Carla Kelly (12 page)

She pointed into the distant field. “It is Joseph, and he is much too close to the squire’s land. What is the fascination, I would like to know?” she asked herself out loud. “Some days he is worse than a two-year-old.”

They both watched in silence, Libby tense, a frown creasing her forehead, and the duke, interested and curious about Joseph.

Libby relaxed finally. “That’s right, Joe, go back into the woods,” she said softly, and then looked at the duke. “It appears he is heading into our woods now, thank the Lord.”

She picked up her brush again and approached the canvas on the easel as the duke made the decision to meddle a little.

He considered the matter. If he asked no questions, if he did not become involved in these lives, beyond an appreciative glance now and then at Libby’s ankles, or her trim figure, he could leave this place in a few days, report to Eustace, and return to London.

But he had to ask, and somehow he knew it would make a difference.

“Libby, has Joseph always been . . . well, slow?”

There. He had asked. In some inscrutable fashion, at least in his own mind, he had become involved at last with the Ames family.

Libby seemed not to realize the momentous quality of his question. She merely sighed and sat down beside him on the boulder. He obligingly moved over to make room, but he didn’t move too far.

She fiddled with her bonnet strings, as if forming an answer in her mind, and then turned to him.

“Do you know, Mr. Du—Nez, sometimes I wish he had always been slow. Then it would bother him less because he wouldn’t remember other times. No, he has not always been the way you see him now. There was a time . . .” Her voice wandered off and he could tell by her expression that she was somewhere far away.

“Once upon a time . . .” he offered helpfully, and she laughed, recalled to the present.

“No! Where you ever in Spain?”

He shook his head.

“I did not think so. You could never mistake Spain for a fairy tale. No, Joseph was thrown from his horse during the retreat from Burgos, four, five years ago. He was twelve.” She paused again, remembering. “The path was icy and we were being harried rather close from the rear.” She shuddered at the memory. “He hit his head on a stone. It didn’t seem to be anything serious at first, but he did not regain consciousness and his head started to swell.”

“Was there a doctor?”

“No. He had been killed in the retreat, and in any case, we could not stop until nightfall.”

Libby got off the rock, as if the memory were hurrying her along, too. “Poor Joseph! Poor Papa! He had just given Joe the horse for his twelfth birthday. Papa cried and blamed himself, and Mama, oh, how she carried on.”

“What did you do?” the duke asked.

“I found a Spanish doctor,” she said briskly, as if his question was a silly one. “Papa never was much good in domestic crisis. And Mama?” Libby shrugged. “They were so much alike.”

He looked at her with new respect. “You couldn’t have been over fourteen or fifteen yourself.”

“I was sixteen. The doctor came and was able to drain off some of the fluid. In a few days, the swelling went down, but Joseph was never the same again.”

Libby went back to the easel and picked up the brush again. “Poor Joe. For the longest time, he couldn’t remember anything. Gradually, some of his memory came back, but he doesn’t reason well anymore; emotionally he is very young.” She dabbed at her eyes. “It isn’t too bad, if you just don’t allow yourself to remember how he used to be . . .”

She just stood there, her eyes on the distant field, where Joseph had disappeared into the Ames’ wooded park. “But I have come to paint, sir,” she said at last, closing the subject beyond his powers to open it again without appearing a complete rudesby.

He had heard enough. He gazed at her with admiration, wondering at her strength, wishing there were some way to tap into it.

The rock was warm, and Libby had seriously come to paint, he decided after his few attempts to restore conversation failed to elicit more than a grunt and a “H’mm?” from her. The duke eased himself off the rock and sat down on the ground, leaning back against the boulder, letting the sun warm his shoulders.

He sat there, his mind engaged in no more intricate task than trying to decide which, out of an embarrassment of riches, was Libby Ames’ best feature. He admired her profile, the way her improbably long eyelashes swept her cheeks. Her mouth was formed in a pout as she concentrated, and he wished again that he had kissed her in the garden when she had expected him to. He liked the way she carried herself, head high, shoulders back. You look like a duchess, he thought. By God, but you do. She was not very tall. This first walk together into the orchard had shown her head to scarcely reach his shoulder. She was a tender little morsel who would fit quite handily under his arm, and probably be simple to pick up and carry away when he felt more like such a venturesome enterprise.

