A Curious Courting (20 page)

“Her
library, Forrester.”

A wave of pain passed over Henry’s face. “I know it’s her house, but she chooses to have me treat it as my own. She has told me so any number of times.”

Rushton pursed his lips grimly. “And you feel it necessary to take advantage of her goodness?”

“I don’t! She’s my cousin, and I love her dearly. You have no idea how much she’s done for me.”

“I think I do. More, perhaps, than a young gudgeon like you can comprehend, Forrester.”

Henry shifted awkwardly from one leg to the other. “I didn’t want her to make a fool of herself in front of you.”

“What you need to learn, my boy, is that she has every right to make a fool of herself if she wishes to. And you have no right to set yourself up as her censor. If she puts you through agonies of embarrassment, you will sit and take it like a man, not snivel about your discomfort. You cannot truly believe that you added to the pleasure of our afternoon by the scene you created. The two major qualities of a gentleman are acting honorably and courteously. You did neither.”

The stinging words lashed Henry as nothing else could have. His shoulders slumped dejectedly and he hung his head. “I’m sorry. I never thought…”

“The trouble with youngsters is that they never do think, beyond their own wishes. You are not alone, Forrester, but that does not make your behavior any less reprehensible. In her concern for you, your cousin has allowed you more license than you should have. She has allowed your friendship to dull her authority over you. Her position is not enviable. Imposing the discipline which you should have would of necessity change your relationship, and she is far too young to realize that the benefits would outweigh the disadvantages…for you. And until recently it has not been necessary, I take it. Don’t make it necessary in future, Forrester,” Rushton said grimly, “or I shall have something to say about it.”

“Yes, sir.” Henry rubbed his temples and looked miserable. “I will apologize to Selina, of course. Honestly, I don’t mean to hurt her, and sometimes I even know that she’s right, but... Perhaps it
is
selfishness. But I’m not a child anymore, and I want to have some say in my life. Everyone is always telling me what I should do, and no one is asking me what I want to do. Selina tries to understand.”

“Then see that you try to understand her. She has sacrificed a great deal to have the right to keep you with her, because she thought it would be best for you, and she was undoubtedly right. You may chafe under her protectiveness, and regret that she doesn’t share your newly-discovered dream of independence, but she has devoted her life to raising you, and you cannot shrug aside the obligation that lays on you.” Rushton crossed the short distance between them and laid his hand on Henry’s drooping shoulders. “Don’t think I don’t sympathize with you, too. From sixteen to eighteen I was in a turmoil I shudder to remember. You can’t make it an excuse for gauche conduct, though, as my father used to impress on me.”

Rushton removed his hand and wandered thoughtfully to the window. “Do you resent my talking to you this way?”

Startled, Henry gulped, “No.”

“You probably should,” Rushton retorted smiling. “It is, after all, none of my concern. But I hope you will heed my advice; it is well-intentioned.” He remembered Miss Easterly-Cummings’ pungent remark on her good intentions, and shrugged his broad shoulders. “I will be back in a few days for our next boxing lesson, if you wish.”

“You will? But…” Henry could not express the fear that he had so disgusted Rushton by his conduct that he would never see the man again.

“You and your cousin don’t seem to understand my own supreme belief in my consequence,” Rushton said querulously. “One word from me is supposed to so sufficiently dash your pretentions that it is not necessary for me to further annihilate you by word or deed. You do wish to continue boxing, don’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then I shall return in a few days.”

Henry learned from Selina’s maid that his cousin was in her room lying down. When she did not appear for dinner, he felt mortified and wretched with guilt. Rushton had not said how very upset Selina was, but Henry was beginning to draw an accurate conclusion. After his meal he sent a note up to her that said simply:
Please forgive me. May I see you?

The slip of paper fell from Selina’s hand after she read it. Of course she would have to see him, but she felt so exhausted, too spent to have another emotional scene. Tomorrow she would perhaps feel more like thinking about the problem, deciding whether she would do best to send him to his guardian. She flinched at the very thought, but considered it a real possibility. Where she had lost control over this burgeoning young man, Lord Leyburn, for all his coldness, might have more success. He was a man, and likely to better understand a boy of Henry’s age than she. Such a solution appalled her, but tomorrow she might be able to look at the situation from Henry’s point of view, or at least from what she considered to be best for Henry.

