Twixt Two Equal Armies (34 page)

A chance idea sprang into her head and she was suddenly struck with the possibilities it held. Her mother would not like it . . . but once she had entertained the prospect she could not let it go. It may be impulsive, but action needed to be taken. She would ask.

“Mr Pembroke?” Holly managed to say after several false starts and hesitations.

He looked up from his page and turned toward her, obviously surprised she would even address him. “Yes?”

“When do you leave for Edinburgh?”

“
S
TILL QUATE, AYE?”

“Like the chuchyard.”

It was a rare moment. Mrs McLaughlin had walked over from a household in perfect state of organisation and pristine cleanliness to spend the rest of her afternoon helping her cousin. But as she arrived and swung her heavy basket to rest on the kitchen table, she realised her cousin needed no help. The Rosefarm kitchen was silent and Mrs Higgins was sitting in her chair by the hearth, knitting, though perhaps spending more time pulling at the yarn and twisting it idly between her fingers than around her knitting needles. She looked up, ready to be interrupted and glanced at Mrs McLaughlin’s load.

“Is that what I think it is?”

“Well, I didnae know what to do with it and since I now make dinners for only one — and rarely proper ones at that — and you still have three to see to, you’re welcome to it.”

Mrs Higgins slowly lifted herself out of her chair and came to inspect the basket.

“Mm,” she said. “Nice. His lairdship had good luck then?”

“He shoots at everything that moves it seems,” Mrs McLaughlin said sourly. “I cannae tell what it is about him. If he were bored, he’d leave, so that’s nae it. But it is something. Probably that Mr Darcy’s fault somewey.”

“Things aren’t the same here either since Miss Bennet left,” Mrs Higgins said, but with much more regret for the departed than Mrs McLaughlin was able to muster. “Although that’s nae all her fault.”

The silent accusation against the last remaining houseguest hung heavy in the air and needed no words to be shared.

“Well, at least we’ll have meat for dinner. And proper meat. Thank you, Heather.”

“No, you’re doing me a good turn. Donnae mention it. Just eat it.”

B
AUGHAM WAS INDEED AT LOOSE
ends. He could not articulate why, but once Darcy had gone and he was left to himself again, he was beset with a sense of restlessness and incapacity. Somehow, whenever he sat in his library trying to let a book transport him away from his own thoughts and surroundings, their last conversation ran through his mind as fresh as if the words had just been spoken.

“Behave myself!” his lordship swore. “Who is there to take offence when I do my behaving in perfect solitude and internment indoors!”

That same pained sentiment was repeated on the days when, weather permitting, he set out on his own to hunt away his frustration outdoors,

“Well?” he asked the pheasant as he picked it out of his dog’s mouth. “
You’re
quite offended, I dare say, but I hear no other complaints as to my behaviour.”

Slowly he managed to shake off Darcy’s uncomfortable implications that his Town self could not be separate from his Clyne self after all, and that there was danger the two should somehow mix. Not that he could understand how Darcy had even thought there might be females around here worth setting up in such a game as one could enjoy with ease in London. But still. Even if he could, he never would. Such a notion was ridiculous and really quite insulting. As if that was not the essence of the whole idea of Clyne! That it was separate, different and a shelter. Damn Darcy when he got onto his high horse and played at that ridiculous notion of
noblesse oblige
and moral high ground!

When he could finally leave his indignation and that nagging little voice questioning the force of his reaction behind, there was still the matter of what his friend had led him to understand he was about. Why was there no news? Aside from Darcy occasionally putting his sense of chivalry before his belief in their friendship in the most annoying way, he was usually a most loyal friend and no news of his professed mission in Hertfordshire was puzzling. Why was there no letter?

Baugham sat on his horse after having driven him hard over the fields up to the highest fell in the neighbourhood and looked down at the rolling landscape below. Far away he could see the hazy contours of a church spire and a few dark spots gathered around it. Clanough.

“No,” he muttered. “I will not. If there is news, he will tell me himself. I know he will.”

