Elizabeth Mansfield (16 page)

Roger lifted his glass in a salute. “Word of an Arneau. Promise. You may interog … inter … question me ’s much ’s y’ like. But not now. In the morning.”

Lady Denham shook her head compassionately. “Very well, my dear. In the morning.”

***

Lady Denham had been awake for hours before her son made an appearance the following morning. It was after ten o’clock when she looked up from her coffee to find him looming in the doorway of the breakfast room, his eyes bloodshot, his brow furrowed, and his mouth grim. But he was dressed for travel, and his mother saw at once that his present sobriety had not caused him to change his mind. She smiled at him over her coffee cup and beckoned to him to join her. Roger came in, bent to kiss her cheek, and sat down. Before he uttered a word, he reached for the coffee pot and poured himself a cup with a hand that trembled slightly. Then he faced his mother with a rueful smile. “It seems that your son is a curst rum touch,” he said. “I’m sorry you had to see it.”

She patted his hand. “Don’t underestimate me, my dear—or overestimate your own proclivities toward sin. I’ve lived a long time and seen a great deal worse.”

He smiled at her. “Have you really? What a game old girl you are!”

“I suppose that is meant to be a compliment,” she responded drily. “Roger, you do look awful. Do you feel well enough to travel today?”

“I feel like the devil,” he answered bluntly. “I’m neither well enough to travel nor to answer the questions I know you’re agog to ask me, but I intend to do both. Pluck to the backbone, that’s the sort I am.”

“Will you have time to see Brandon Peake before you go?” Lady Denham inquired. “He sent a message begging you to drop in for a moment this morning.”

Roger raised his eyebrow. “Did he? Well, I suppose I …” He looked at his mother sharply. “Did he say anything else?”

Lady Denham looked puzzled. “No. Were you expecting something more?”

“I wasn’t expecting anything at all. Now let’s get to the inquisition. What is it you want to know that I haven’t already spilled out in my drunken stupor?”

“
My son
was not in a stupor! And I will not subject you to an inquisition. I only want to know why Letty refused you again.”

“I’m sure I’ve told you. She is betrothed to someone else. I believe that is the sort of news that we must accept as final,” Roger said flatly.

“Oh, dear.
Betrothed! And
under our very noses! I was so
sure
that the child was quite besotted over you.”

“It seems that
we
are the ones who were besotted.”

“
We?
Did
you
believe she cared for you, Roger?”

“Yes, I did. I would not have asked her, otherwise. It seems I’m quite a coxcomb after all.”

“No, you’re anything but that,” his mother insisted. “Her behavior is inexplicable. I can’t help feeling that there’s more to this affair than we know.”

“Don’t start that again, Mama, please,” Roger begged, putting a hand to his throbbing temple. “She is attached to someone else. Let that be the end of the matter.”

“Attached to someone else? I can scarcely credit it. Who, pray,
is
the gentleman?”

“Sorry, but I’m not at liberty to say.”

“I see. Not that it matters, anyway. If she won’t have
you,
I don’t much care
whom
she marries.”

“That sounds a bit churlish, doesn’t it?
I
at least wished her well.”

“It’s too much to ask of
me,
I’m afraid. I suppose I shall
have
to wish her well when she tells me about it openly and frankly,” Lady Denham said grudgingly. “I only wish she had done so earlier.”

“So do I. Although, to be fair, this fix is more our fault than hers. We should have accepted her word when she first refused me. I could have walked away
then
without a backward look.
Now,
however—”

Lady Denham peered at her son with an expression that combined dismay and pity. “Oh, my dear, have you learned to care for her so much?”

Roger merely studied the coffee in his cup.

His mother pressed her hands against her mouth. “To what dreadful pass have I brought you?” she murmured heartbrokenly.

“Don’t be so tragic, Mama,” Roger said with a smile. “You’ve always wanted me to learn what love is. And now I have.” His smile broadened as he added reflectively, “I had never quite believed in the kind of love about which the poets like to rhapsodize. But now I feel almost like one of them—the new romantical ones who are causing such a stir. Don’t be surprised if you discover that I am busily composing tragic love ballads during the dark hours of the night.”

She sighed. “You may joke about it if you wish, but it’s quite true that I’ve wanted you to learn about love. I never wished you to suffer, of course, but this experience may be good for you nevertheless.”

