Charity Begins at Home (20 page)

Then Barry appeared at her elbow, full of questions about the relative skills of the fencers. She could only shrug and say what they both knew, that Crispin was the most accomplished fencer in Calder, and barring unforeseen circumstances, would likely win.

She had let her gaze stray again to Lord Braden's expressive face, and when she mentioned Crispin as the odds-on favorite, she noticed how his jaw tightened, quite like Malachi's, as if this inflamed his competitive spirit. “Young Hering is the best of the lot?" His voice was casual, but Charity could see the resolution forming even as he spoke. He meant to beat Crispin.

Barry pulled out his notebook and pencil. "He usually wins this sort of thing. Why? Do you think you can give him a match?"

Lord Braden only shrugged, but Lawrence heard and piped up loyally, "Course we can. My uncle used to teach fencing."

His uncle shook his head, out of negation or modesty Charity hadn't a chance to determine, because Barry had already torn away from their small group. She saw him huddling with his friends Buzzy and Pookie, and she turned with an apologetic smile to Lord Braden. "He's got two friends down—"

"Foul!"

Startled, Charity squeezed through the crowd to the egg-spinning table. The squire, the self-appointed director of the contest, had called a halt to the match. He held one egg up to the light of the sun and peered through it. "I thought so. A foul! Someone has sucked out half the yolk of this egg before boiling. I can see the pinhole!"

As Malachi shrank back, Francis picked up another egg and shook it. "This seems all right." But the third egg and the fourth—so half the eggs assigned to him—all proved to be faulty.

The squire pontificated on this as if he were Galileo and the eggs some new constellation. "The remaining contents have settled in the broader end, thus interfering with the balance and the spin."

Word soon spread that the purity of the turf had been sullied, and Barry and his friends gathered round, waiting for a verdict. Lawrence squirmed from his mother's grasp and grabbed up one of the suspect eggs. He examined it, shook it next to his ear, and proclaimed in a ringing voice, "We've got us a cheater!"

"Hush up," Charlie said from behind him, snatching the egg out of his hand. "You don't know anything about eggs, except they come in a china cup and you break 'em with a silver spoon."

Lawrence took this aspersion to his worldliness with surprising meekness, only turning to stare accusingly at the assumed criminal. A burly young man with a jutting chin, Malachi wasn't about to take this from a child, even a noble one. He protested that just because his mother the innkeeper had prepared the eggs, they should not assume he was the intended beneficiary. "Sir Francis's tenant Mrs. Lambeth supplied the eggs! He could have done the tampering first."

The squire and the Justice of the Peace, who had been called in to adjudicate this little mess, looked up shocked from the heap of eggs sacrificed to the tamper test. "Sir Francis would never cheat," the JP said austerely.

The crowd murmured approval, and Francis flushed. Lord Braden murmured to Barry, "There's a lesson for us all. 'The purest treasure mortal times afford is spotless reputation; that away, men are but gilded loam or painted clay.'"

"'Mine honor is my life; both grow in one; take honor for me, and my life is done.' Richard II." Barry reddened as he saw Buzzy and Pookie gazing at him in dismay. "I do attend an occasional lecture, you know."

"And he takes lessons with a few actresses in the Shakespearian theatre there in Oxford," Charity remarked. She won a grateful grin from Barry, and Buzzy and Pookie laughed and elbowed each other, muttering, "Shakespeare!"

A decision at the table brought the crowd to silent attention. The JP rose and with a jerk of his finger brought the trembling Malachi to the table. "Mr. Morgan," he said in awful tones, "please take off that medal. I am afraid we must divest you retroactively of your victory last year and award it to the runner-up—Sir Francis Calder."

Too broken to protest, Malachi removed the medal with shaking hands. Charity did not wish to see this humiliation and turned to talk to the countess. But before she could speak, Anna whispered, "Oh, what a noble gesture!"

Francis was handing the medal back to his erstwhile opponent. "No, no, Malachi is right. I am sure there were no irregularities in last year's contest, and today there's no reason to suspect one of us over the other." He waved his hand dismissively at the pile of egg shells. "Such anomalies occur in nature. I've no doubt if it had come to a match, Malachi would have beat me hollow again."

