Joan Wolf (26 page)

I sipped my tea. “I have been known to be rude on occasion myself,” I murmured. “There is no reason for you to distress yourself on my account, Aunt Fanny.”

She said, “I suppose I am also asking your advice, Annabelle. Nell has become so rebellious of late, and I don’t understand why.”

“I don’t think I would call Nell rebellious,” I said slowly.

Aunt Fanny put down her teacup, folded her hands in her lap, and stared at them all the while she was telling me her real concern.

“Perhaps rebellious is too strong a word,” she agreed. “But she has certainly changed from the eager-to-please child she once was. When we gave her that expensive London Season, she would not cooperate at all.” Aunt Fanny glanced up at me fleetingly, then went back to staring at her hands. “You know about the offers she received. They came from four very eligible men, Annabelle!”

“I know,” I said. In fact, I did know the men who had offered for my cousin, and they were indeed extremely eligible.

“She told me she didn’t love them,” I went on. “She isn’t wrong to wish to marry for love, Aunt Fanny. You loved Uncle Adam, didn’t you?”

On this topic she could meet my eyes. “I thought he was a very nice young man,” she said primly. “He was kind and handsome and he had good manners. I was pleased that he wanted to marry me. I was disposed to love him, and it wasn’t long before I did.”

“I see,” I said a little feebly.

“If the young man is amiable, and the girl is disposed to love him, love almost always comes. The problem,” Aunt Fanny said, “is that Nell was
not
disposed to love any of the young men who offered for her. In fact, she was dead set against them from the start.”

“I see,” I said again.

Aunt Fanny gazed with some distress at the picture of a younger Nell that she had hung on the sitting room wall. “I very much fear that she is in love with someone else.”

“Goodness,” I said.

“Do you have any idea who such a man might be?” Aunt Fanny asked.

I tried to look as if I were racking my brains. I most certainly did not want to alarm my aunt by mentioning Jack.

I said, “Could it be someone else she met in London? Someone who did not offer for her? “

“I really do not think so. She did not want us to give her that Season, you know. She told her father not to waste his money.” Aunt Fanny’s eyes glittered. “Really, Annabelle, can you think of one single reason why a young girl like Nell would not jump at the chance of a London Season? “

I bit my lip. “I am afraid I cannot help you,” I said. “It’s true that we were close when we were children, but Nell has not confided in me for rather a long time, Aunt Fanny.”

“Do you think that Nell might be harboring a
tendre
for Stephen? “ Aunt Fanny asked.

My mouth dropped open.
“Stephen?”

She nodded. “She wrote to him every month while he was in Jamaica.”

I hadn’t known that.

“Nell was only fifteen when Stephen went away,” I managed to say. “Surely that was too young to form a lasting attachment.”

“I didn’t say lasting attachment,’ “ Aunt Fanny said irritably. “I said
‘tendre.’ “

I opened my mouth to tell Aunt Fanny she was wrong, but the words wouldn’t come out.

“She fainted this afternoon when she heard that Stephen had been shot,” I said instead.

“Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.” Aunt Fanny almost wailed the words. “What am I to do?”

She sounded so distressed at the thought of Stephen as a prospective son-in-law that I leaped to his defense. “Don’t you consider Stephen an eligible
parti,
Aunt Fanny? He is far from being poor, you know.” When she didn’t reply, I added accusingly, “I thought you
liked
Stephen.”

“Of course I like Stephen. I like him very much. It is impossible not to like Stephen. But as a husband for Nell—no, no, and no.”

I would have murdered Nell before I allowed her to marry Stephen, but I was incensed at Aunt Fanny’s rejection of him. “There is nothing wrong with Stephen!” I said fiercely.

Aunt Fanny finally realized that she had offended me. “I have nothing against Stephen, Annabelle,” she assured me. “There is no need for you to fly tooth and nail to his defense. It is just that, with all his splendid qualities, I do not think that he is the husband for Nell.”

That comment about “splendid qualities” mollified me a little. “Why not?” I asked more quietly.

“Because the most important person in Stephen’s life will always be you.” Aunt Fanny said.

I stared at her and had no reply.