Roger gave a snort of laughter. “How easily you are consoled, Mama! In less than a minute a ‘dreadful pass’ has become a ‘good experience.’ If I stay here and continue this conversation, another minute may bring us to celebrating this whole disaster with a drink of champagne! If you don’t mind, I’d rather endure my poetic suffering alone than share your satisfaction at the broadening of my experience. If you’ll excuse me, I shall trot out to see what young Peake wants of me.”

Lady Denham didn’t try to hold him. She knew better than to press him further. His wound was too raw to permit much probing. Perhaps, in time, when the entire experience was well behind him, they would be able to talk about it more dispassionately and come to some understanding of what had gone wrong. For the time being, she had no choice but to let him go.

Roger found Brandon ensconced on a chaise lounge before a sunny window, desultorily attempting to read the
Philoctetes.
At the sight of his visitor, Brandon’s face brightened. He tossed his book aside and held out his hand. “I’m so glad you came, Roger,” he said in greeting. “I’ve been wanting to thank you properly for what you did for me yesterday.”

“If that’s why you asked me here, I shall go away at once. You must have thanked me at least a dozen times already,” Roger responded in disgust.

“If I had, I don’t remember it. All I remember is taking my first sip of brandy. Every thing else is rather hazy in my mind.”

“Yes, you were quite well to live by the time I’d gotten your boot off. I must say you look none the worse for it this morning,” Roger said enviously. “I wish I could say the same for myself. My head feels as if someone had hammered a row of nails into it.”

“Were you foxed, too? I felt the same way earlier today, but I’m now feeling much more the thing,” Brandon said cheerfully.

“Good. Then there’s hope for me, I suppose. How’s the ankle?”

“Fine, as long as I remain off my feet. I shall probably be hobbling around for weeks. But, please, let me say how very grateful I am for—”

“One more word of gratitude, my boy, and I shall walk out that door! By the way, Brandon, you never did tell me how you came to sprain your ankle. You obviously never went to the cathedral, so you couldn’t have done it there. And you couldn’t have done it while driving the curricle, so I can’t imagine when or how it could have come to pass.”

Brandon looked away in embarrassment. “I was hoping you wouldn’t ask. It was the stupidest thing. I … I … er … fell off the curricle.”

“Fell off the—? See here, old fellow, do you think to run sly with me? No one with sense would credit such a tale.”

Brandon grimaced. “I was afraid of that,” he said worriedly. “I’ve been avoiding the question so far—Mama has asked me at least fifty times how I came to do such a thing—but sooner or later I shall have to give some sort of explanation …”

“What’s wrong with the truth?” Roger asked reasonably.

“The truth is rather awkward. I would be grateful for your advice, Roger, but as there is a lady involved, I … er … by your leave … will have to ask you—”

“Not to tell your story to anyone? You need have no worry on that score. Your secret will be absolutely safe with me, I promise you. There’s a lady involved, you say? Are you referring to Letty?”

“Letty?” Brandon asked, looking at Roger in surprise. “Why, no. What made you think this has anything to do with
her
?”

Roger shrugged. “Nothing, really, except that I learned yesterday about your betrothal, so I assumed …”

“Oh, yes,” Brandon mumbled, belatedly remembering his conversation on the matter with Roger the day before, “the betrothal. Yes, I see.”

“But Letty had nothing to do with the accident?” Roger inquired curiously.

“No, oh, no! Nothing at all. It was her sister, Prue,” Brandon explained hurriedly, happy to avoid the subject of the betrothal. “She was in the curricle with me, if you recall.”

“Yes, now that you mention it, I do.”

“Well, the truth of the matter is …” Brandon began, then lapsed into awkward silence.

“Go on. The story can’t be as difficult to tell as all that.”

“No, I suppose not, but … Why don’t you sit down, Roger? It makes me uneasy having you stand over me like this.”

Roger smiled. “Like a disapproving schoolmaster, is that it?” He pulled over the nearest chair and sat down. “There, now, I’m seated. Can you find any other excuses to postpone your tale? If not, please proceed. You were driving with Prue. And then—?”

“Well, the truth of the matter is,” Brandon repeated shamefacedly, “that she pushed me out of the curricle.”

“
Pushed
you? Hang it, Peake, is this another hum?” Roger demanded, trying his best to hide his amusement.

