Lest she tear her handkerchief to shreds, Ned placed his hand over hers. “Forgive my presumption, but wouldn’t you be happier with your own family?”
Amanda looked rueful. “I promise you I would not. My papa might not threaten me like Connor does, but he’d make life every bit as miserable; and if I must be locked away somewhere I’d much rather it was at the Hall than in that shabby little house.” She cast Ned a sideways glance. “I didn’t think that
you
would wish me to leave.”
Ned stared at her, startled. Among his many wishes was no desire to be denied this young lady’s company. Hastily, he explained that he wished Amanda removed not from his own but Connor’s vicinity.
“That
that’s
all right! What a peagoose you must think me,” said Amanda, with a tremulous smile.
Ned handed her the handkerchief. “Nonsense. I think nothing of the sort.”
Amanda took the scrap of fabric and briskly blew her nose. She looked adorable. She also looked unconvinced.
The lady was in need of comfort. No cousin of Lord Dorset could fail to know a little bit about comforting females. Ned slipped his arm around her shoulders and drew her closer to him, meaning to drop a light kiss on her brow. To his surprise, she turned in his arms, and his kiss landed on her lips. Soft sweet lips they were, and enthusiastic. The kiss continued for a considerable time.
Despite this momentary lapse, or lapse of several moments, Ned was an honorable man. When he was done kissing Amanda, he apologized.
“I don’t know why you should be sorry,” she responded, sounding perplexed. “You did precisely what I wished. Are you thinking that because I am a widow you should not have kissed me? Fiddlestick. I didn’t love Sir Wesley, though I liked him well enough, and anyway,
he
hadn’t kissed me since his last heart attack. Naturally I was saddened by his death. If I thought
not
kissing you would bring him back, then of course I wouldn’t, but I am not so gooseish as to think
that.
Pray let us speak of other things. Rosamond said you were wounded at Toulouse — but if you don’t care to talk about it, I will understand.”
Oddly, Ned found himself telling her about Toulouse. The assault had taken place Easter Sunday of that year. Nearly eight thousand men had fallen in the fray. “Bonaparte tried to commit suicide on that same day. Unfortunately, the poison had been prepared two years earlier for a possible emergency in Russia, and was stale. An hour after Wellington entered the city, he received word that the Emperor had abdicated. That evening we learned that the Bourbons had been restored to the throne of France. The battle of Toulouse need never have been fought at all.”
Amanda patted his arm. “I’m not surprised that you have nightmares. You dwell too much in the past. Instead of skeletons and decomposing bodies you need to concentrate on happy things.”
Happy things, was it? Lady Halliday probably believed in Father Christmas. All the same, Ned admired her for speaking so frankly when no one else had dared. “Such as?” he asked.
“I had rather hoped—” Amanda blushed. “Would you mind kissing me again?”
A gentleman did not refuse a lady, and Ned
was
a gentleman, when all was said and done. Therefore, he obliged. No little time passed in this fashion, until Amanda reluctantly drew back. “Rosamond thinks I am resting. I must return before she discovers I am not and accuses me of shamming my poor ankle also, which I did not, but I wanted to be away from the Hall so badly that I did not
mind
the pain! It was good of you to come out in this dreadful weather. I hope we may soon meet again. ” She hesitated, biting her lip. “I should tell you exactly where Connor has set his traps. In case you might care to visit here again.”
“I’ve no concern for Connor Halliday,” said Ned, whose nature was not so noble that he would turn away from future
tete-a-tetes
. “Except on your behalf.”
Amanda limped toward the door. “Odd as it may seem to you, I can protect myself. I have had to, heaven knows! And never moreso than now, when Connor has taken the notion that I’m no better than I should be. Yes, and I daresay I am not, or I wouldn’t have been kissing you, and if Sir Wesley’s spirit is still present, I can only hope he didn’t mind.”
Ned repeated, “ ‘No better than you should be’?”
Amanda grimaced. “It was nothing. Connor had taken too much to drink. I doubt he was even aware who I was. In any event, I shall take care to never be alone with him in the future, so it doesn’t signify.”
It signified a great deal, Ned argued as he accompanied her outside. That Connor Halliday had dealt thus — or, as Amanda was quick to point out, had
attempted
to deal thus — with his step-mama was unconscionable conduct, and Ned intended to speak to him about it at the earliest possible date.