"Right," Barry said in a sardonic undertone as Malachi, head bent, pinned his ribbon back on. "Because somehow you ended up with all the anomalies of nature. Francis, you are a sap."

Anna turned on the boy with surprising ferocity. "He is not a sap! He realizes how much that silly medal means to the poor man. It's probably the only distinction he's ever had. Why, I think it's quite the kindest act I've ever seen."

Barry had never been dressed down by a beautiful lady before, much less a countess. But he recovered his university man's élan soon enough. He shrugged and observed, "There's that, too," before he gestured peremptorily to his friends and they melted off into the crowd.

Charity's eyes met Lord Braden's and found them laughing. She felt again that tenuous, tantalizing connection between them as if somehow they could communicate without words, with a metaphysical as well as physical language. The thought made her shiver and look away from him, only to collide with Anna's knowing gaze. It was all too public, this connection that should be private. Anna, Francis, and the whole village were probably taking note of Charity Calder and the man who made her shiver.

She broke away. "I'm going to announce the fencing competition. That will divert attention from this brangle." And then, feeling like the Pied Piper, she led everyone across the green.

A long fencing strip was chalked on the grass at the verge of the green, parallel to the road. A crowd had already gathered, ranging along the strip with drinks and meat pies in hand, calling out to their favorite candidates. Molly Ferris, as befitted St. George's prize princess, posed invitingly at one end of the strip. She perched on the swing hanging from the elm tree, occasionally kicking off so that her russet skirt floated up and revealed her fetching ankles.

By the time Charity arrived, Barry was already organizing the event, gesturing here and there with his unsheathed foil as he called out instructions to the entrants. He passed her a handful of silver, the entry fees collected from the contestants. "I took myself out of the bouts, sis. Didn't think it looked right to be competing when I've made up the pairs. I'll serve as judge if you like."

Charity was too glad that Barry wouldn't be flinging himself in the path of a sword to question his motives. "Perhaps Bookie and Puzzy—I mean, Buzzy and Pookie—can keep track of the scores. And Charlie, you keep the children back, will you?"

Grateful to abandon all those duties, Charity climbed up on the stretch of railing that served as a hitching post and balanced there, her feet swinging. From this vantage she could see the entire field of combat, and the assembled crowd, too. She kept a wary eye out for the vicar, who might run out of confessions and decide to confront unrepentant sinners directly.

Buzzy and Pookie stood officiously to one side, Buzzy holding the pencil and Pookie the notebook, while Barry called out the first pair, Jacob Hering and Lord Braden. They rolled down their sleeves and pulled on gloves gauntleted to protect their wrists. Then they took up their positions and began the elaborate military salute that opened a bout. Even this harmless display looked somewhat dangerous as the two fencers lunged toward each other and Barry brought his judge's sword clashing against theirs. She knew that they would don masks for the actual bout and that the lethal-looking foils had tiny tips at the end to blunt their points. But the tense stance and intent expressions of Lord Braden and his opponent reminded her that however friendly her St. George competition was to be, it had its roots in martial combat.

Crispin Hering paid no attention as his potential rivals took up their fencing positions and Barry called out, "En garde!" He sauntered up to Charity, sword in hand and a grin on his freckled face. She had been avoiding him all day, ever since Mrs. Williams warned her he was set to renew his suit. She liked Crispin very well, for he had been Ned's best friend and the first boy she ever kissed. But she couldn't imagine marrying him, not a boy she had known all her life, whose ambition was to be a squire just like his father, whose vista extended two miles south to Hythe and six miles east to Folkestone.

Still she let him pull her ribbon loose and tug at one of her curls, just as when they were children together. He stuffed the ribbon in his pocket and regarded her with a laughing challenge.

"Crispin, give it back," she said impatiently, trying to look over his shoulder at the match.

"Come and get it." He stood insolently, blocking her view, his hand stuck in his pocket and the ribbon dangling between his fingers.

