The Famous Heroine/The Plumed Bonnet (9 page)

“Oh, I say,” Lord Lanting added, his eyes turning in Cora’s direction, “a splendid act of courage, m’dear.”

“You might have killed yourself,” Lady Kellington said through her tears.

The crowd acted like a Greek chorus. There were mutterings and murmurings and a few quite distinct
voices. All of them were singing the same tune. All of them were chanting the praises of Miss Cora Downes, who had saved the lives of Lady Kellington’s poodles at considerable risk to her own life.

The leather of his new pantaloons was scuffed beyond repair, Lord Francis noticed with deep regret. So was one of his boots. One side and one sleeve of his coat were covered with dust. His white shirt cuff was stained green from the grass. So, he noticed with a grimace when he turned his arm, was the elbow of his coat. His hat was nowhere in sight.

“By Gad,” someone said, “she is Miss Downes. The Duchess of Bridgwater’s protégée. She was at Lady Markley’s last evening.”

“The one who saved Bridgwater’s nephew by jumping into the river in Bath after him.” Someone else had taken up the chorus.

“The heroine!” It was almost a communal whisper of awe.

T WAS A LITTLE MORTIFYING TO EMERGE FROM A DAZE
to find oneself lying prostrate on a grass verge in Hyde Park, gazing up at a blue sky that was rimmed about like a fluted picture frame by the concerned faces of half the
ton
. It was even more mortifying to realize that one reason for the distortion of one’s vision was the fact that one’s new hat, which one had thought looked very fetching earlier in the afternoon, was now being worn sideways.

Cora dared not look down to observe the state of her dress.

She realized then what was being said. They were calling her a heroine—again. Because she had saved a poodle or two from extinction beneath a horse’s hoof.

She laughed.

“If you please,” someone said firmly as the picture frame moved in closer to the center of the sky, “it would be wiser to give her air. She is winded, I do believe, and perhaps suffering from a concussion as well.”

Lord Francis Kneller’s voice. She felt a rush of gladness when she recalled that it was with him she had been driving. She would have felt horribly embarrassed if it had been any other gentleman. Of course, she was feeling horribly embarrassed anyway. She laughed again.

Someone was weeping all over her hand. The lady in
pink—the owner of the poodles. The poodles! Were they all safe? But they must be if she was being hailed as a heroine.
Had
she been heroic this time? She rather thought she had.

And then Lord Francis was bending over her. His hair looked adorably rumpled. His coat was dusty. His elbow was grass-stained. Oh, dear, he would be dreadfully upset over that. The coat really was a gorgeous shade of pink.

“Miss Downes,” he said, “are you all right?”

“Oh, perfectly,” she said and sat up, lifting her arms at the same moment to straighten her hat and try to inject a little decorum into the scene. Her father, had he been present, would have been tossing his eyes skyward. Edgar would have been calling her a clumsy booby or something lowering to that effect. Sky and picture frame did a complete spin before slowing down. “Oops,” she added.

There were murmurings of concern from the picture frame.

Lord Francis helped her to her feet and even brushed some grass from her dress. There was a swell of sound, almost like a cheer, from the gathered
ton
—presumably in congratulation over the fact that she was upright.

“No, no,” Lord Francis was saying, “I shall convey Miss Downes home myself. If someone would just hold my horses’ heads for a moment.”

She leaned heavily against his arm—it was such a nicely solid arm—while the world about her made up its mind whether to stop completely or swing around again. She was not quite sure afterward how she got back up into the high seat of his phaeton. She rather believed that he climbed up there with her in his arms, though how that could have been accomplished was beyond her comprehension. Certain it was that he drove away—magically, a clear path, lined with spectators, opened for
him—with her fitted tightly against his side, one of his arms about her to prevent her from toppling either forward or sideways, something she might well have done.

Something was bothering her—apart from the painful throbbing at the back of her head. She had not summoned up the courage to feel back there yet, but she suspected that she must have a goose egg sitting on the back of her skull. She frowned.

“You saved me,” she said. “It was wonderfully courageous of you. You might have got hurt.”

He looked down at her—somehow her head, hat and all, was nestled on his shoulder. “Miss Downes,” he said dryly, “you render me speechless.”

But that was not what had been really bothering her. She frowned again. “Lord Francis,” she said, “were the dogs
really
in danger?”

Edgar would not have waited to be asked—he had not done so after the incident of little Henry. But then Edgar assumed all the annoying privileges of an older brother. Lord Francis Kneller was far more polite.

He did not answer for a while. During that while Cora realized how shockingly improper it was to be riding in the streets of London like this. She felt very thankful yet again that it was only Lord Francis. His arm and his shoulder really did feel remarkably comforting.

“The dogs certainly did panic,” he said at last. “As did the horse. Someone or some creature might definitely have come to harm. I can only wish that I had been the one to land on the bottom so that it would have been my head that was banged. I wonder how I am to explain to her grace that you came to harm while under my protection.”

“Oh,” she said, trying to sit up and changing her mind hastily, “but you saved me from much worse harm, as I shall be sure to explain. There would have been no danger, would there, if I had not jumped down. The dogs
would not have panicked and neither would the horse.” It was a horrid admission to make even to herself. Honesty compelled her to admit it to him as well.

Surprisingly he chuckled. “It is a debatable point,” he said. “But it would be as well to keep that fact between the two of us, Miss Downes. Your image as a heroine has swelled to twice its size this afternoon. That can do you no harm at all on the marriage mart.”

“Oh,” she said, mortified. “Does it push up my value?”

He chuckled again. He sounded genuinely amused, she was relieved to find. He was not unduly annoyed with her, then.

