Across the Spectrum (55 page)

“Your safe return is payment enough,” Maria promised. “If
you never go to war again and can provide a home for Verity, that will ensure
our happiness.”

∞

Lucas thought of his sister’s request as he knocked at
Squire Briggs’s door the next afternoon. Now that Napoleon had been routed, he
would not be going to war again, but that meant he had no other purpose.

His father had died before Lucas could attend Oxford or
obtain any type of training. Other than the cottage and the lot it sat on, he
had no lands of his own. The only trade he knew was soldiering. It was a
problem he must solve after he found a mother for Verity.

Before setting off on this visit to the squire, he’d left
his daughter with Maria, had his hair properly barbered, and had his old
cutaway coat with the broad lapels brushed and pressed. And still he squirmed
like a raw lad on the brink of courtship.

He had been far too young to have encountered Squire Briggs
regularly before he’d left for war, so he didn’t know the man well. The
unfamiliarity of civilian life threw him off balance, forcing him to recall
that he had earned his major’s epaulets and fought battles far worse than the
encounter ahead.

A maid led Lucas inside to a fusty parlor in dire need of a
lady’s care. He frowned over that. Even if Lady Briggs had been deceased for
some years, should not Miss Briggs have directed the servants in cleaning? Or
at least replaced the cat-tattered pillows?

Cat hair was everywhere. He declined the maid’s offer of a
seat.

Lucas liked to do his own reconnaissance and had made
several inquiries before setting out on this call. From all reports, Squire
Briggs was a hearty man who loved his horses and his hounds. His lands were
fertile and well-tended, and his tenants spoke well of him. Lack of funds or
servants did not explain this lack of order.

The tenants had spoken well of the squire’s daughter, as
well, but with a certain degree of caution. Lucas trusted that was out of
respect, but Lorena’s warning rang in his memory.

He heard the squire roaring at a rambunctious hound
somewhere deeper inside the house and smiled to himself, thinking taming a dog
was very much like taming Verity. He’d nearly broken his neck falling over her
this morning when she’d darted out from under a table on her hands and knees.

“Sumner!” the squire boomed as he entered the parlor. “Good
to see you home, lad! Major now, ain’t ye? Made the town proud, you did. Shame
your father is no longer about to brag on you.” He pounded Lucas on the back
and gestured toward the door. “C’mon back to m’study. We’ll have a bit of
brandy and celebrate your return.”

Brandy was an excellent idea. Lucas thought he needed
fortifying before he explained his presence. He was starting to think he should
have sought out Harriet first, but he’d forgotten the protocol, if he’d ever
known it. How did one woo a lady without going through her parent? He was no
dab hand at courtship.

Outside, several hounds gave voice at once, and a woman
shouted sharp commands.

The squire ignored the commotion, reaching for a decanter on
a dusty tray. Cat hair seemed less prevalent here, Lucas noticed. An ancient
basset lay sprawled and snoring in front of the empty grate.

“You’re a military man. What do you know of hounds and
hunting?” the squire inquired, handing Lucas a glass.

“A great deal, as it happens, sir. I’ve spent the better
part of these last years on horseback, chasing enemies wilier than foxes.”

Outside, the dogs howled louder, and a screech resembling a
brawl between penned pigs and enraged hawks ensued. The woman’s shouts
escalated.

Lucas had begun to wonder if he shouldn’t investigate, when
Briggs threw open a sash of his double study window and shouted, “Harriet, get
them demmed hounds back in the pen where they belong and shoot the peacocks!”

Lucas blinked. Things had changed mightily if one shouted at
young ladies these days and ordered them to perform a stablehand’s duty.

In coming here, he’d had some vision of a benevolent,
ladylike Harriet gliding into the room carrying a tea tray and somehow divining
why he’d called. After all, Lorena had said he was an eligible catch, and the
squire’s daughter was the most eligible female around. The purpose of his call
should be obvious.

Perhaps he should have listened a little more closely to
Lorena.

A childish shriek raised the hair on the back of his neck.
Lucas dashed to the other window and threw open the second sash.