With that pleasant idea circulating in his brain, he dropped off to sleep.

When he woke, she was still painting, but she had moved the easel out into the sunshine, away from the shelter of the apple trees. Her bonnet dangled down her back and the pins had come out of her untidy hair until it spread around her face like a dandelion puff.

He smiled to himself, wondering again why she looked so good to him, in all her dishevelment and fierce concentration. After a moment’s thought, he realized with a start that she was the first woman he had admired in over a year that he wasn’t looking at through the fog of liquor. Everything about her was beautiful, and he was sober enough now to realize that his estimation of her would not change, because he saw her truly as she was.

“Eustace, I think you are about to be cut out,” he said, and didn’t realize he had spoken out loud until Libby gave him an inquiring look.

He got to his feet slowly, carefully, impatient with the pain in his legs, but grateful suddenly that he had crashed the gig and practically dismembered himself on the road in front of Holyoke Green. We can tell our children about this someday, and laugh a lot, he thought as he came closer and set Libby’s hat back upon her head.

“You’ll be brown as a Hottentot, and look, your cheeks are already pink,” he warned, touching her cheek.

She stuck her tongue out at him and turned back to the painting, but he took her in his arms and kissed her before she had time to take another breath or sketch another weed.

She smelled of sunshine and lavender, and her lips were wonderfully soft. She kissed him back with as much fervor as he dared hope for, and then she stepped back suddenly, her hands on his chest.

His hands went to her waist and stayed there. “I know why Dr. Cook rescued me from the road and the bottle,” he said quietly. “I am interesting to him. But why have you gone to this trouble?”

She did not move from his grasp. When he embraced her, the paintbrush had slashed a brown streak down the front of her muslin dress. She dabbed at the dress and then met his eyes. “I did it for the chocolate lovers of Kent,” she said, without a smile, but a gleam in her eyes that made him laugh out loud and turn her loose.

“It could be that I care,” she added softly, and seated herself on the boulder he had vacated.

He sat down again on the ground beside her and plucked a long-leafed wig. An ant was crawling up the stem. He turned the leaf this way and that. “Be serious, Libby,” he said.

She touched his head, and the gesture brought sudden tears to his eyes, so gentle were her fingers. “I hate to see waste, Nez.” She waited a moment and folded her hands in her lap. “Was there something at Waterloo that made you take to the bottle? I’ve known of such things.”

How simple. He knew that she would understand better than most young females because she had been raised in war. He also knew that he would not tell her much. He wouldn’t describe that nauseating sensation that filled his whole body when the smoke cleared off the battlefield and just before dark covered the land. She didn’t need to know that he had raised up on his knees and looked over the dead bodies of his entire brigade, strewn here and there, with only three other exceptions.

“There were only four of us left, Libby,” he said, keeping his voice deliberately toneless. “The brigade major, God damn him, a sergeant, and two privates. That was all.”

She was silent. Her hand went back to his head. “And it’s your fault?” she asked.

He looked at her, a question in his eyes.

“I mean, are you blaming yourself because you survived and they did not? Is it your fault you lived?”

He understood at last, for the first time in a year, and shook his head slowly, unable to speak.

“It’s such a small thing, Nez,” Libby said. “I hardly know how to say it, because it seems so simple. It’s time you forgave yourself because you survived.” She moved closer to him and he leaned against her leg. “Maybe it just comes down to that. Maybe it’s time you just let it alone.”

He could think of nothing to say because she was so absolutely right.

She sat beside him for another moment and then slid off the boulder, kissed the top of his head, and moved off gracefully from the orchard without a backward glance, giving him time to be by himself.

He leaned against the boulder again, feeling almost light-headed with relief that washed over him like a warm summer shower. He could not excuse the fact that he had ignored the three other survivors, following their return and discharge, but he knew that it was within his considerable powers to make it up to them now. He had been granted a reprieve from his personal hell by a little bit of a girl so practical and wise that he could only look at her with renewed admiration, and some other emotion that felt suspiciously like love.

He watched her with renewed interest, a smile on his face, as she walked slowly toward the open field that led to the edge of the Ames land. The bonnet still dangled down her back; he would have to remind her to wear it to save her skin.