Not, he gloomily admitted, that he had acted with much more regard for propriety himself.
Amanda disabused him of these notions, or attempted to. Ned repeated his conviction that Connor Halliday should be called to account for his misdeeds. Neither heard a rustling in the underbrush, as if some hidden observer slipped quietly away.
Morning found Lady Bligh’s house party — save for Austen, who had risen early and was off about some business of his own — gathered in the Dining Hall. This was a nicely-proportioned chamber with handsome oak wainscoting, a low ceiling with exposed rafters and, as befit a residence of the fifth Baron, a nude Diana bathing on the stone chimneypiece.
A tall metal-lined cabinet was drawn up before the fire, its purpose to keep the plates warm. A sideboard stood on bulbous legs. All the furniture was fashioned of dark oak embellished with intricately carved animals and flowers, including the long dining table, which additionally boasted a frieze displaying an arabesque design with roses, and carved volute feet.
Dulcie’s guests were seated around that table. Their expressions were unanimously glum. This had nothing to do with the excellence of the food, or the unyielding nature of the square wooden chairs, and everything to do with the quality of their previous night’s rest.
Or the lack thereof. Ned had been visited by a nightmare in which he again fought the battle of the Pyrenees, the longest and most costly encounter of Wellington’s campaign. Jael’s attempt to soothe him — Jael had more patience with Ned than the other houseguests, having seen, and caused, a fair number of horrors herself — had come to naught, Ned believing her to be Soult, engaged in an attempt to relieve the fortress of Pamplona. Fortunately, Dulcie had followed Jael into his room. Ned mistook Lady Bligh for Wellington, come to put in a personal appearance on the battlefield, and fell at last into a restful sleep.
Lady Dorset, whose slumbers had been little more restful, contemplated a tureen shaped like a rabbit with a basket on its back. This being hunting country, she was surprised someone hadn’t shot the thing. Livvy was feeling plump and cross, despite her efforts of her cheerful little abigail, Mary, to lighten her spirits by placing a lace cap on her dark curls and buttoning her into a pretty sprig muslin morning dress.
She glanced at her hostess, seated at the head of the table. The Baroness was wearing a simple dimity gown in a shade of verdant green. Dulcie was doing an excellent imitation of a lilac-bush, decided Livvy, and poked a fork into her boiled egg.
Lady Bligh regarded her breakfast plate with a similar lack of enthusiasm. Her dining experience was not being improved by a scold from the Chief Magistrate of Bow Street. “Dear John,” she protested, “I am of far too delicate a constitution to endure this continual censure. I wish you would stop.”
“You are about as delicate as an old leather boot,” Sir John retorted, for her ears alone. “Must you involve yourself in this business? You are not as young as you once were, Dulcie.”
“Nor are you. But that needn’t prove an impediment,” she replied, and winked. “Curiosity is the lust of the mind, according to Thomas Hobbes.”
The Chief Magistrate sought valiantly to ignore this provocation. “What basis can you possibly have for thinking Halliday’s death isn’t what it seems? He was alone in the garden. There was no evidence of poisoning or any other foul play. No indication that he died of anything other than a simple heart attack.”
“Ah! You
also harbor reservations.” Lady Bligh picked up her spoon. “I never for a moment suspected that poison was involved.”
Sir John experienced a sudden frisson of foreboding. “What
do
you suspect? Or are you introducing red herrings simply for the entertainment of your guests?”
“Unworthy, John! Our little party is quite lively enough without my further efforts, what with Ned going on about flocks of crows feeding on corpses, and at the same time developing a
tendresse
for Lady Halliday. If that were not trial enough, then we have Lavender, whose state of health inspires her to take overheated fancies, while her husband appears oblivious to the cause of her distress.” Dulcie reached for the silver jam pot.
Sir John watched his hostess spoon jam onto a toasted crumpet. “Then enlighten him, why don’t you? You have no compunction about meddling with anyone else.”
“May I remind you of my nephew’s temper? Tell Dickon that Livvy suspects him of philandering, and he’s likely to be so furious he departs immediately for London. And speaking of philandering…” Dulcie regarded Sir John through half-closed eyes. His hand rose, of its own volition, and brushed aside a lilac curl that had fallen forward on her cheek.