“Dashitall, Harry, I told you to get them hounds back in the
barn!” the squire was shouting in frustration while Lucas scanned the grounds
for some sight of the origin of the childish scream. “We’ve got a guest! You
need to get back in here.”

A pair of peahens and a cock flapped around three baying
beagles, who were racing around the base of an oak as if they’d treed a
squirrel.

Surrounded by the circling hounds and birds, a slender
female in honey-colored riding habit, with the skirt scandalously rucked up to
reveal her tall boots, and her jacket missing, smacked the snout of the nearest
dog. Lucas couldn’t hear what she was saying, but the animals crouched down and
wagged their tails in anticipation of some treat.

The wildly colorful birds scattered to alight on various
bits of shrubbery.

The young lady turned her uncovered head upward to study the
tree’s branches, and Lucas’s gut lurched. His gaze followed hers.

The child he had thought he’d left securely at his sister’s
house was instead perched on the lowest limb of the oak, swinging her toes and
watching the dogs, probably with interest, if he knew his daughter. The earlier
scream had been for effect. Verity was fearless.

“Verity Augusta, get down from there this instant!” Lucas
roared, heedless of the squire’s startled reaction.

“That your young one?” Briggs asked. “What the devil is she
doing in my tree?”

“As if I know what goes through her mind,” Lucas muttered,
pulling his head back in the window. “I’d best pry her down and take her home.”

“Harry can do it.” Briggs stuck his head back out the window
again and roared, “Harriet, bring the girl inside to her papa.”

The half-dressed lady sent her father what appeared to Lucas
to be a look of exasperation, before crouching down to scratch the hounds and
sending them scampering toward the kennel.

Verity, on the other hand, climbed to her feet and appeared
to be considering the next highest branch.

Lucas didn’t think shouting at the females had put a dent in
their behavior.

If he’d had an undisciplined soldier who disobeyed him like
that . . . He’d already confined Verity to quarters without
result, and he couldn’t court martial her. And he’d never resort to whipping.
How did one command loyalty and obedience from a female?

As if in answer to his guest’s unspoken question, the squire
poured their brandies and handed Lucas one. “Never understand women. Contrary
lot, don’t know what’s good for them. Don’t suppose you’ve come to take Harry
off my hands, have you? Good girl, but damned if I can make her see sense.”

Lucas took a healthy swallow of his drink. Did he need
two
contrary females on his hands? He
thought not, but he was a man who required information before making a
life-altering decision. Discipline could be instilled in anyone, eventually.

This wife-getting business was more difficult than he’d
anticipated.

“After all these years, I can’t say that I know Miss Briggs
well,” Lucas replied circumspectly. “It would be a pleasure to become
reacquainted.”

Briggs snorted again and leaned back in his chair. “I
offered a handsome dowry, told everyone that she will inherit all I own
someday, and she still garnered only two offers in London. And she turned those
down. Take her off my hands, and you’ll be the son I never had.”

Studying the lady’s attire, Lucas suffered an uneasy notion
that
Harriet
wanted to be the son her
father never had.

∞

Harriet Briggs tilted her head back to admire the small
girl straddling the oak branch above her head. “The dogs didn’t frighten you,
did they?” she inquired with interest.

The child shook her mop of orange curls vigorously. “I like
trees.”

“And is there some reason you like this particular tree?”

The child didn’t answer, but Harriet had a strong suspicion
the reason stood in her father’s study window. Tall, broad-shouldered, and
wearing his bottle-green swallow-tail coat as if it were a military uniform,
the gentleman had arrived only shortly before the child. Both had walked, so
they could not live too far away.

Harriet had seen the child in church on Sundays with Maria
Smith and her brood of boys. She’d been told the girl was the boys’ cousin, but
Harriet and Maria were a decade apart in age and never close, so she didn’t
know more than gossip.

As far as Harriet knew, though, Maria’s only sibling was
Lucas Sumner. She tried to find a resemblance to Lucas in the child’s oval
face, but it had been too many years since she’d seen her childhood idol. She
was long past the age of believing in human deities anyway. Children developed
foolish fantasies, and she was firmly grounded in reality these days.