The smile left his face. She stood still now, tensed, and then she threw herself into sudden motion, grabbing up her skirts to her knees and running toward the fence, waving her free hand and shouting something that the wind picked up and tossed away.

9

SHE would leave him alone to think about what she had said. Libby walked toward the pasture that bordered upon the squire’s land, her mind on her father. She remembered one night years ago with Papa, teasing the camp-fire coals with a stick and listening as he consoled one of his sergeants, the sole survivor of a sudden raid on his file by the French. “Let it alone, lad,” Major Thomas Ames had said. “You survived and it’s not your fault. Let it alone.”

Funny how his words should come back so clearly. And now I understand them, she thought. Libby looked behind her at the candy merchant, who still sat on the rock, his head bowed. Maybe things will be easier for him.

She was distracted from thoughts of her father by a whinny at the edge of the oak grove that marked the outer reach of the Ames land. Libby looked toward the sound, knowing that Joseph and Tunley, the groom, seldom exercised the horses so close to Squire Cook’s land. The Ames stallions had been known to jump the fence, which had caused all manner of ill until Uncle Ames had thrown up his hands in disgust and ordered the area beyond the pale of his own horses. “Though I do not suppose Squire Stiff-in-the-rump should object so loudly to free servicing,” he had complained once before his sister-in-law, her face scarlet, could hush him up in front of his daughter and niece.

Libby smiled at the memory of her mama, more genteel than the genteel, and her plainspoken brother-in-law. She waved to Joseph again and cupped her hands around her mouth.

“Joe, you know you should not be so close to Squire Cook’s land. Uncle will not be pleased.”

She watched as Joseph shrugged his shoulders elaborately so she could see the motion from a distance, and then stood behind the horse to the side. Libby frowned. She shaded her eyes with her hand this time and stood still as her brother petted the panting, heaving animal.

That can’t be one of Uncle Ames’ horses, she thought. She started walking again, faster this time, until she was running toward her brother and the horse.

She arrived, out of breath, full of questions, to watch, wide-eyed, as the animal strained, grunted, and gave birth to a colt. Libby clapped her hands in delight as the dark wet creature no larger than a dog, but with long, long legs, lay still a moment, sneezed, and began to struggle to its feet.

“Joseph,” she exclaimed, her voice softer now. “Oh, won’t Uncle Ames be so pleased. What a beautiful sight!” Libby reached out and touched the colt, laughing as its wet body twitched and it turned to nose her hand.

Joseph only smiled and stroked the mare. The horse whickered softly to him as he pulled his shirt off and began to wipe down the colt.

“Mama would have a screaming fit if she saw you doing that, Joe,” Libby warned. “Even if it isn’t your best shirt.”

“Mama is in Brighton,” Joseph replied, his eyes full of the colt, which rested under his brisk application of the shirt. “And I do not think Aunt Crabtree will look up from her solitaire long enough to see what I am about. If you don’t tell her,” he murmured, and then sat back. “And besides, Libby, this isn’t Uncle Ames’ mare.”

Libby sucked in her breath, all pleasure gone from the sight of the animal that even now struggled upright, wobbled, and fell over in the grass. “Joseph, you don’t mean . . .”

He sighed and nodded. “Squire Cook’s,” he said, and wadded up his shirt, tossing it from hand to hand.

“Joseph! Sometimes I wonder what possesses you,” she said, and then stood back as the mare nudged at the colt in the grass.

Joseph did not answer for a moment. He watched as the colt slowly rose again, wobbled forward toward its mother, and began to suckle. “I do not understand how they always seem to know what to do, Libby,” he said.

Libby took her brother by the shoulder and shook him. “Don’t you dare change the subject, Joseph.”

He looked at her, his eyes mild, and she knew there was no sense in arguing with him. “Libby, don’t be a goose,” he said. “She followed me.”

Libby sat down suddenly and drew her knees up to her chin. “Rather like Mary and her little lamb, I suppose you will tell me,” she grumbled.

Joseph laughed. “Exactly so! There is a weak spot in the fence and she must have come through.”

Libby flopped back on the grass and contemplated the clouds overhead while she counted to ten. “I suppose you could not have convinced her of the error of her ways and led her back?”