“Nell has played second fiddle to you all her life, my dear. That is why I wanted her to have a London Season—so she could get away from Weston and out from under your shadow. That is why I would not let you assist me with her come-out. And that is why I do not want her to break her heart over Stephen.”

I pressed my hand to my own heart, as if it hurt. As indeed it did. “It sounds as if you thought I were bad for Nell,” I said.

“You never meant to be,” Aunt Fanny returned. “I know that, my dear. And I know that you have a real fondness for her. As she does for you.”

I turned my head and looked at the picture on the wall. A twelve-year-old Nell looked solemnly back at me. She was wearing breeches and sitting on a shaggy roan pony. I remembered very clearly the summer that portrait had been done.

“You can’t help what you are, Annabelle,” Aunt Fanny said. “But you present an impossible standard for a younger girl to measure herself against.”

“Looks aren’t everything,” I protested strongly.

Aunt Fanny raised her graying brows. “I was not talking about looks,” she said.

I stared at her in utter bewilderment. “Then I have no idea what you are talking about,” I said.

She smiled at me with a fondness I could have sworn was genuine. “You are an extremely formidable young woman, my dear. All the more so because you don’t realize it.”

Her comments were making me feel very uncomfortable, and I tried to steer the conversation back to our original topic. “There will be assemblies in Brighton all through the winter,” I said. “You ought to take Nell to those. Perhaps she will meet a man more to her taste than the London beaux she rejected.”

Aunt Fanny sighed. “Yes, I am planning to do just that. In fact, I have been thinking of renting a house in Brighton for the winter, Annabelle. I think it would be a good idea to get Nell away from Weston, particularly now that Stephen is home.”

I had to agree. Whether my cousin was in love with Stephen or with Jack, the outcome for her was going to be heartbreak. It was definitely best that she go to Brighton with her mother.

Chapter Eighteen

I left Aunt Fanny I went straight downstairs to my own rooms. Marianne did not even attempt to disguise her horror when I told her to awaken me at four-thirty the following morning.

“I am meeting Sir Matthew and the hounds at six,” I said, “and it is a thirty-minute hack to the Market Cross. Four-thirty.”

“Yes, my lady.”

“Don’t look like such a martyr,” I advised. “You can go back to bed after I’ve left.”

She brightened a little at that news. “Shall I lay out your riding habit now, my lady?”

“Yes. Neither one of us will feel like searching for misplaced articles of clothing at four-thirty in the morning.”

After she had left, I curled up in bed and snuggled my cheek into my favorite pillow. But even though I was very tired, sleep didn’t come. Over and over again, last night’s scene with Stephen replayed itself in my mind.

Six months is a damn long time.

Stephen had made his intentions very clear with that remark. We were both of age now, and the only thing that stood in the way of our marriage was six more months of official mourning.

“Let’s start over again,” he had replied when I accused him of thinking he could pick up where he had left off five years before.

I rolled over in bed, flung my arm across my forehead, and stared upward into the cool darkness. The soft night breeze rustled the pages of an open book I had left on the table by the window.

Stephen and I couldn’t just start over, I thought sadly. His betrayal would always lie between us, like a shadow on the deep clear well of our love.

I would marry Stephen. I loved him. I had always loved him. I always would love him.

But nothing could bring back those sunlit years when I had rested secure in the knowledge that I belonged to Stephen and Stephen belonged to me.

The most important person in Stephen’s life will always be you.

Once I, like Aunt Fanny, had thought that to be true. I didn’t think that way any longer. And that was what I would never forgive.

Four-thirty came much too soon. I struggled out of bed in the dark and let a cranky, sleepy Marianne help me dress. It was exactly five when I walked into the dining room, where Hodges, bless him, had set out coffee and muffins. Jack and Jasper were already there, drinking coffee in bleary-eyed silence.

“Good morning,” I said cheerfully.

Two grunts were all the responses I got.

I had enough sense not to tease them about their lack of courtesy, tilled a cup for myself, and drank the coffee as if it were the nectar of the gods.

At five-fifteen, as the sky was beginning to brighten, the three of us walked down to the stables. The horses were ready. We mounted, and by five-thirty we were on our way to join Sir Matthew and the hounds.

