Mistress of the Hunt (23 page)

She smiled a little as she moved at last to ring for her maid. Rochford was surely as stubborn as Wakefield had been. He was nearly as stubborn, for that matter, as Philippa herself. And he had other faults as well. Surely she could list a number of them without half-thinking about it. But one thing Wakefield had never warned her about—that she might meet a man whose faults were as nothing to her. From the outset there had been that little humming in her mind whenever she chanced to be in the same room with him. Even when he was angry, the humming went on. And when she had contrived to make him laugh at something she said, the result was much like that moment in Mr. Haydn’s Surprise Symphony when he had meant to startle the emperor’s select audience from their dozing.

Her maid entered then, and Philippa tore herself away from her thoughts long enough to instruct the woman as to which dress and shoes she would wear that evening. “And I’ll have my hair up in a top knot, Alice,
à la chinoise
, I think, with just a few ringlets to soften the neckline. You know the way.”

“Aye, mum,” replied Alice, setting to work to assist her mistress out of her frock and into a bronze velvet evening gown with tiny puffed sleeves, a high waist and slim skirt, and a daringly low-cut bodice. The sleeves and waist were trimmed with knots of silk mistake ribbons, shaded from coffee to gold, and Philippa wore a gold chain with a yellow topaz pendant that rested at the top of her cleavage, and matching earbobs rested waiting on her dressing table to be donned once Alice had arranged her hair.

Relaxing as the maid stroked the silver-backed brush through her dark golden tresses, Philippa found her thoughts turning once more to the viscount and to a wish that she could be at peace with him again. If only, she thought, it were not necessary for her to appear to give in to his wishes or to the pressures of such men as Assheton-Smith and Lord Lonsdale in order to attain that peace. The disorder arising from her decision to post her land appalled her. She wanted nothing so much as to be able to rip every sign down, to allow the hunters to ride wherever they wished to ride, to put men like Tom Giles in the way of making their fortunes from the damages paid them, and to allow Sam Cudlipp to go back to stopping earths for the various hunts. But to give in to them all unconditionally was more than her pride would allow. Her independence was too important to her, and she knew full well that the entire countryside would be of the opinion that Rochford had talked her round if she ordered the signs removed.

That thought brought another on its heels. Though he had certainly torn a strip off her that afternoon, though he had ranted and raved about her foolhardiness in exposing herself to danger, and her stubbornness in general, he had not once repeated his earlier demand that she take down her signs. She could not doubt that he still wanted her to do so. That went without saying, perhaps. Nonetheless, he had not said it. He had said many other things, to be sure, but he had apologized for the worst of them. And he had looked at her in
such
a way.

“Here is your glass, my lady,” said Alice in her quiet way. “You’ll be wanting to look at the back now.”

Startled, Philippa took the silver hand mirror and turned this way and that, paying little heed to her hair but using the opportunity to quiet her thoughts. “That will do, Alice,” she said after a hasty glance. She reached for her earbobs. “You may go to your dinner now. I’ll ring when I want you later.”

“Yes, mum. I’ll just be waiting until I’ve seen your skirt straight.”

Philippa smiled at her, stood up obediently, and turned as Alice twitched the velvet slightly here and there until the total effect met with her approval. Then, handing her mistress a gold net shawl and helping her to drape it properly from elbow to elbow, Alice dropped a brief curtsy and took her leave.

Philippa followed a moment later, pausing only to pinch more color into her cheeks. Downstairs, she found her cousin and Mr. Drake already in the yellow drawing room, engaged in a spirited exchange of opinion.

“My dear Mr. Drake,” Miss Pellerin was saying indignantly, “I cannot believe I am hearing such fustian with my own ears.” Looking up, she spied Philippa entering the room and at once demanded that she attend to “this nonsense” with her own ears. “Would you believe, my love, that Mr. Drake is of the opinion that young ladies are capable of learning no more than deportment and sketching? He avers that even botany is beyond them, that their brains are not capable of attending to such detail as must be demanded of a scholar.”

“Goodness, Mr. Drake,” Philippa said, smiling at that discomfited gentleman, “surely you must agree that Cousin Adeliza, at least, has proved you wrong on all counts. I am sure she is much better educated than most men of my acquaintance.”

