Across the Spectrum (56 page)

Harriet supposed it was naughty of her, but she would like
Verity to recognize that she was not lacking in any way. She was simply being a
child, and her father was simply being . . . well, a
stiff-necked man.

At her father’s curt dismissal, Verity tugged her hand free
and fled the room. Major Sumner uttered an impolite word and stalked after her.

Harriet blocked his path. Giving the major a warning look,
she called after the fleeing child, “If Invisible Girl will wait outside the
front door, I will follow shortly. I do not break promises!”

The front door slammed. She hoped Verity was bright enough
to listen. And be curious.

“I promised Verity tea and biscuits. Now I shall have to
walk with her and explain they’ll have to wait for another day or she will
think I’ve lied to her.” Harriet pasted a sweet smile over her irritation.

The glowering gentleman appeared prepared to bodily remove
her from his path, and her smile grew more challenging.

∞

Lucas did not know what to make of the annoying Miss
Briggs. She walked alongside him without a coat to cover her thin lawn shirt.
Even her disheveled lace jabot did not conceal her plump bosom. Her riding
skirts and boots allowed her to take long strides that matched his, proving she
was not so demure as her pursed lips and silence would lead him to believe.

She had a veritable cloud of frizzy mouse-brown curls that
she had made no attempt to tame or cover. She had not really grown out of her
gangliness either. Her limbs were long and ungraceful, but her waist was small,
and she curved in womanly places as she had not as a fifteen-year-old. He
supposed, in an evening gown, she would reveal far more than this
unconventional costume did. He could not quite put a reason to his shock . . .
or attraction. She was as undisciplined a hoyden as Verity and not at all the
polite sort of female he’d envisioned.

Perhaps he should have visited a dollymop or two in London
before returning to the village if his idea of luscious womanhood was this
defiant filly.

As they strode along the village lane, Verity scampered
behind the stone fences and hedgerows, just out of sight but following closely,
as she must have earlier when she’d trailed him here. His daughter was far too
clever and bold for her own good.

The silence grew awkward. Lucas sought for some means of
breaking it, but he did not have much experience in conversing with unattached
females. He had rather hoped for a businesslike transaction. Courting was
another matter entirely—provided he wanted to court a woman who defied him
before they even exchanged greetings.

“Do you prefer rural society to London?” he asked, wincing
at his stilted tone.

“I believe I prefer animal society,” she responded without
inflection.

Perhaps he should have listened to Lorena. Miss Briggs was
not a comfortable companion, at the very least. Just a little annoyed that she
ignored him to keep her eye on Verity, he released some of his frustration.

“Pets cannot talk back?” he suggested with a hint of
sarcasm.

She shot him a sideways glance but whether of surprise,
appreciation, or distaste, he could not discern.

“Animals
do
talk
back, if only one listens. Rather like children, actually.” Her small boots
kicked up dust on the rutted dirt lane.

“Children aren’t supposed to talk back. They are too young
to offer intelligent observation and must be educated.”

She made a rude noise that startled him. He was very much
out of touch if ladies these days made uncouth sounds instead of pouting
prettily.

“I have not been back in the country long,” he admitted
cautiously. “Perhaps I am missing the nuances of your reply.”

She bestowed a laughing look on him. “What would you think
if your batman snorted at your priggish assertion?”

He’d definitely been around men too long. Her laughter
stirred his interest more than a little, despite her insult. “I would think he
needed his pay docked,” he responded tartly. “Would you take that attitude from
a kitchen wench?”

“I would if she was speaking about something of which she
knew more than I did,” she said.

There was the spirited girl he remembered, although he’d
rather forgotten that she had a tart tongue to match her intelligence. But she
was wrong if she thought a child ought to be allowed to talk disrespectfully to
her elders.

“Invisible Girl shouldn’t climb trees,” Harriet abruptly
called as Verity headed for a low-hanging apple branch. “Trees make her
visible.”

Verity darted back into the cover of the hedge.

Now he was more than intrigued. “Invisible Girl?” he inquired.