Before the Chief Magistrate of Bow Street could perform further improper acts, he was distracted by Jael’s husky voice. Since she was describing a time-honored Romany tradition known as
drab the bawlo,
or poison the pig, a process involving a flat-pressed sponge dipped in melted lard and cooled, which when introduced into a pig’s belly blocked the digestive tract and killed the animal, her words put an effective end to any notions of romance.
Today Jael wore a gown of cream-colored muslin laced with brown cord and tassels. Her jet-black hair was fastened up behind and fell in light ringlets to her neck. Since she also wore countless golden chains and earrings, and since no amount of ladylike embellishment could efface her wicked scar, the effect was both magnificent and bizarre.
She appeared perfectly at ease at the Baroness’s table. And so she should have been. The woman had in times past graced even more exclusive breakfast tables, including that of a royal duke.
Jael met Sir John’s gaze, and smiled. He quickly removed his hand from Dulcie’s cheek. “And then there are your foppish nephew and his particular.”
“Ah, yes. Then there is Jael.” The Baroness raised her voice. “Paris is from all reports a city without style. The streets are filthy, some of them ankle-deep in water. Nobody dresses for the theater. Even the rich spit on the floor and use the points of their knives as toothpicks.”
“And the Baron?” inquired Sir John, attempting to focus his concentration on other than his hostess’s perfume, her soft warm body, and her surprisingly flattering lilac curls “How do his affairs progress?”
“Nicely, I should imagine.” Lady Bligh picked up her cup. “Maximilian has devised a solution to the problem of the Ambassador, have I said? Wellington is to replace Castlereagh at the Congress of Vienna so that the Foreign Secretary may return to his duties in Parliament. Currently, Bat—” This was Dulcie’s pet name for her husband; if the majority of the swashbuckling Baron’s vast acquaintance stood in awe of him, his wife did not. “—is touring the Parisian restaurants. He speaks kindly of the Café de Milles Collones, where he held a lengthy conversation with a bejeweled Madame who was said to be a favorite of Bonaparte’s, but writes less favorably about Tortoni’s, which is famous for its ices.” Delicately she sipped her chocolate. “Maximilian has an appreciation for things that are out of the common way.”
Sir John remained silent, the remarks that sprang to mind being most unsuited to utterance at so early an hour and in mixed company.
Ned was describing Paris during the occupation by the Allies, which was hardly a breakfast-table topic Connor Halliday would have approved. “The Russian Cossacks were the worst. They cared only for drink and fighting and females, when drunk. A group of them blew up a woman on a pile of gunpowder, then tried to roast the housekeeper of the chateau in which they were billeted because she refused to bring them girls.”
“Please, no more!” groaned Livvy, fearing her boiled egg would choose to reappear.
“Such an excess of sensibility, sweet Livvy,” said Hubert. “One supposes Lady Halliday must be made of sterner stuff.”
“Lady Halliday is very agreeable company,” Ned said calmly, and reached for a slice of breakfast-cake.
“I’ll wager she is,” murmured Lord Dorset to his wife. Since Livvy interpreted this remark as an indication that her spouse’s pursuit of the lady in question had received a setback, and consequently couldn’t decide whether to rejoice in his comeuppance or alternately suffer resentment on his behalf, she too held her tongue.
Sir John was frowning. Dulcie touched his hand. “Better that our Ned think about l’amour than his fallen comrades, don’t you think?” Her dark eyes twinkled. “A spot of flirtation never hurt anyone, dear John.”
Oh but it did, thought Livvy.
She
had indulged in a flirtation, and just look at her now.
“Ah, there you are, Culpepper.” Dulcie rose and went to join her abigail at the door. Try as they might, her guests could not make out the conversation. All eyes were upon the Baroness as she resumed her seat.
“Vulgar curiosity!” she scolded. “But I suppose it will do no harm to inform you of the latest tidbit from the servants’ hall. Connor Halliday set out last night to catch a ghost. Instead he came close to being caught himself, in one of his own traps, which had been moved.”
Livvy was the first to speak, a fact which didn’t escape her husband’s notice. “Was Mr. Halliday hurt?”
“He was not.” Dulcie leaned one elbow on the table and rested her chin on her hand. “I can’t decide whether I should congratulate him or offer a hint.”