"Keep it, if you want it so badly. And do step aside, Cris, I want to see the bout."

"Oho, the lady gives me her favor. So I am to be your knight, am I, my princess?" He leaned closer and pulled an imaginary visor over his eyes. "I'll slay dragons for you, I vow."

"I'm not the princess, Molly Ferris is. You can be her knight if you win." Laughing at his foolishness, she pushed him away. But he lingered beside her, leaning against her knee, trying one-handedly to tie the purple ribbon around his forearm.

Charity was engrossed in the match—Lord Braden had just scored a touché—and when Crispin stuck out his arm across her lap she tied the ribbon automatically in a bow.

Crispin rested familiarly that way, his arm against her legs, his expression reminiscent. "Do you remember when we went dragon-slaying with Ned into the woods at Haver?" he asked, pulling the strap of her sandal off her heel. "We were shooting arrows into that old treehouse and shouting like wildmen—until we heard Kenny Haverton shouting back. Up there with a chambermaid, he was, and he thought the French had invaded!"

"Hush." Charity pulled her sandal back on, looking quickly over at Anna. But the countess was watching her brother's match intently and couldn't have heard. The always-efficient Francis had procured her a chair from somewhere, and in her black drapery she looked rather like a tragic queen waiting for her knight to die defending her throne.

Charity shoved her own self-appointed knight away. "Now will you sit and watch? Your cousin looks to be getting the worst of it."

Crispin didn't even turn around, remarking with youthful contempt, "I'd back Jake against an artist any day."

"Too bad for you and Jake, then, that fencing is an art. Because that artist just vanquished your cousin. Five touches to ones."

"Then it'll be up to me to restore the family honor. And with this—" Crispin held up his arm, the purple ribbon dancing in the breeze, "I'll be sure to take the victory home."

Crispin had never suffered from false modesty, and he did well enough in his preliminary bouts to justify his confidence. But Charity, watching Lord Braden's second match, felt her own competitive instincts thrill. He did not destroy poor Peter Lamb; he merely toyed with him, scoring with an ease that suggested he had ample tricks in reserve. He was all lazy grace, enigmatic behind the mask, able to parry Peter's ungainly thrusting with only a slight rotation of his wrist. Then, suddenly, like a tiger pouncing, he disarmed his opponent, and a murmur rose from the spectators.

Pookie whispered, "I couldn't even see what he did," and Buzzy whistled low and long and grabbed the notebook to record the score.

Undaunted, Crispin strolled up to the mark when the final bout was announced and bowed to the accomplished newcomer. Then he brazenly blew Charity a kiss before he donned his mask.

She felt the heat rise in her cheeks as Lord Braden's glance flicked over her and returned to focus on the ribbon around Crispin's arm. He will think I cheer for his opponent, she thought. But then she saw the set of his jaw as he brought the sword up in salute to the judge and decided not to correct his misapprehension. These last days, he had toyed with her as he toyed with poor Peter Lamb, first reticent, then seductive, then resistant, then all too direct. Let him for once be the one teased with uncertainty.

Besides, it was a novel sensation, to be fought over. Charity could not help but enjoy Polly's envious glances and Molly's petulance as she kicked at the ground under her swing: "But I'm the princess!"

Lord Braden pulled down his mask and dropped into a relaxed en-garde position. The first engagement was a quick clash of blades and then a mutual retreat as each assessed the other. Charity also found herself appraising the two men, these men who apparently considered themselves rivals for her affections.

Braden was taller than Crispin but not as broad, and though he hadn't such powerful arms, he was quicker twisting his wrist in a parry and dodging away from an attack. He played a defensive game at first, letting the more aggressive Crispin tire himself out with vicious thrusts and lunges. Grinning, Crispin pushed him back nearly to the end of the strip, clearly expecting a touché by default.

But just before he was forced off the strip, Braden took the offensive. His arm tensed from its relaxed position; he leaned forward, beat aside Crispin's desperate advance, and then, with a swift thrust, came under the arm for a touché. Crispin acknowledged this with a nod, and the bout restarted in the middle of the strip.