She shrugged. “Women and children are expected to be
invisible. That works for some of us. Not all.”

“Expecting Verity to behave is not asking her to be
invisible. There is a reason discipline and authority are required,” he
objected. “If my men didn’t follow my command, they could put themselves or
others in harm’s way.”

“Provided your command was correct,” she argued. “You do not
allow for independent thinking.”

“Not while I’m the one responsible for what happens! That’s
the entire point of being in charge—to know what is best for those relying on
my expertise and knowledge. Verity cannot simply run unchecked about the
country, not acknowledging anyone’s authority but her own.”

“She is a child! She cannot be expected to respect the
authority of someone she barely knows. And who barely knows her! Have you even
tried to understand your daughter, Major Sumner?”

“I shouldn’t have to
understand
her, Miss Briggs,” he declared. “She should simply obey the adults in her life
until she’s reached an age of reason.”

Miss Briggs gave him a look of incredulity, emitted another
rude snort, and climbed the turnstile to join Verity in the field. Together,
they ran laughing in the direction of the village.

Lucas didn’t think his suit was going very well. Perhaps he
should consider plump, henpecked Mary after all. He marched down the lane,
realizing this was the first time he’d seen Verity laugh since he’d returned
home. He tugged uncomfortably at his neckcloth.

∞

Striding down the lane after Sunday dinner, Harriet knew she’d
behaved badly earlier this week. And she’d done so deliberately, rejecting
Major Sumner before he could reject her. She’d seen the disapproval in his
eyes, let it raise her temper, and then she’d goaded him into behaving like a
military high stickler. Which he was, or at least, he had been. That did not
mean he was a bad man, just one accustomed to certain behavior.

The kind of behavior a child could not follow. Nor Harriet,
for all that mattered, but that did not mean Major Sumner was
wrong.
It just meant that he and his
daughter would have a very hard time of it, if someone did not intervene.

She was probably not the right person to do so, but who else
would? The other unattached ladies in town simply whispered to each other
behind their hands, wearing their best bonnets in hopes that Major Sumner would
notice them. As if he was likely to notice a bonnet full of roses and birds!
They’d do better to wear stiff military caps to make him feel more at home.

Mary had taken him a basket of muffins. Jane had taken him a
pie. The child and Major Sumner would not go hungry, at least. But Verity would
be ignored and feel even more like an Invisible Girl.

Verity was the only reason Harriet was marching down the
lane this fine Sunday April afternoon, carrying a basket containing an adorable
black-and-white kitten that would create havoc in Major Sumner’s orderly
household. Perhaps he needed to be reminded—as the other ladies would not—that
he was not the only person in his home.

She supposed she ought to apologize for her earlier behavior
while she was at it, but she was not so certain on that matter. She had,
though, dressed carefully for church this morning. If Major Sumner had noticed,
he had not given a sign. He’d been too busy trying to keep Verity behaving like
a proper major general.

So Harriet was taking the liberty of calling on the child
this afternoon, while still wearing her Sunday sprigged muslin. She’d even
tamed her hair to stay inside her bonnet, except for a loose curl or two. She
wore her gloves and kid slippers and looked as much like a lady as she possibly
could, so Major Sumner would have no reason to disapprove of her disreputable
untidiness and set off her temper again.

Perhaps she might show him she could be proper, if she must,
but neatness had never been overly important to her. She’d kept the family
housekeeper on even though Agnes was half blind and unaware of the damages
Harriet’s pets caused. Harriet preferred her pets and Agnes to orderliness. If
the major wanted tidy, he should court Mary Loveless and her overbearing
mother.

Nor could she compete with pretty Elizabeth or
sweet-tempered Jane. Harriet was plain. Sometimes, when she did needlework, she
even wore spectacles. And no man had ever called her sweet. So all Harriet
could hope was that if she looked respectable enough, Major Sumner would allow
her to be a friend and help with his daughter.

She had ascertained that Lucas had returned to his father’s
old cottage on a small lot between her father’s farm and the village. His
father had been the town physician until his death last spring. Harriet had
often visited his home with her father’s tenants. She was familiar with the
two-story cottage.