Brandon looked at him askance. “Go ahead and laugh. It’s true!”

Roger permitted himself to grin. “You’re not seriously expecting me to believe that a tiny chit is strong enough to push a full-grown man like you out of a carriage.”

“Well, I wasn’t expecting it, you see …” Brandon said defensively.

“I should think not!” Roger laughed. “Why in earth did she want to do such a thing to you?”

Brandon sighed. “That’s the hardest part to explain.”

Roger cocked his brow with a sudden suspicion. “Brandon, you’re not trying to tell me that you behaved in some sort of ungentlemanly way, are you?”

“Ungentlemanly?” Brandon asked in complete innocence. “I suppose you could call it that. I shook her.”

Roger, who had begun to believe that Brandon had attempted to seduce the sister of the girl to whom he was engaged, had been almost ready to give Brandon a facer. But the answer to his accusation was so unexpected and naive that Roger gaped. “Sh-shook her?” he asked in confusion.

Brandon nodded. “I’m afraid so.”

Roger put his hand to his forehead unsteadily. “All this is a bit beyond me today, Brandon,” he said. “Perhaps you’d better begin at the beginning.”

“I’m not sure where to begin. I suppose the best way would be to say that she hates me.”

“Hates you?
Prue
does? But why?”

“Because I tried to tell her that her flirtatious behavior was … er … unseemly.”

“Did you indeed? That was not very wise. If I were a girl, I wouldn’t feel very kindly toward you myself,” Roger said frankly.

“I realize that now. I could bite out my tongue. But I’ve apologized and apologized, to no avail. She wouldn’t say a word to me almost all the way to Wells!”

The tone of these remarks arrested Roger’s attention. Until this point, Roger had assumed that Brandon had taken a brotherly interest in his betrothed’s sister. But Brandon’s concern was beginning to seem a bit beyond the brotherly. Observing Brandon closely, he remarked casually, “That must have been a bore.”

“Not a bore, but a … a … strain,” Brandon explained. “And then, when finally she
did
speak, it was only to criticize me.”

“Oh? And what could she find to criticize?”

“You might better ask what could she
not
find to criticize! My speech, my manners, my … er … tendency to quote the classics, everything!”

“How very galling,” Roger sympathized. “No wonder you shook her.”

Brandon looked at him gratefully. “You
do
understand. But I didn’t shake her until she … she … called me a … a …”

“A
what,
Brandon?”

“A stuffed prig.”

Roger choked. “No, really? That was quite dreadful of her. I must admit she seems really to have
deserved
the shaking.”

“Exactly!” Brandon agreed with satisfaction.

“And then she pushed you out of the carriage?”

“Yes. And
then
the vixen made off with the curricle! It must have been half a mile before she brought it to a halt. And I had to hobble after it on my twisted ankle, all the while terrified that she would do some damage to the grays!”

Roger shook his head compassionately. “Dreadful! I’d say she’s a veritable hoyden.”

“Well, not really,” Brandon said hastily. “She only needs someone to give her a strong guiding hand, wouldn’t you say?”

“I suppose so,” Roger answered, watching Brandon carefully. “It’s fortunate, however, that you’ve chosen the
sister
to marry.”

Brandon, his imagination dwelling on a vision of himself offering a firm, guiding hand to Prue, did not readily follow the turn in conversation that Roger had made. “Marry? What do you mean?” he asked innocently.

“I mean Letty. Prue’s sister. The girl you intend to wed.”

“Oh, Letty. Yes, of course. I’m very fortunate. Very,” Brandon said, the feeling of acute discomfort, which had assailed him before, returning with even stronger pangs.

“Yes, you’re a most fortunate fellow,” Roger repeated. “Can you imagine the turmoil of your life if you had to marry the younger sister? If you dared to tell her one morning that you didn’t like the breakfast biscuits, she might push you from the window!”

Brandon smiled, but Roger noted that the smile was wan and unconvincing. “I … don’t like you to think that of Prue,” Brandon said hesitantly. “After all, she only pushed me because I shook her so hard. You mustn’t think she’s a termagant. I didn’t mean to malign her to you.”

“Of course you didn’t,” Roger said agreeably, rising to leave. “Give it no further thought. There’s no permanent harm done, after all. No doubt the whole incident will be forgotten in a month.”