Anna Jacobs (11 page)

“It’ll come clean. And if it doesn’t, I’ll buy another one.”

She rather liked his indifference to his appearance. She was an unceremonious creature herself, for all the Dowager’s love of formality, and never minded when she muddied her skirts or tore them on brambles. She leaned forward to pat Snowy’s head, well aware that this brought her own head nearer to Mr Lanby’s. “He’s been a very naughty boy, but he’s sorry now. Are you not, young sir?”

The dog wriggled with delight, then yelped again.

“Oh, you poor little darling!”

“He’ll need carrying, I think. Let me do that for you, Miss Graceover.” The man was holding the little creature as if he were quite used to dealing with animals and Snowy was now trying to lick his fingers, so Eleanor knew that he must be a nice person, in spite of them not having been introduced properly. Anders said dogs could always tell a person’s real nature.

She was still standing very close to the stranger and wondered why she should be feeling rather distant and breathless. Perhaps it was just the after-effects of the shock. She moved back a step or two, but it made no difference. “Well - all right, then. We’re not far from home if we go in this direction.”

As they walked through the woods together, they began to talk and found they had one or two acquaintances in common, notably the neighbours with whom he was staying, though she hadn’t heard of Mr Lanby before. She soon grew comfortable enough with him to chat about her life at Satherby, telling him about her grandmother and poor Bea, who had been forced to undergo a London season when it was the last thing someone like her would enjoy.

“Not that you’re to think that Bea is a boring sort of person. She isn’t! It’s just that she has little interest in fashion and gossip. Well, neither do I, actually.”

“I thought all ladies were addicted to both.”

She wrinkled her nose at him. “There are other things in life, sir. Not that I wouldn’t like to visit London myself. I’d love to go to a few ton parties, even! But I prefer to live mostly in the country.” In fact, she loved Satherby Abbey so much, she couldn’t imagine living anywhere else, though when she had said that, her grandmother had told her not to be so foolish. A lady lived where her husband did.

“Why did you not go to London with your aunt, then?” he asked.

She made a moue, which made him suddenly want to kiss those soft pouting lips. “Because Grandmamma says I’m too young and rackety.”

He stopped walking for a minute to stare at her. She was pretty, but better still she was frank and lively. He liked her and wanted to know her better. He realized she was looking at him in slight puzzlement and asked hastily, “Why did your - Bea, that is - go to London, then, if she doesn’t like fashionable parties? Couldn’t she have said no?”

“When Grandmamma decides on something, it’s rather hard to refuse to do as she wishes. I think there was another reason for Bea going, but Grandmamma didn’t confide in me.” Eleanor didn’t add that the reason seemed to concern her, for that might have sounded conceited.

“So Bea is not enjoying herself.”

“Not completely. She writes that she is enjoying the theatre and seeing the sights, of course, but not so much the parties. As I could have predicted, if anyone had bothered to ask me!” She decided that Mr Lanby had a lovely smile and she enjoyed the way he listened to her with flattering attentiveness. Several times, she found herself responding to that smile in kind.

Once they had discovered they shared a passionate love for riding, they spent the rest of the walk exchanging tales of their favourite horses.

When they got to the edge of the woods, however, Mr Lanby hesitated. “Perhaps I’d better leave you now.”

She paused beside him. “Won’t you come in and meet my grandmother.”

He looked down ruefully at his clothes, which were covered in black smears from the digging, as well as dribble from the puppy, which was now chewing happily away at the remains of one of his coat buttons. “I think I’d better not. I’m unfit to meet anyone, least of all a great lady like your grandmother.”

“Oh, Grandmamma won’t mind that! And she’ll wish to thank you for helping me.”

He shook his head, looking somewhat embarrassed. “I - look, I’m afraid there’s no way of hiding it, Miss Graceover, but I don’t think I’d better come in at all. Your grandmother was not on the best of terms with my parents and I think I might not be welcome in her house.”

“Oh bother, if that’s not just like her!” Eleanor exclaimed. “She has the strangest ideas of our family consequence and is forever snubbing perfectly nice people!”

She felt desperately disappointed. Now she wouldn’t be able to pursue his acquaintance. And she wanted very much to know him better, for she liked him better than any gentleman she had ever met, as well as feeling herself under an obligation to him. “Perhaps when she hears how you’ve helped me, she’ll change her mind?” she ventured, but not hopefully.

He shook his head. “I doubt it. The - er - disagreement is of long standing. I have not, of course, met the lady myself, but from what I hear of her...” Delicately he left the sentence unfinished, but shook his head again.

Eleanor’s face fell. “I’m afraid you’re right. If she takes a dislike to someone, Grandmamma rarely changes her mind.” She sought desperately for a reason to detain him and her eyes fell on the dog. “But how am I to let you know about Snowy? You’ll wish to know how he goes on, will you not, since you saved his life?”