The lilac by the front door needed trimming, but it would
bloom wonderfully in another month. Harriet rapped the knocker. Before anyone
could answer, a childish shriek of fear and a masculine shout of panic erupted
from the yard behind the house.

Setting the kitten basket on the doorstep, she lifted her
Sunday skirt and raced past a few bedraggled jonquils and a struggling peony,
around the corner, and to the old stable.

Seeing no one in the yard, she followed the sound of angry
shouts into the stable—where Verity hung upside down from the rafters with a
large harness around her waist, in peril of slipping out on her head at any
moment.

If it was not so terrifying a situation, it would have been
funny. How had the child ended up swinging like a trapeze?

The rafter was tall and Verity was short. Major Sumner
stretched between the ground and his daughter’s hair, barely keeping her from
falling but unable to grasp her sufficiently to lower her to the ground. Hence
the furious shouting. Men despised helplessness.

There was no point in explaining that a little girl did not
know how to grasp leathers and climb back up from whence she’d fallen, as her
father encouraged her to do. Tucking the back of her skirt into the front of
her petticoat ribbons, Harriet hastened up the ladder into the loft as she
often did at home.

“If you tug the strap, she will fall!” Lucas warned from
below. “And you are likely to fall with her.”

“I know my limitations,” Harriet retorted, stripping off her
gloves. “Verity’s coming down. Stand under her and grab for her shoulders.” She
found the buckle the little imp had wrapped around the beam and carefully undid
it, hanging on to the leather with all her strength. “Verity, reach for your
father because I cannot hold this for long.”

Verity shrieked. Lucas yelled. And the harness whipped from
her hands, leaving a burned streak across her palms. Shaking, Harriet closed
her eyes, too terrified to see if she’d killed them both.

Verity began weeping loudly. Probably frightened out of his
mind, Lucas scolded. Not the best of reactions for either, but at least she
knew they were alive. Opening her eyes again, Harriet attempted the ladder,
only now realizing how very unladylike she would appear with her stockings and
garters exposed.

A strong arm caught her waist and lifted her free of the
ladder. “I’ve got you. Let go.”

She did, and Lucas swung her to the ground, while keeping a
tearful Verity tucked under his other arm. The man’s brains were in his brawn.

She liked the feel of his brawn a little too well. Shaking
now that the incident was done, she wanted to bury her face in his big shoulder
and weep out her fear as Verity was doing.

Lucas had apparently removed his frock coat after church and
was in only waistcoat and shirt. She could smell his shaving soap and the manly
aroma of his skin. While she fought back tears, he held her a little longer than
was necessary, steadying himself as well as her.

Apparently realizing that fact at the same moment as she, he
released her waist, but then remained uncertain what to do with the hysterical
child he’d so rudely tucked under his other arm.

“Verity, sweetheart,” Harriet murmured, still shaken but
unable to resist a sobbing child. “Give over.” She slid her arms around the
girl and lifted her away from Lucas. “Verity, you terrified us. You have no
idea how much it hurts your father when he thinks you’re in pain or danger. He
can’t cry as you do, so he has to yell and shout.”

Lucas snorted rudely, as she had once done, and Harriet shot
him a retaliatory look
.
He rubbed his
hands through his already disheveled hair, like a man who had reached his last
tether.

Verity flung her skinny arms around Harriet’s neck and
buried her runny nose in the pretty sprigged muslin. Too rattled to care,
Harriet rocked her and patted her on the back as if Verity were a babe. Her
arms ached with the weight, but Lucas had not yet learned to comfort his
daughter. Someone must teach him.

Calming down enough to learn his lesson, he lifted Verity
from Harriet’s arms. “You scared me out of ten years’ growth, child. Whatever
were you doing up there?”

Verity sniffed and rubbed her nose on his waistcoat and
finally wrapped her arms around her father’s neck long enough to stop sobbing.
Harriet thought perhaps she ought to sneak out now that the pair were learning
to get on, but she was interested in hearing Verity’s reply.