarah avoid his eyes entirely. He was being gentle and kind for once, and it unnerved her a little, although she was perfectly certain that it was only because he had made her cry. Sarah knew very well that most gentlemen were unmanned by feminine weeping. She had used it to her advantage upon more than one occasion.

“Miss Sarah!” It was Penny calling from the top of the stairs. “Has his lordship gone? Betsy must be longing for her bed.”

Nicholas stepped away. “His lordship is just leaving, Miss Penistone. Good night to you both, ladies.” And he was gone.

“He stayed rather longer than I anticipated, love,” said Penny, as Sarah climbed the stairs. “I hope nothing is amiss.” She wore a woolen wrapper and thick slippers, and her fine, glossy hair had been brushed till it shone and tied back with a narrow, white ribbon. The effect would have been rather startling to anyone but Sarah, for she looked twenty years younger.

Sarah smiled at her. “Dear Penny. Nothing is amiss. He merely wished to apologize for his behavior this morning. He did nothing out of the way, I promise you.”

“Oh, it never occurred to me that his lordship would transgress the bounds of propriety here under your own roof. He has too great a sense of what is pleasing to go beyond the line. I only feared you might somehow have vexed him again, and I worried lest another scold overset you. I well remember how her ladyship’s recriminations used to do so.”

That brought a chuckle. “Why, Penny, I do believe you are curious, for I’ve never heard such humdudgeon from your lips before. You know perfectly well what it meant each time I was summoned to my aunt’s dressing room, for you used to do your possible to protect me from such confrontations. I promise you his lordship’s scolds are much less physical!”

Miss Penistone smiled. “So I should hope, and I never meant you to compare the two in such a way. But get you to bed, child. Lizzie is waiting.”

Sarah dropped off to sleep, idly asking herself how a rake and a lady with very little elegance of mind could have produced a son quite like Nicholas, and Lady Packwood wondered the same thing aloud next morning as the two of them rode together slightly ahead of Sir Percival and his son. Nicholas had permitted them to ride with only these gentlemen for escort, though Sarah had seen from his expression that it went against the grain for him to do so. But to have sent a pair of grooms along might have set up the collective Packwood backs, and Nicholas resisted. He repeated his instructions that they not venture out onto the Common itself, however, adding that the highwaymen had been known to attack groups of horsemen.

“I don’t know how he got so fusty,” Lady. Packwood complained. “’Tis something about Moreland’s sons, perhaps, for William was just such another, only worse—a pompous prig. And that woman he married! Well, I tell you, the deplor—Darcy turned out well, considering.”

Sarah grinned. She was wearing her black riding habit because she knew it would displease Nicholas if she were to leave the Park dressed in colors, but she firmly intended to change into one of her favorite morning gowns when they returned, despite the fact that he had not yet actually given his permission. “Was he always so, ma’am?”

“Oh, my, no!” laughed her ladyship. “He was a serious little boy at times, but always ripe for a lark. There was a period of time when he and Darcy actually got along rather well and even got into mischief together. Whenever that happened, Moreland used to take Nicky into the library and give him a good sound thrashing, and that would be that; whereas, William would prose on and on about whatever wrong had been committed until Darcy must have nearly gone mad. William insisted it was wrong to beat children, that one should reason with them, explain their errors and so forth. Fortunately, Darcy’s schoolmasters didn’t agree, or he might have turned out even worse than he did.”

“But surely, ma’am, you don’t think it wrong to explain things to children when they misbehave!”

“Certainly not. But there has to be a limit. William used to bring the same matters up again and again, till there was no end to them. I think a child should have the security of knowing that once he has been punished the matter will not be referred to again. Otherwise, he either learns to let things prey upon his conscience, or else, like Darcy, he learns not to heed his misdeeds at all, to do simply as he pleases.”

Sarah nodded. “Yes, he was like that. But it seems that your first husband’s methods must have turned out types who worry too much about propriety.”

“Dear me, did I give you that impression? I never meant to. William was indeed a prig, but I’ve no notion what made him so. I expect it was something or other he read. As for Nicky, again I cannot say what did it, though I am beginning to have my suspicions.” She smiled enigmatically at Sarah and then added airily, “I daresay it was something to do with the war—all those young things under his command. He got into the habit then, I expect, of ordering others about.”

“Here, my sweet, ride with me. I didn’t follow you to Yorkshire just to suffer that young whelp’s conversation in a gloomy wood.”

“Very well, sir. He did, too,” she added to Sarah, as she drew rein. “Follow me to Yorkshire, that is. I shall tell you all about it later. Here, Lionel, come up and bore poor Sarah with some of your idle chitchat.”

The younger man obeyed, lifting an ironic eyebrow for Sarah’s benefit. But she paid him no heed then and very little as they meandered along the wooded path. The sunlight danced through the leaves as it had done the previous morning, and the air was warm and clear. The taste of summer was on the breeze that gently stirred leaves here and there, and summer wildflowers were replacing their spring sisters in the occasional grassy clearings.

Sarah took a deep breath, savoring the woodland smells, until Lionel’s words pierced her consciousness, and she realized that he was suddenly waxing poetic over her hair, her eyes, her lips, her skin. Since he compared the latter two to cherries and strawberries respectively, she was nearly betrayed into a chuckle when she envisioned herself suddenly transformed into a bowl of fruit. However, she restrained herself and turned on him sternly.

“Do talk sense, Lionel! The things you have been saying are very improper and nonsense besides.”

“You didn’t seem to mind,” he replied, to her astonishment nearly leering.

“Don’t be absurd. I wasn’t even attending. I found your initial conversation deadly dull, and I simply turned my mind to more interesting things.” Harsh words, perhaps, but the young man seemed thick-skinned.

“You are merely being coy, Sarah. I can tell, you know. ’Tis because of Cousin Nick, of course. You think he means to order your life henceforth, because of that awful Darcy. But he shan’t, for I won’t let him.”

“Oh, Lionel, do hush before you say anything more absurd than you have already said. I don’t need any protection from
Lord Moreland
, and if I did, I shouldn’t look to you. No, hush, or I shall tell your stepmama that you are annoying me.” Flushing deeply, Lionel lapsed into uncomfortable silence, which allowed Sarah to return to her daydreaming.

The morning rides became a daily occurrence, and Sarah could only be glad when Nicholas sometimes took Lionel’s place. The younger man continued to cast sheep’s eyes at her and was guilty of a knowing wink or two, but he behaved himself after Sarah’s threat, and she soon ceased to worry about him, although Colin teased her unmercifully about her “newest conquest.” Every once in a while, the boy looked a bit mischievous while he was “ragging” her, as he called it, and she wondered what he had been up to, but she did not press the matter.

Lady Packwood, visiting Sarah in the Dower House drawing room and complimenting her generously on the changes that she had wrought, made good her promise to tell about Sir Percival’s pursuit, and Sarah was amazed to discover that the lady she thought had been buried in Yorkshire was a seasoned traveler. Having spent time in Paris, Rome, Baden-Baden, and Lucerne, among other places, her ladyship had met Sir Percival in Bath and realized that he would suit her to a nicety.