When the Splendor Falls (12 page)

Hearing a crashing sound in the bushes, Leigh looked back, dread filling her, certain she would see the naked man come racing down the path. Relieved, Leigh laughed, for it was just Capitaine, tired of his game and trotting back to find them.

Leigh patted the colt’s back. “Thank you, little one,” she said softly, urging the mare down the path and away from the stream.

In the woods, standing beneath the tree, Neil Darcy Braedon was cursing his own stupidity. He knew there had been someone there, watching him, he’d felt it, but when the colt had shot from the trees he had allowed himself to believe there hadn’t been anyone after all, just that frisky colt. And it had proved just as elusive as its mistress.

He had been wrong, he thought in disgust as he stared down at the place where his clothes should have been. Nothing.

Stolen.

Damn, he thought again, wishing he could get his hands on the thief and wring his treacherous neck. Gone. His clothes had been stolen. And,
it
was gone too. The soft leather pouch that he wore suspended from a rawhide thong was missing—and inside that pouch his most treasured possessions. And most prized of all, the delicate silver dagger—his talisman.

A good luck charm to ward off evil spirits? Perhaps he believed in its power—perhaps not. But it was one of his few possessions from another time and he cherished it. Almost everything else from those seven years of captivity had been destroyed by his father.

Neil Braedon glanced around in distaste at the golden shadows of the glade. Only a short while ago it had seemed so enchanted. And for just an instant, he had let down his guard and allowed himself to dream. And that had been when something very precious had been stolen from him. Neil cursed himself for the fool he had been as he pulled out the clothes he’d planned to wear after his bath. He hadn’t wanted to arrive at Royal Bay dusty and disheveled, and looking half the savage in his buckskins.

But now…now he would wait…and he would search the glade and beyond until he found the thief who had stolen from him. He would take infinite pleasure in the punishment he had planned. But even as Neil savored that thought, he couldn’t quite banish the image of the girl with the long chestnut hair glistening in the sun, and he found himself wondering again about the color of her eyes.

Four

Blue, darkly, deeply, beautifully blue.

Robert Southey

Reaching Travers Hill had been far easier than Leigh had anticipated. Still breathless from her escape, she had rejoined Blythe and Julia on the lane, the stolen buckskins safely tucked beneath her damp posterior, and none-too-comfortably since something sharp kept stabbing her tender flesh. But not one suspicious glance or question had come from the two busily chatting occupants of the cart. And neither of them had noticed Leigh’s frequent backward glances, but since the road behind had remained empty Leigh hadn’t seen the need of informing them that they might be in serious danger of having their maidenly innocence compromised by the sight of a naked man.

The situation, however, had become slightly more difficult as they’d neared home. Upon reaching the curving drive leading up to the front of the house, Leigh had seen most of her family sitting on the veranda. Under the guise of stabling Damascena and Capitaine, and changing into another pair of stockings, Leigh had ridden around back unobserved. Blythe and Julia, reclining as if seated in a royal coach-and-four, had been pulled up to the front of the house by the shaggy little pony trotting as fast as his short legs could step, a wreath of flowers adorning his proudly held head. The pails of blackberries, and Julia’s overly excited and extremely exaggerated version of the afternoon’s activities, would guarantee her family’s interest long enough, Leigh had hoped, for her to enter the house and hide the buckskins with no one being any the wiser. Then, changing into a dry pair of pantalettes and chemise, she would join her family on the veranda as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred on this warm summer’s afternoon.

Leaving Damascena and Capitaine in the hands of a capable groom, who seemed to see nothing odd in the bundle of buckskin tucked beneath the young lady’s arm, Leigh had hurried along the flagstoned path from the stables. She passed the kitchen gardens with hardly a glance, nor did she give much attention to the washing hanging on the line on the other side of the path. Her goal had come into sight: the half-opened door to the scullery, which would give her access into the kitchens, pantry, larder, and laundry. Once inside, all she would have to do is hurry along the covered passageway between the kitchens and the big house, avoiding the open stretch of yard, where she might easily have been seen from her mother’s bedchamber window. Every afternoon, about this time, her mother would sit at her small slant-front desk next to the window, her spectacles perched low on her nose as she went over with Jolie in the minutest detail the menus and lists of chores for the following day. And Jolie standing ever vigilant at her mistress’s shoulder had a clear view of the yard below and observed all who came and went.

It was on the thought that she would have to be especially careful when passing by her mother’s bedchamber door that Leigh came to a sudden standstill. Standing in the middle of the kitchen yard, a tall, thin, coppery-skinned woman stood surveying her small kingdom, and the busy maids laundering the family’s linens.