“Let us just say,” he said, “that it will do you no harm to be seen as heroic. And there is no doubt at all that your actions with regard to Bridgwater’s nephew truly were.”

Cora grimaced. “You should talk with my brother about that,” she said.

He looked down at her again. His way of guiding his horses with just one hand was remarkably impressive, she thought.

“They were not?” he asked her.

“Edgar says that the child would have swum to the bank without my assistance,” she said. “He says that I almost drowned him.”

Lord Francis’s voice sounded amused when he spoke, but he did not laugh again. “That was remarkably unhandsome of him,” he said.

“Well,” she said, “he
is
my brother, you know. Do you have brothers or sisters, Lord Francis?” Then she remembered that he had a brother who was a duke.

“One brother and two sisters,” he said. “Two of them older than me. I know what that can be like. But let us not disallow your image as a heroine, Miss Downes. The
beau monde
is enormously cheered by it. We are a
jaded lot, you know. We must constantly seek novelty and entertainment. A female heroine is irresistible.”

“So we must tell lies?” she asked him doubtfully.

“Not at all,” he said. “We need say nothing. There were a dozen witnesses to this afternoon’s heroic act, Miss Downes, and a hundred more who will convince themselves that they were witnesses. They will describe what they have seen, and each new teller will embellish the story told by the one before. You will find that single-handedly you have saved four innocent and lovable poodles from certain death—not to mention having saved Lady Kellington from an irreparably broken heart.”

“Oh,” she said. But her thoughts were diverted. “Why does the road keep rushing up toward me when I can feel that you are holding me securely in place?”

“Close your eyes,” he said, his arm tightening about her.

She did not even realize until she was inside the hall of the Duchess of Bridgwater’s town house that she had allowed him to carry her there. This was becoming something of a habit—an unfortunate one for him. She wondered what soap or cologne he used. It smelled good. It was subtle. Almost manly. Well, she thought, to be fair she must admit that on anyone else she would not have thought of qualifying that judgment. And she really did not care that Lord Francis Kneller favored bright, foppish colors and elegant manners. She liked him just as he was.

Edgar would have scolded her without stopping for endangering other lives as well as her own and for acting so brainlessly. He would have done so even knowing that she had banged her head and was not feeling quite the thing.

“She has had a slight accident,” Lord Francis was explaining to her grace. “I believe it is altogether possible
that she has a lump on the back of her head that will need attention. If you will allow me, ma’am, I will carry her up to her bed.”

“Soames.” Her grace’s voice was one of calm command. “You will send for Sir Calvin Pennard and ask him to attend me without delay, if you please.”

Sir Calvin, Cora guessed, must be the duchess’s physician.

“Follow me, Lord Francis,” her grace said, still in the same tone of voice. “I hope there is a good explanation for what happened.”

“I do believe you will hear explanations in every drawing room and ballroom in town for the next several days, ma’am,” he said. “Miss Downes was injured in the performance of an act of extraordinary courage.”

Cora looked once into his face and held her peace. She really was feeling very dizzy indeed. And she remembered now that her toes were still rather sore too.

M
ISS
C
ORA
D
OWNES
was confined to her room for two days following the incident in the park. Sir Calvin Pennard, the Duchess of Bridgwater’s physician, had insisted upon it, mainly for the sake of her head, but partly too for the sake of her feet.

She was allowed no visitors during those two days. Her grace and Elizabeth and Jane kept her company. The only exceptions to the prohibition were the Duke of Bridgwater, who made his bow to her one afternoon, inquired after her health, and congratulated her on her act of bravery, and Lord Francis Kneller, who paid a courtesy call and was invited to Miss Downes’s boudoir, where her grace’s maid played chaperon.

“I feel so
silly
,” Cora said, stretching out her hands to Lord Francis and forcing him to cross the room to her when he had intended merely to stand inside the door
for a few minutes. It was true that she was fully dressed and that her hair was up, though in a looser, more luxuriant style than he had seen before, but she was reclining on a daybed and he found himself having to suppress improper thoughts. “I am
never
ill and
never
bedridden. How kind of you to call. And how tiresome you must find me.”

He squeezed her hands, released them, and seated himself on a stool beside her. She spoke with utter candor and no noticeable intent to draw a disclaimer or a compliment from him.

“On the contrary,” he said anyway. “I am honored that you have admitted me when so many have been turned away after presenting their cards, Miss Downes.”

“Everyone is
so
kind,” she said. “Especially when I was so foolish. I have even been sent
flowers
. Look at them. My room looks like a
garden
.”

She spoke with an enthusiasm and an emphasis on certain key words that were not at all ladylike. Most ladies of his acquaintance would behave with wilting grace under circumstances like these. Cora Downes was clearly fretting from the inactivity.

“You are,” he said, “a heroine, ma’am. Every gentleman in town wishes to make his bow to you. Every lady wishes to kiss your cheek.”

“How absurd.” She laughed, throwing back her head and showing her very white teeth and making no attempt whatsoever to reduce her amusement to a mere simper. “Lady Kellington has called twice and sent a servant three other times to inquire after me.”

“Lady Kellington,” he said, “is rumored to love her poodles more than she has ever loved any person, including her late husband and her four children.”

“That is because dogs are invariably affectionate to their owners,” she surprised him by saying. He had expected a reaction of shocked disbelief or of riotous
amusement. “Sometimes when I want to wound Edgar—it is usually when he has been scolding me for something or other—I tell him that I love Papa’s dogs more than I love him. He tells me that is because the dogs do not have enough brain power to recognize my shortcomings.”