Mr. Drake coughed gently behind his hand. “Indeed, my lady, your cousin has been most oddly raised by a doting sire, and she appears to have been blessed by a rare ability to understand what she reads, but I cannot agree with her that any young woman must possess that same ability. One knows from vast experience that teaching the fair sex to read is a most difficult process. Their heads being so full, as they are, of matters of fashion and gossip, there simply is no room left for sensible learning. And men will have it no other way, I fear for the dear creatures are quite fascinating as they are. A woman raised as your charming cousin has been raised can only confuse those gentlemen whom she chances to meet who have not had the benefit of her broad education and thus cannot know what to say to her.”

“They are frightened,” said Miss Pellerin ominously, “of revealing their own lack of understanding.”

“Pish tush, dear lady, I daresay that no gentleman would fall prey to such a nonsensical fear. To be sure, a man of the working classes must inevitably be dismayed by coming upon a lady versed in only the simplest matters of education, but he need not fret that it will happen to him more than once in a lifetime, thank goodness.”

“Sir, you may think yourself fortunate that I do not have a bucket of cold water at hand, for I declare I should know precisely where to empty it,” said Miss Pellerin awfully, getting to her feet with an angry swish of her peach satin skirts. The other gentlemen entered
en masse
just then, and she was able to turn her attention to them, demanding to know if Edward had rung for preprandial refreshment.

“Bickerstaff is just bringing it, ma’am,” said that young man, eyeing his angry relative with dismay. “What has occurred to put you out, Cousin?”

“ ’Tis nothing at all, Edward,” Philippa said quickly, forseeing that the discussion would inevitably become a general one if it were so allowed. “Do you all mean to ride into Melton after dinner tonight?”

As a diversion it proved to be an excellent choice, for it seemed that the gentlemen did indeed mean to ride into town to attend a horse auction, after which they would join friends at the George for cards and drinking.

“Well, if you mean to hunt in the morning, you will be sorry for it if you waken with sore heads,” she told them teasingly.

The conversation followed the normal course of such conversations then, and remained general throughout dinner. Although Mr. Drake was clearly trying to soothe his dinner partner’s ruffled feathers, Philippa noted that Miss Pellerin paid him no heed, confining her conversation to Edward when she was not attending to the general discussion.

Rochford sat at Philippa’s left hand, and at first she had been disconcerted to find him there, but his manner was adroit, and he soon had her chatting easily about all manner of things under cover of the general noise around the table.

“That gown seems to be a trifle lacking if you wear the velvet for warmth,” he said at one point, his appreciative grin making it clear that he did not mean to suggest the slightest disapproval.

She smiled at him. “I am quite warm, sir, except when I must traverse the stone hall. I declare, that room, even with both fireplaces roaring, is always like ice.”

“The heat goes up, you see,” he said, “so your fireplaces are doing their possible to warm the gallery, not the hall.”

She nodded, and suddenly there came one of those odd moments when nearly everyone in a group falls silent at the same time. Only one lone voice sounded, that of Lord Reginald Partridge, speaking to his neighbor, Mr. Dauntry.

“One must wonder, dash it, how the late baron came to leave such a fine little hunting box to a woman instead of to Wakefield as he should have done.”

Recognizing the
faux pas
immediately, both Lord Reginald and Dauntry turned in dismay to look at Philippa. Lord Reginald said hastily, “Oh, I say, ma’am, I meant nothing at all by it, you know. Can’t think how I came to make such a cake of myself.” He looked round at the others frantically. “Not at all the thing. Must apologize to all. Spoke out of turn. That is, thought it was a private conversation, you know.”

Dauntry observed morosely, “Should have known they’d all go quiet soon as you said anything out of turn.”

Philippa couldn’t help herself. She chuckled. And when Lord Reginald turned back to face her, bewilderment clear upon his youthful face, she shook her head at him. “You needn’t apologize, sir. If my late husband had indeed done such a thing as that, there is no one who would not wonder at it.”