We had an enjoyable morning. Cubbing is rewarding, but not exciting. Sir Matthew had each of his young hounds coupled with a more experienced partner, and the point of the exercise was for the young hounds to learn their business from their elders. The horses did some trotting, but mainly we walked.

This slow, uneventful teaching exercise was the perfect way to introduce green horses to the hounds and to the woods. Snap had hunted all last season, so Jasper had a more relaxed morning than either Jack or I. We were both riding inexperienced Thoroughbreds, and we had to be extremely careful that the nervous horses never got an opportunity to aim a steel-shod hoof at one of the hounds.

I never liked Jack as much as I did when I rode with him. He was so intolerant of most people that it was a constant surprise to see how patient he could be with a horse. He was particularly excited about the colt he was riding this morning and told me at least twenty times during the three hours we were out that “this Aladdin is going to be something, Annabelle.”

Jasper was a fine horseman also, but he rode like the cavalry officer he was. There was never any doubt who was in charge when Jasper was in the saddle. This attitude suited Snap perfectly, and as I watched them I felt all the gratification of a matchmaker who had arranged a successful marriage.

The young hounds did very well, the horses all behaved themselves, and by nine o’clock Sir Matthew announced that he thought we had had a very successful morning. We parted company a few miles from Stanhope, Sir Matthew and Mr. Clinton to return the hounds to their kennels, the rest of us to return to Weston Hall for a real breakfast.

Stephen was sitting at the dining room table, eating a plate of grilled kidneys, when Jasper and I walked in.

“Should you be up?” Jasper asked in the gruff voice that men used to each other to conceal concern.

“I feel fine.” Stephen’s eyes moved from Jasper’s face to mine.

I felt the thrill of that blue-eyed glance go all through me and walked over to the sideboard so that no one could see my expression. I put some food on my plate, came back to the table, and unthinkingly sat next to Stephen.

“Hungry?” he asked softly, and I heard the amusement in his voice.

I gestured to my full plate. “I was up at four-thirty, unlike some people I could mention.”

“I was exhausted,” he said reproachfully, and I knew that he was not referring to his head wound.

I took a bite of bacon and refused to answer.

Adam peeked out from behind his newspaper and said, “Do any of you want to look at the
Post?”

Jasper took a section and propped it next to his cup so he could read it as he ate.

Hodges entered the room with a silver tray bearing an envelope, which he brought to Stephen.

“This letter came for you in the afternoon post yesterday, Mr. Stephen,” he said. “I am afraid it was forgotten in the ... er ... excitement.”

Stephen took the letter and looked at the seal. “Thank you, Hodges,” he said. He glanced at me. “Do you mind if I read this, Annabelle? “

“Of course not.”

Silence descended while Stephen read his letter and Adam and Jasper read their newspapers.

I worked my way steadily through the food on my plate and wondered idly what had become of Jack.

Stephen refolded his letter. “Tom Clarkson is going to be in Brighton tomorrow afternoon,” he said. “There is to be an antislavery rally, and he wants me to drive over and join him.”

Adam put down his paper. “You cannot possibly think of going to Brighton, Stephen. You took a bullet in your head yesterday!”

His voice was resonant with paternal authority.

“I feel fine this morning, Uncle Adam,” Stephen replied absently. He tapped his letter against the tabletop and looked as if his thoughts were many miles away.

“I thought Clarkson was supposed to be going to the Vienna congress,” I said.

“He is,” Stephen answered, returning his attention to the breakfast table. “And he will be taking antislavery petitions with him that carry upward of one and a half million signatures.”

Jasper lifted his eyes from his newspaper. “That may sound impressive, Stephen, but I rather doubt that the other European nations at the congress are going to be persuaded by petitions which bear only British signatures.”

I finished my last bite of bacon and picked up my coffee cup.

Stephen said, “All the rallies and petitions this summer have put tremendous public pressure on our own ministers to make the abolition of the slave trade a priority in the coming peace negotiations, Jasper. Clarkson says that he doesn’t believe the country had ever before expressed a feeling so general as it has done about the slave trade.”