Blifil, the lame kitten, suddenly tumbled from the boxwoods,
chasing after Partridge, her tame squirrel. The squirrel dashed up her skirt
and into the tree, much to the child’s startlement. Harriet prayed the girl
didn’t fall before she got her down.

“Do you have a name?” Harriet asked, ignoring her father’s
bellows from the window. Really, he ought to know by now that she wouldn’t
shout back like a field hand.

“My name is Verity. You’re Miss Harriet, aren’t you?” the
child asked, proving she was observant for her age.

“I am. If you climb down from there, we can have tea and
biscuits. Do you like kittens?” She swept Blifil from the ground before he
could follow the squirrel.

“My papa will make me go home if I climb down. He told my
Aunt Maria he needs a wife to take care of me, and I want to see who he picks.”

She stopped there, as if that said everything. Which it did,
Harriet supposed, fighting a shiver of expectation and annoyance. Lucas had
always been smart. He would seek out the wealthiest available woman in the
neighborhood before looking at the less eligible or the more beautiful. She was
simply surprised he wasn’t looking in London instead of Chipping Bedton.

She supposed she would have to watch the last of her
childhood illusions crumble. Major Sumner had to be able to see her from the
window, so she was probably missing the show already. Would he bluntly express
dismay at her unseemly attire and ragged manners? Or bite back his thoughts and
just tighten his lips in disapproval over a mature young lady who displayed
such inappropriate behavior? She had little entertainment anymore, so perhaps
she could drum some up at the major’s expense.

“I’ll tell your papa you’re my guest so he can’t send you
home,” she told the child. “I’m a bit peckish and would like a sandwich with my
tea, I believe. Do you think I might help you down?”

The child considered the suggestion, then finally nodded. “I
climb like a monkey, my papa says.” Before Harriet was prepared, Verity caught
the branch she sat on and swung her feet loose.

Dropping the kitten, Harriet tried not to gasp in terror as
the girl trustingly fell into her arms. Harriet had watched her creatures
perform dangerous acrobatics, but she’d never endured the terror of a human
child risking death in such a manner. Major Sumner had his hands full with this
one.

Staggering slightly as she lowered the child’s chunky body
to firm land, Harriet suffered a brief glimpse of what it must be like to love
and care for a precious, fragile life. It was difficult enough tending to a
wounded pet. She didn’t think she could tolerate seeing a child hurt.

Really, she had nothing to worry about. She need only meet
Lucas, let him see how utterly unsuitable she was, and go about her merry way.
Her father and the tenants and the animals needed her. She had a very full life
without an annoying man providing obstacles, objecting to everything she did or
wanted. It was not as if she
needed
a
man for anything. And she already had one yelling impossible orders all day
long. She certainly didn’t require another.

Taking a deep breath to settle her racing pulse, she swung
Verity’s hand and was smiling when she entered the study where the men waited.
Her confidence faltered a little at sight of the tall, immaculately dressed
gentleman nearly filling the furniture-stuffed room.

Lucas Sumner had grown from lanky lad to a huge,
square-shouldered man with shadowed eyes that had seen too much suffering.
Harriet’s soft heart nearly plummeted to her toes. She could ignore laughing,
handsome men. She could not ignore wounded ones.

“Thank you for rescuing my obstreperous daughter, Miss
Briggs. I must take her home, where she belongs.”

A small hand clenched Harriet’s. The child very properly did
not argue, but Harriet knew how it felt to be invisible. She tickled Verity’s
palm while nodding pretend agreement. She would give Major Sumner one more
chance at a little empathy.

“I have promised Verity tea and biscuits,” she said in her
politest hostess tones. “Perhaps we could retire to the parlor and have a bite
before you must leave?”

“No, she’s not capable of sitting still,” he responded
dismissively. “I would not ruin your rugs with spilled tea and crumbs. It’s a
pleasure to make your acquaintance again, Miss Briggs. Perhaps another time?”

Ah well, such a pity that he was a blind fool like all the
others, but then, attractive men often thought they owned the world. And
society allowed them to continue thinking that.