Selina took full responsibility for the afternoon’s fiasco; it pointed out to her that she was really not the proper person to have charge of Henry. For years she had allowed herself an escape into drama when things became a bit much for her. She and Henry had found it a joke, and it was a way of relieving her pent-up emotions, and often of expressing her very real feelings on matters in a harmless way. Never before had she exhibited this penchant in front of anyone but Henry, and she could not blame him for being ashamed of her doing so in company.

Sadly she looked up at her maid from where she lay propped against the pillows. “Have Henry come up and join me, will you, Alice?”

The girl nodded and disappeared with the dinner tray, the food hardly touched, leaving the door open. In minutes Henry stood there, staring at Selina’s pale face, uncertain of his reception and unwilling to enter the room until she noticed his arrival. He cleared his throat.

The dark eyes seemed enormous in her face. “Come in, Henry, and bring a chair by the bed. I wasn’t up to coming down for dinner. Did you eat the calves’ ears, or give them to Scamp?”

“Scamp is in hiding because McDonough laughed at her haircut. I’ll see she gets something to eat later.” The chair he was carrying knocked against the bed. He grimaced and sat down on it heavily. “Selina, I…I know my behavior this afternoon was inexcusable. I was only thinking of myself and I made a scene. You see, I wanted you and Mr. Rushton to like each other. Well, he’s being awfully good to come and teach me to box, and he helped with Scamp today... I know you don’t get on very well, but if he is to come around every so often, it would seem strange for you to avoid him all the time. You and I have always laughed at your dramatics, but he’s so sophisticated…I’m not criticizing you, honestly I’m not. You should do just as you please in your own house. I was afraid he would think you were. . . eccentric or something.”

“He always has, Henry. You did make an awkward scene and you must learn not to put a guest in such a position. It was every bit as uncomfortable as my play-acting. I won’t do that again with company. We have done it so much that I suppose I didn’t really think about doing it with Mr. Rushton there. And he didn’t seem to mind. But I never meant to…embarrass you.

“I won’t have you apologize to me, Selina!” Henry exclaimed. “I was entirely at fault. Rushton was not the least put out; he said so.”

“You spoke with him afterwards?”

“He summoned me to the study and gave me a proper raking down.” Henry flushed to the roots of his hair.

“I see.” She shivered and drew the shawl more closely about her shoulders. So Mr. Rushton had decided for himself that she was no longer able to manage her charge, and had taken on the necessary task of scolding him. The significance of such an action made Selina’s throat ache, and she bit her lip to control its quiver. “This will probably mean your going to live with Lord Leyburn, Henry. I shall miss you dreadfully, but it will be better for you at your age to have a man to guide you. Perhaps you will come to visit me sometimes, or…or join me on a trip to the coast, or one of the spots we have gone to before. For a week or two. No one could object to that! I am, after all, your only relation. But you mustn’t think it necessary! If you are happy and busy and haven’t time to get away, I shall understand. Why, I shall be pleased for you. Your happiness is my only concern, dear Henry. You have not even seen Bromley Manor since you came here. To see your own estate... Oh, it will cause you some sadness, no doubt, at first, but you will be proud to think of the day it will be yours to run and to make into a home. Lord Leyburn’s seat is no more than a few miles from it, I understand, and, though he has tenants there now, I am sure he can arrange for you to see it.”

Henry sat stunned through this recital. Never had he envisioned such a punishment for even his most dastardly crime as to be sent away from Selina and Shalbrook. Lord Leyburn was, to his mind, the bogeyman. A dim shadow in his memory, with no features to fill in his face, nothing more than an angular script on a quarterly letter. The man who directed his future from afar, as though he were a puppet on strings. Henry found himself unable to utter a word.

“Henry dear, my head is aching unbearably. Would you mind very much if we talked more tomorrow? I can’t seem to think clearly and there is so much I want to say to you. Have Alice bring me a drop or two of laudanum in water, will you, love?”