“Silly,” Joseph said. He sat down beside her. “Libby, I did lead her back, honestly, but do you know, the squire’s groom is drunk.” He looked over at the mare and colt again, each absorbed in the other. “I did not think it safe.” He was silent another moment. “Do you think Squire Cook will be angry?”

There were both silent. What would be the use of a full-strength scold, Libby thought as she regarded her brother. As simple as Joseph is at times, I know he is right on this occasion. Libby sat up and absently tugged at the grass, strewing it across her skirts. She thought of the squire’s angry face as he had sat fidgeting in her sitting room only a week ago, stirring his tea into a maelstrom and glowering at her.

“Well, perhaps when he sees the outcome, he will give us a chance to explain,” she said, her voice hesitant. If he doesn’t lock us up as public nuisances, she thought, unwilling to speak her fears out loud.

Joseph nodded and got to his feet. “I am sure you are right,” he said, “and look, here he comes now. I suppose we will have our opportunity.”

Startled, she turned around, stared, and gulped, wondering why her hands felt so wet all of a sudden and her throat so dry.

The squire raced toward them at a gallop, liberally working his riding crop on his beast, hunched low over its neck, shouting something that they could not hear. Joseph smiled and waved to him, motioning him closer.

“No, Joseph, don’t,” she said, her voice urgent as she tugged on his arm. “I do not think he is pleased at all.”

She gasped as the squire came to a sudden stop in front of her brother that sent his horse back onto its haunches.

The squire quirted the animal upright again and rose in his stirrups. “Get away from my animal, you looby,” he shouted to Joseph.

The boy did as he said, but instead of retreating, he came closer to the squire, a smile on his face. “Sir, your mare has a beautiful colt. Isn’t that a fine thing?”

Libby cried out as the squire, his face a study in fury, struck her brother across the chest with his riding crop. Joseph gasped, more from surprise than pain, and stared at the man on horseback.

“You don’t understand, sir,” he cried, and then sank to his knees, trying to cover his head and his bare shoulders as the squire struck him again and again.

With a cry of her own, Libby sprang into action. She darted closer to the squire’s rearing, plunging horse as she tried to drag Joseph away.

“Joseph, please,” she urged. “Let us go. Stop, Squire Cook. We mean no harm.”

Libby tried to haul Joseph to his feet as the blows rained down on them both. She could hear someone shouting from the fence, but still she tugged on her brother’s arm as he tried to protect his head, the squire’s horse dancing dangerously close.

“By God, you Ames are a nuisance,” the squire shouted. He pushed at Libby with his booted foot and, when she would not retreat, struck her with his riding crop.

She staggered and fell down in the deep grass, practically under the horse’s hooves. Someone grabbed her around the waist and she struck out blindly in protest, kicking her feet.

Her rescuer shoved her to one side and she stayed where she fell as the candy merchant, a set look on his face more frightening than the squire’s blows, stepped in front of the bleeding boy and grabbed the reins.

“I wouldn’t lift that crop one more time,” he said, his voice soft but with that steely edge of command that Libby had wondered about before.

The squire’s hand shook as he slowly lowered the riding crop. The vein in his neck stood out and Libby stared at it in horrified fascination, almost as if she could hear the pulse pounding just under the skin.

As she kept her eyes on the squire, Libby touched her fingertips to her face. The skin felt hot and her cheek was swelling already, but there was no blood.

No one spoke. The only sound was the squire’s labored breathing. Libby looked more closely at Joseph then and cried out in dismay. The crop had lifted the skin off his temple near his ear. The blood mingled with the sweat that glistened on his neck. Libby reached for his hands and pulled him toward her, clutching him close as they knelt together in the grass.

The candy merchant, his knee stained bright red through his trousers, did not take his gaze from the squire, who glared back.

Libby held her breath. Some instinct, surfacing through her own personal fear, warned her that if the squire made a move, Nesbitt Duke would pull Cook off his horse and kill him with his bare hands.

She had no doubt that he could do it. Murder was in his eyes and on his face. Have you forgotten where you are, sir? she thought even as she looked away, unable to stand the sight of what was nearly inevitable.

Through the soles of her shoes, Libby felt the thundering presence of another horse and rider. She looked around to see Dr. Anthony Cook’s horse take the fence in one graceful motion and race toward them. She sighed and closed her eyes for a moment, relieved all out of proportion to see the doctor’s familiar person coming toward them.