“But he did, dash it!” exclaimed Lord Winkburn from the other end of the table. Then, as he realized he was slipping into deep waters with the others, he muttered defensively, “Surely that is how the matter was explained to me.”

“Well, I cannot think who might have explained it so,” Philippa told him frankly, “for although Wakefield left me the major portion of his unentailed property, that does not include Chase Charley, which was merely left to my use for my lifetime. I may stay here anytime I wish, but the estate belongs to Edward.”

A stunned silence followed this innocent announcement, and as Philippa glanced at each astonished face in turn, she discovered that even Rochford was gaping at her. Just as she opened her mouth to ask what ailed them all, her stepson gave a shout of triumphant laughter.

“By God, she’s right. I never paid the least heed to all the dashed nonsense my papa’s man of business babbled at me, and there’s so dashed much property I daresay I never had the straight of what was entailed and what was not. What with everything being in the hands of my trustees until I’m twenty-five, I paid little heed to any of it, but Chase Charley must be mine.”

“Then she ith not the owner and cannot post the property,” declared Alvanley, regarding Philippa challengingly, as though he hoped she might wish to debate the issue.

Her first inclination was to do just that, to point out to Edward—indeed, to all of them—that she had every right to do what she had done, but the others had already joined noisily in his triumph and were encouraging him in his declaration that every no-trespassing sign would be gone by morning.

“Dash it, we’ll make a night of it. No reason we can’t see to the business before we go into town. I’ll roust my people out the minute we get up from table, and I’ll wager Giles, Cudlipp, and the rest will see to the business before morning.”

No one said anything further to her, and a moment later, under cover of the general din of victory and shouts for claret and brandy, she signaled to her cousin and got up from the table, ignoring the questioning look in the viscount’s eye.

In the drawing room, Miss Pellerin demanded, “Ought you not to have explained the matter to him, my dear? I could not feel that it was my place to say anything, of course, but I do believe you might have informed them that you had done nothing wrong.”

Philippa shook her head. “Can you imagine, ma’am, what must have been the result had I even tried to make myself heard amongst all that noise and revelry? And what a witch I should have looked to dampen their enthusiasm, as I must have done, had I informed them that as Edward’s principal trustee I do control his property.”

“But, my dear, Edward did mention that his property is managed by his trustees.”

Philippa shrugged. “It will occur to none of them that I am one, however, for women are rarely named to such a position. Edward has been told, again and again, but he has little awareness yet of what my position entails. Since he has not yet outrun the constable, I doubt he even realizes he must apply to me if he needs more generous funding. Such an event must certainly have brought home to him what power I wield. If he has thought about the matter, he no doubt assumes his uncle to be in charge of his affairs, though why he should think that, I cannot imagine, for he must know that his papa held Mr. Raynard-Wakefield in the greatest contempt and named him associate trustee merely as a sop to those who would rant and rave at his putting a woman in control. But Wakefield’s will was clear. I need no one else’s consent to act on Edward’s behalf.”

“But you ought to explain that much to Rochford, at least. He was not cheering with the others, you know. He was watching you.”

“To speak the truth, ma’am, I am heartily sick of the business and can see no good reason to explain anything to anyone. I acted in haste, and I have realized for some time that my actions were unwise. Until tonight, however, I could see no way out of the quagmire that would not make it appear that I had succumbed to wiser counsel—specifically, Rochford’s counsel. That, my pride would not allow. ’Tis foolish, you’ll say—”

“Nonsense, I shall say no such thing,” replied Miss Pellerin tartly. “After this evening I have seen precisely just how ridiculously high men hold themselves in their own esteem. I can certainly admire your desire to avoid puffing any one of them any higher than he puffs himself.” And having relieved herself of this opinion, Miss Pellerin retrieved her fancy work basket from behind a claw-footed sofa, placed her silver pince-nez on her little button nose, and settled herself down to an unexceptionably ladylike pastime. Philippa paced the floor for some moments, attempting to convince herself that matters had now settled themselves admirably, but by the time Rochford and Mr. Drake came to take punctilious leave of them, she had flung herself into a chair and was engaged in knotting and unknotting one of the ribbons at the waist. She straightened quickly.