Jolie!

Leigh sighed at the hopelessness of it all. To have come this far without detection, and all for nothing—because
nothing
, beast or human, would get past those narrowed, strangely tinted yellowish-brown eyes.

Still partly hidden by the long line of washing, Leigh stayed where she was, trying to decide the best course of action. She couldn’t reach the house without being seen, and Jolie would be certain to spy the bundle of buckskin. And she couldn’t retrace her steps now, because Jolie had moved to the far end of the yard, where she had an unobstructed view of the stables across the greensward. And there was no place to hide either herself or the buckskins, Leigh thought as she eyed the freshly turned earth of the newly planted herb garden adjacent to the stone wall that paralleled the path. She was trapped. Leigh looked down at the buckskins in her arms, wishing she could toss them over the wall, but it was too far away. Hearing Jolie’s voice moving closer, Leigh knelt down, the buckskins hugged close against her breast. Gradually, she became aware of the almost overpowering odor of leather, horses, and sweat that permeated the man’s clothes—there was also the faint fragrance of lavender and roses from where she’d sat on them in her damp pantalettes.

Leigh grimaced, damning the buckskins even more as she stood up, but holding them at a fastidious distance from her person now. Glancing back into the yard, she wished she could drop the offending buckskins into a tub of soapy water. She had forgotten the washing would be done today instead of tomorrow, the usual day, since there was so much cleaning and baking to be done this week in preparation for Blythe’s birthday party. As long as she stayed hidden behind the gently swaying row of clean drawers and lacy chemises, Jolie might not see her, but she couldn’t stay behind the wet laundry forever, Leigh fretted. She heard giggling, followed by hastily hushed whispers, and glanced between the frilly legs of a pair of pantalettes.

Spread out across the yard were various-sized washing tubs. Each had a washerwoman bent over its rim, arms elbow-high in soapy lather as the piles of soiled clothes were being meticulously scrubbed of stains before being rinsed several times in another tub of clear water. Finally placed in the big copper furnace, the linens would be boiled to a pristine whiteness before being wrung and hung out to dry. It was an endless chore that came all too soon every Monday, and the whole household was in an uproar as Jolie gathered her troops and tracked down all of the dirty linens and clothing, then sorted and counted and checked every piece for spots and stains and mending chores. And tonight, Leigh knew that half of the maids would be standing over the ironing boards in the laundry pressing the intricate ruffled collars and cuffs and frills on the finest garments.

The mistress of Travers Hill was very particular about the family’s linens and clothing. Although some articles might have been mended many times over, never would a guest discover a soiled and torn, unpressed sheet on a bed, or a family member be allowed to wear a garment that hadn’t been properly laundered. Perhaps a person might be clad in darned stockings and mended cuffs, but they still had their pride, Beatrice Amelia was fond of reminding her family.

Slowly, Leigh moved along the path, staying hidden behind the wet clothes. Once or twice she risked another glance, but Jolie seemed to be everywhere, and constantly eyeing everything. Leigh was still standing indecisively behind a pair of her father’s drawers, when one of the youngest laundry maids came walking around the far end of the line of washing, a big basket heavy with dripping linens balanced on her hip. As Leigh watched, she began to hang the assorted collars, cuffs, handkerchiefs, and stockings, carefully secured with wooden pegs, along the length of flaxen line.

“Jassy,” Leigh said softly, glancing over the pair of drawers to where Jolie now stood beside a harassed washerwoman, the cuffs she’d been scrubbing apparently not meeting Jolie’s high standard of excellence.

Jassy gave a small cry of surprise, then smiled when she recognized the young mistress. “Oh, Miz Leigh, you scared me so! It’s that Jolie, sneakin’ up behind me, I was thinkin’. Don’t want no more of her pinches. I worked harder this day than I ever have. An’ still that ol’ Jolie comes a-pinchin’ an’ a-slappin’ an’ a-puttin’ that evil eye of hers on me. An’ now, I’ve finished this batch, an’ then she’ll give me a bigger batch to do, an’ I’ll never get dinner tonight, ’cause I’ve the ironin’ to do an’ then the foldin’ an’ then the puttin’ up, an’ it’s Sunday an’ we have biscuits, an’ maybe some fried catfish. Dan’l an’ Sweet John been fishin’, Miz Leigh. That Jolie, she’s a mean one. It’s that savage blood from her papa, I reckon.”

Leigh grinned, thinking she had just discovered the solution to both of their problems. “Would you wash these, Jassy?” Leigh suggested, shoving the bundle of buckskin toward the startled girl. “They won’t take long. And Jolie will be pleased and she’ll leave you alone.”