Desolated beyond anything he could remember, including the death of his family, Henry rose unsteadily and nodded mutely. He must, as Rushton would decree, bear his punishment like a man, at least in her presence. Tomorrow, oh, if tomorrow ever came, he would humbly ask for a reprieve, promise to behave better in future, assure her that he could and would respect her authority over him. To be banished from the warmth of her affection to the coldness of an uncaring stranger, surely that was more than he deserved. Even when one considered his various misdemeanors of the last few weeks, even then it was too much. How could Selina think it would be “better” for him to live with Lord Leyburn? Who would there be in that large family of unknown people to take his cousin’s place? After giving Alice her instructions, Henry went numbly along the corridor to his room.

Certainly it was the longest night Henry had ever spent. While Selina succumbed to the first ministration of laudanum she had ever allowed herself, Henry tossed and turned in his bed, advancing and discarding arguments which he would offer her the next day. None of them somehow seemed sufficient. Henry did not doubt her love for him; it was that love that terrified him now, for Selina had indicated that she was proposing this course not in anger but out of her firm desire to see him happy, established where he would have the proper guidance. Rushton had said that awful thing about Henry’s not acting like a gentleman. More than anything, of course Selina wished to see her cousin instilled with those virtues, and if she thought Lord Leyburn could provide them where she could not, then she would, even if it made her desperately unhappy, send him to his guardian.

In spite of his resolve to bear up under this adversity, Henry greeted the dawn hollow-eyed and desperate. As he pulled on his buckskins and top boots, he began to formulate a plan in his mind, hazy but determined, to talk with Rushton. After all, Rushton had combed his hair about Henry’s behavior, but he had also indicated his sympathy with the boy’s growing pains. Henry donned a shirt and waistcoat mechanically before knotting a kerchief at his throat. Even if there was time to tie a cravat properly, he had not the patience. Shrugging into his riding coat, he made no attempt to see that it set correctly on his long arms and bony shoulders.

There were few people astir in the manor and he met none of them as he slipped out the back door onto the flagged path leading to the stables. The day promised to be as fine as the previous one, with the dawn sun already beginning to dry the dew, and the heady smell of newly-turned earth pervading Henry’s nostrils. Such a day would be perfect for him to accompany Mr. Sands on his rounds of the estate. Henry gulped down the lump in his throat when he realized there might never be a chance to do so now. His pace quickened as he neared Catastrophe’s box.

The horse whinnied as he was being saddled, and stretched out his stride as Henry directed him to the village. Only after leaving Catastrophe at the Horse and Hound stables was Henry checked in his hell-bent progress toward Mr. Rushton. The innkeeper, newly arisen from his warm bed, was issuing directions for lighting fires when he glanced around at the opening door. “Mr. Forrester! You’re about early, and no mistake. No trouble at Shalbrook, I hope.”

“No, no. I must see Mr. Rushton,” Henry explained, running a hand through his tousled hair.

“At this hour? You can’t do that, my good sir. I’ve never known him up and abroad before nine or ten, and that only once or twice. No, no, you mustn’t disturb him. You can wait in the coffee room.”

“But it is urgent!”

“Nothing is so urgent as to wake a man from his slumbers,” Mr. Evans said severely. “Come and have some coffee. I dare say you’ve not even had your breakfast at this hour. We’ve pigeon pie, ham and a round of cold beef, or you might prefer the kidneys and rashers. Or a poached egg and toast, or muffins. No one in Leicestershire keeps a better table than the Horse and Hound.”

“I know, sir, but this cannot wait. Mr. Rushton is in the rebuilt rooms, is he not? I’ll not tell him I met you on the way,” Henry promised as he skirted the astonished landlord and fled down the corridor toward the wing.

Mr. Evans considered the possibility of pursuit, but decided it would be undignified, unsuccessful and probably needless. The quality had their own ways, and far be it from him to try to understand them.

Although his single-minded purpose carried Henry to Mr. Rushton’s door, once arrived there he hesitated. Nothing would change in the next few hours and Rushton would undoubtedly think him the greatest dunderhead for awakening him to pour out his problems. He would label Henry an unthinking, selfish child, as he had thought him the previous day. Henry decided that his best course of action was to wait at the door until he heard sounds of movement within, and then he would knock. After a while he tired of standing and sat down leaning against the doorframe, in which position he promptly fell asleep.