I
T WAS AN EXCELLENT AND
rational resolution to stay away from any potential source of news on the matter, and it took him a further day to find an even more rational and excellent reason to break it. He had a packet from London; no letter from Darcy, alas, but there was a bundle of newspapers. Also, Mrs McLaughlin had given him a foul look when he came home that morning with two partridges tied together over his shoulder.

“I will take them to someone who will appreciate them then,” Lord Baugham announced a little too merrily for Mrs McLaughlin to take as an insult and she quietly packed the birds up for him without comment.

But his expectations were cruelly disappointed and his cunning strategy wasted. It had started out well enough, with Mrs Tournier joining him after a little waiting in her parlour. He had a chance to look around him during that time and, to his surprise, noted that she seemed to have taken her work and her usual personal belongings elsewhere. The writing table held neither the familiar chaotic correspondence, newspapers and periodicals of the Mistress of the house, nor anything that looked like her daughter’s drawings and paraphernalia. Instead there was one sheet of paper, a few well-sharpened quills, an unopened inkhorn, and a thesaurus lying at aesthetically pleasing angles and looking like they had hardly been touched at all.

He was intrigued, but had no time to express his curiosity before Mrs Tournier followed his gaze and promptly stated that he was admiring the physical expression of a mind so convinced of its own perfect reasoning, it could not produce one piece of evidence or argument of its genius to convince the world’s doubters.

Baugham understood and quickly steered the conversation elsewhere and into more pleasant areas. When he inquired after Miss Tournier, however, he was informed that she had gone out on an extensive walk and should be back later. He took the news with what he supposed was indifference, feeling neither disappointed nor relieved.

They spent a very rewarding quarter of an hour as Mrs Tournier gratefully perused the periodicals brought by her guest, pointing out her acquaintances in the latest edition of the Chronicle, enlightening him as to whose output was worth his time and then moving on to the latest speculations on the war and its impact on domestic affairs, including Lord Sidmouth’s latest statements in Parliament.

Baugham enjoyed himself very much during those few minutes, but it was not to last. Once Mrs Higgins brought in the tea, Mr Pembroke joined them. He was astonished that the man would have the nerve to show himself at all after behaving so rudely at the Tristams, but he appeared to think nothing of it, rubbing his hands in anticipation and confessing he was starving for some cake and cold cuts, apparently in that order, for he made himself very much at home by helping himself to a large slice before sitting down very close to his lordship and leaning in confidentially.

“I say, I think I will somehow contrive to have you invited for tea every day for the remainder of my stay. The offerings today are much more suitable than what is customarily laid out.” He lifted his chin and sniffed the air disdainfully. “Unfortunately I cannot say as much for the tea . . . but do not despair, I have discovered a way to make it
nearly
tolerable.”

He raised his voice and addressed Mrs Tournier, who was then pouring. “Just half a cup, my dear, as usual.”

Lord Baugham was affronted for the lady at his tone and term of address and he could see her lips were so tightly pressed together they were beginning to go white. He stood and quickly crossed the room to take his cup from the lady. The question of cake caused a brief internal debate, but in the end he accepted the offered piece graciously, in the same spirit with which it was given.

He was in the delicate process of deciding just how to prepare his tea when Pembroke sauntered over to claim his half cup. With a wink directed at Baugham, he lifted the sugar dish and raked a prodigious amount directly into the cup. Next he added cream until it nearly reached the rim. Leaning in once more to his lordship, he muttered, “There now. Almost tolerable,” before returning to his seat with a generous helping of cold cuts as well.

The intruder’s presence — for despite the fact that he himself was the visitor, Baugham could not think of Pembroke in any other terms — put a damper on the conversation and soon he, in what would be a humorous turn were he not so annoyed, resorted to the very question Darcy put to him a few days earlier, through rather the same clenched teeth.

“And just how long will it be before you travel to Edinburgh, Mr Pembroke?”

Pembroke leaned back with an inexplicable, self-satisfied smile. “Actually, I will be leaving the day after tomorrow. Poor Mrs Tournier will be deprived of all her company almost at the same time.”

“I am sure,” Baugham addressed the lady, “that you do not look upon having only your daughter for company as any sort of hardship.”

“Not at all,” was the terse reply.