Now she could walk leisurely into the house without making Jolie any more suspicious than usual, Leigh thought, and she would have the stranger’s buckskins washed before she returned them—which, considering their condition, was a great kindness on her part—and Jassy could avoid Jolie’s wrath.

Jassy frowned as she stared down at the buckskin breeches she now held out in front of her. “These men’s britches,” she said in amazement. “An’ a mighty long-legged one at that. Where’d you get these, Miz Leigh?” she demanded, looking them over with a critical eye. “These aren’t a gentleman’s britches!” she suddenly exclaimed, lifting her nose with a disdainful sniff.

“Shhhssh!” Leigh hushed her, cringing down even lower.

“How’d you get hold of these, Miz Leigh? Yer mama’s not goin’ to like this any if she finds out,” Jassy said wisely, for everyone knew that the mistress of Travers Hill was a proper lady.

“Please, Jassy, just wash them for me,” Leigh pleaded, peeking across the washing to where Jolie still stood, hands on her hips, but Leigh would have sworn Jolie had moved a tub closer. “It is a secret.”

“A secret?” Jassy asked, a doubtful look on her face as she held up the shirt. “They must be Mister Guy’s? That’s it! Always doin’ somethin’ he shouldn’t be. But I don’t know where he’s goin’ to wear somethin’ like these ol’ britches. An’ they’re too long fer him anyway. He’s almost as short legged as Mister Stuart. What’s this? You want it washed too?”

Leigh was just as startled to see the leather pouch drop to the path when Jassy shook out the shirt. It was the first time she’d seen it, but when Leigh picked it up and felt the shape of various items within—and one particularly sharp item—she suspected it was what she’d been sitting on.

“Don’t you worry about this, I’ll take it with me,” she said, hardly able to contain her curiosity about its contents. “Hurry now, Jassy, and wash those buckskins for me before Jolie finds out and has you washing all those bed linens instead. I’ll do something special for you,” Leigh promised, and since Jassy knew her word was good, she nodded, placing the buckskins in the empty basket as she turned and ambled toward the big tub, her gaze steady on Jolie as she waited her chance to sneak the dirty clothes into the soapy water.

Seeing Jolie with her back turned slightly, and the buckskins now safely immersed in the soapy water, Leigh hurried toward the house, certain she had successfully made her escape yet again today.

She had almost reached the house when she heard her name called out. Glancing around, Leigh managed an innocent look as she greeted Jolie, but never stopping as she continued toward the house, keeping the buckskin pouch hidden beneath a fold of her skirt.

Fortunately, Leigh didn’t see the look of dumbfounded surprise crossing Jolie’s high-cheekboned face when she caught sight of Leigh’s bare legs. She was also spared the glint that came into Jolie’s eye as she watched Leigh’s slender figure disappear inside the house with undue haste.

Hurrying across the rough brick flooring of the scullery, and not easily sidestepping the big iron pots and pans that were stored and cleaned there, Leigh entered the kitchens. The room was hot and airless, but cheerful with its white walls that reflected the sunlight pouring in from the two big windows. Bright red geraniums and Jolie’s special medicinal herbs were spaced along the deep sills in small clay pots. A fat calico cat that guarded the kitchens at night from marauding mice was curled up asleep in a spot of sunlight that bathed the sill in a warm golden glow. Bunches of rosemary, thyme, saffron, sage, parsley, dill, tansy, and assorted cooking herbs from the garden were being dried from the rafters where baskets of every weave, shape, and size dangled from hooks. The kitchen was redolent of savory aromas rising with the steam from the copper pots swinging over the fire in the great fireplace. Freshly baked beaten biscuits, browned to a light golden color, were being lifted from the oven on a long-handled wooden paddle. Earthenware bowls of creamy churned butter, eggs, honey, walnuts and pecans, lemons and oranges, flour, a pitcher of sweet milk, a cup of brandy, chunks of chocolate, and small bowls of cinnamon, nutmeg, mace, cloves, and ginger were crowded together at one end of the big table sitting square in the center of the kitchen. Rosamundi, the only kitchen maid Jolie trusted to measure out a recipe and prepare it without step-by-step supervision, was busy at her task. While still warm from the oven, the pecan and orange-nut bars, cinnamon squares, brownies, and brandy balls she was making would be carefully packed into tins. The treats were bound for luncheon baskets at the end of the week when many a guest faced a long journey home—the brimming picnic basket a tasty reminder of Travers Hill’s famed hospitality.