The doctor, his face registering shock and high color, rode more slowly toward the strange tableau in the pasture. Without a word, he kneed his horse between the candy merchant and the squire, forcing the duke to drop his death’s hold on the reins. In silence, he held his hand out to his father for the riding crop.

Squire Cook will never surrender that crop, Libby thought as her hand strayed to her cheek again. She held her breath as the doctor sat his horse so calmly and waited.

With an oath that made the hair prickle on Libby’s neck, the squire slapped the quirt into his son’s hand. He made to grab up his reins again, but the doctor was too quick. Anthony Cook held the reins tight in his gloved hand.

“No, Father,” he said, his voice scarcely audible over the squire’s labored breathing. “Stay where you are until I find out what is going on.”

The squire pounded his hand upon his saddle. He pointed a shaking finger toward Joseph. “That imbecile was trying to steal my horse,” he shouted.

“I think that hardly likely,” Dr. Cook said, his voice dry and clinical and utterly without emotion. “We could ask Joseph, sir.”

“The boy is an idiot,” the squire screamed, unable to contain himself any longer.

Dr. Cook sighed and dismounted. He slapped his horse away, but he did not leave his position between his father and the others. He motioned to Joseph, who looked at the squire, hesitated, and gave him a wide berth as he came closer to the doctor.

“It’s not your horse, lad,” the doctor reminded him as he touched Joseph’s face, turning it toward him. He ran his hand lightly over the gash by his ear.

“I know it is not my horse,” Joseph said as he twisted out of the doctor’s grasp. “The horse followed me into this pasture. I swear it. She was only trying to give birth.” He gestured toward the mare again and the colt that had finished nursing and lay practically hidden in the grass.

After another long look at his father and the candy merchant, who still eyed each other with considerable distaste, the doctor crouched in the grass, looking at the little animal. He smiled for the first time and looked at Joseph.

“Maybe you should have run for my father’s groom,” he suggested as he ran his hand down the mare’s leg and then stood up. “This is too expensive a piece of blood and bone to throw a colt in a pasture like a carter’s hack.”

Joseph shook his head. “I tried, Doctor, but the groom was drunk.”

“That’s a lie,” shouted the squire.

Dr. Cook turned to his father suddenly and raised his eyebrows. Libby watched in fascination as the squire subsided. She looked back at Dr. Cook with new respect. Gracious, she thought, I would never have dared level such a look at my father.

Apparently the candy merchant had similar thoughts. He nudged Libby and whispered in her ear. “A cool customer, eh, Libby?”

She nodded and whispered back. “He tends to come through in emergencies in the most astounding way, so I am discovering.”

“Who would have thought it? Surely not I,” the duke murmured, his eyes on Dr. Cook.

“Go on, lad,” said the doctor.

Joseph shrugged. “I don’t know what else to tell, sir. The mare followed me back into this pasture. I didn’t think I could keep her from throwing the colt, sir, no matter whose field it was.”

“I can understand perfectly,” agreed Dr. Cook, a touch of humor back in his voice. “Females of most species seem to know what to do at times like this.”

The squire swore another dreadful oath and looked away. He gathered up the reins and dug his spurs into his horse, guiding the animal closer to his son and the colt. He sat in silence for a long minute, looking down at the colt.

“I suppose you will tell me I should be grateful this moonling was here to witness the blessed event,” he growled.

“I wouldn’t presume to tell you anything, Father,” Anthony Cook replied, “although a little charity would not be out of place.”

The squire turned to Joseph. “I make no apologies. Your uncle will have a letter from me in the morning.”

They watched him go, cantering across the field, pausing to look at the fence, which was in ill repair, and then continuing on until he was gone from sight.

Joseph looked up at the doctor, who stood watching his father. “Sir, should I lead them back to your stables?”

The doctor shook his head. “Best not, lad. My father is in rare ill humor. He will probably pour a bucket of water on that worthless groom of his and send the poor wretch on the errand.” Dr. Cook shook his head and nodded to Libby. “I think I will take dinner at your place tonight, Miss Ames, if it is agreeable. I do not imagine there will be overmuch conversation of an uplifting nature around my own table this evening.”

Libby nodded. “Of course you may eat with us, Dr. Cook. Sir, what will he do?”