With a rather irritating smirk on his face, Pembroke raised his cup and emptied it. Baugham watched in disbelief as he returned to the tray, served himself another helping of cake and reached again for the teapot. He was aware of Mrs Tournier’s seething resentment as she sat in her chair, strategically placed as far away from the tea tray as it was from the writing table, but she neither spoke nor reacted to Mr Pembroke’s elaborate display of another splash of tea followed by a good dollop of cream and several spoonfulls of sugar.

“Such a dreary day,” Pembroke said, moving his spoon lightly back and forth in the liquid. “So fatiguing to have nothing to do. What does one do with oneself in such beastly weather in this tiny corner of the world anyway?”

Baugham could not remove his eyes from Mr Pembroke’s light grasp on the spoon and his ineffectual blending that seemed to go on and on without any attempt at reaching the bottom of the cup, but just swirling around in the liquid on the surface.

“Just stir it!” he impulsively thought, not realising he had uttered it out loud until Mrs Tournier looked up and the ghost of a smirk moved across her face.

“I beg your pardon?” Pembroke stopped his movements and stared at his lordship.

“Nothing,” Baugham muttered. “I . . . I was thinking of . . . what to do. When the weather is like this. Stirring things . . . up. So to speak.” And he went on vigorously stirring his own very sugarless and creamless cup.

“Stir things up?” For some reason Pembroke’s smirk returned. “Hm, sounds . . . intriguing. Perhaps I might just take your advice, my lord.”

Baugham refused to acknowledge him with anything but a thin smile and for a while the clinking of china and the ring of silver was all that could be heard. He tried to resume his conversation with his hostess, but apparently she had no stomach for discourse in the presence of her guest. Therefore the topics remained the difficulty of the weather, the difficulties of the conveyance of the mail all the way from Edinburgh and the difficulty of living with the burden of talent generally.

It did not take long until Baugham had had enough. At the earliest possible moment he rose in order to excuse himself, but there he was pre-empted by Mr Pembroke.

“You must excuse me,” he said languidly, “I think I shall take myself upstairs and rest for a while before dinner. No, my dear Mrs Tournier, please do not exert yourself, I shall take my last cup of tea with me, that will be quite sufficient.

Mrs Tournier’s cold eyes followed him as he piled the rest of his dishes on the cushion beside him with a clatter and rose, heading for the tray once more.

Baugham turned to Mrs Tournier. “Thank you, madam,” he said curtly. “Most sincerely. Until next time.”

He cut off Mr Pembroke’s advance, sweeping past what was left of the display of tea, snatching the sugar bowl from the middle of the left-overs and, without so much as a glance at Mr Pembroke, stalked out of the room, headed for the kitchen and thrust the sugar bowl into the hands of the astonished Mrs Higgins.

“Hide it,” he said. “And if anyone other than Mrs Tournier asks for it, tell them I took it with me.”

Then, without waiting for a reply, he swept out the door in long and urgent strides and within minutes he was galloping the long way back to Clyne.

I
F ONLY HER ARMS WERE
an inch or two longer, much embarrassment and discomfort might have been very easily avoided. As it was, Holly was presently perched precariously on a stone, leaning out over the bank of the Kye River and reaching across for all she was worth for a bit of tangled line.

Lately to Holly, any day, or afternoon, or hour without rain was an occasion to escape outside to walk and think and plan. This afternoon she took the opportunity of what promised to be an extended period of clear skies to make the long trek to gather the last Agrimony plants of the season. And just in time too, she reasoned, because the icy wind that blew through her cloak told her a hard frost was on its way, if not tonight then very soon. She drew it tightly about her and pulled the hood down as far as she could as she made her way rapidly to the quiet pool near the river that bordered the Clyne grounds. Yes, she knew that she was, strictly speaking, trespassing, but she reasoned that it was not her fault that the Agrimony grew on Lord Baugham’s side of the river. Also, she rationalised, she had collected it every year since she had found it growing wild there. Was she supposed to just let it go to waste because his lordship felt peevish about it? A brief irritation flashed through her as she found herself having to justify an action that she had never before thought twice about.