He looked down at her with an even warmer smile than before, for she was as transparent in her intentions as any schoolgirl. In fact, she was one of the most delightful girls he had ever met, with the most beautiful eyes, dancing with life and laughter. “Yes, I would rather like to know how he goes on,” he agreed with a straight face.

Eleanor started fiddling with the puppy’s ears, wondering what to suggest.

He was more experienced. “Do you often go for walks in that part of the woods?”

She dimpled at him, quick to seize on this opportunity. “Oh yes, most afternoons if it is fine, for Grandmamma likes me to get some exercise and she always takes a nap then.” She didn’t notice that she was standing close enough for the puppy to chew happily on one of the ribbons of her dress. In fact, they had both quite forgotten the little creature which had brought them together. “I’m very fond of walking,” she added.

He repressed a sudden urge to kiss the dirt-smudged bloom of her cheek. “I’m fond of walking myself.” He decided that her eyes were hazel shot with gold and her hair was the most beautiful shade of russet brown that he’d ever seen, full of glinting golden lights.

She looked down, a little afraid of the sensations rising within her. What the Dowager had actually said to her was, “Get out and use up some of that dratted energy, child, for I can’t abide people who fidget in their chairs! Go for a walk or a ride or whatever you young people like to do nowadays! But don’t go off the estate. And take that silly little creature with you! It’s not properly trained yet.”

“The strange thing is,” Mr Lanby said, his eyes filled with laughter, “that my hosts also like to rest in the afternoons. An amazing set of coincidences, is it not?” In fact, his hosts had been friends of his parents, not of himself, and were nearer to the Dowager’s age than his own.

“Then I may see you tomorrow, perhaps,” Eleanor said, toe tracing patterns on the ground as she avoided his eyes.

“I very much hope so. It’s far more pleasant to have someone to talk to as one walks. I have no acquaintances in the district yet, apart from my host and hostess. Perhaps you could tell me what there is to see, the best rides and so on? I don’t know this part of the world at all and I shall be here for a week or two.”

She beamed at him with no attempt to conceal her pleasure. “Oh yes, I’d be happy to do that. It’s a good time of the year for walks and we have some very beautiful rides in the district - if you don’t mind taking a few fences, that is?”

“One can always dismount and look for a gate,” he said, keeping his face straight.

She gave the most delicious gurgle of laughter. “Now you’re teasing me. A man who knows as much about horses as you obviously do can have no fear of jumps!”

What a beautiful ingenuous creature she was! “We must pray, then, that it doesn’t rain.”

She examined the sky anxiously. “I don’t think it will. I shall ask my groom when I get back. Anders always knows about the weather.”

Crispin knew he must take his leave before anyone from the house saw them together, reluctant as he was to part from her. Don’t get in too deep, you fool, he said to himself. You’ve only just met her. And they may already have plans for her, plans which don’t include someone like you, from the poorer side of the family. Aloud he said, “Take your dog, then, Miss Graceover. There! Will you be all right now?”

“Oh, yes. It’s not far.”

It was really strange, she thought as she watched him walk away, how she felt whenever his hands touched hers. As if something was making them tingle. As if she wanted to hold on to one of those hands tightly and not let go.

She remained where she was at the edge of the lawns, watching him until he was out of sight, her head on one side. Her thoughts were in such turmoil that the puppy’s wrigglings were completely ignored. She liked him. In fact, she might even be falling in love with him. Was that possible so quickly?

Anders was scandalized to hear of the encounter and would in no way hear of his young mistress going off on her own to meet a strange gentleman the following afternoon. In fact, he scolded her at length for having gone anywhere without an escort. “I thought you’d grown out of such tricks, young lady!”

She tilted her head at him and pulled a face. “Really, Anders, you can be as stuffy as Grandmamma sometimes!” She explained carefully the delicate situation between Mr Lanby’s parents and the Dowager, but Anders was not to be moved.

“That’s as may be, Miss Eleanor, but it still doesn’t make it right for a young lady like you to go out for walks on her own and well you know it! Downright disobedient, you were today, and what her ladyship would say to me for not stopping you, if she knew about it, I dread to think! And as for you talking to strange gentlemen and arranging to meet them again, I don’t know what the world is coming to when a young lady in your position does such things. Her ladyship would have a fit if she knew about it.”

She laid her hand on his arm coaxingly, afraid he would tell her grandmother. “We only talked a little, Anders. Mr Lanby is a very well-mannered gentleman. No one, absolutely no one, could have faulted his behaviour toward me. And if he’s staying at Treevers Hall, well, he must be respectable, because the Treevers are as ancient and as fussy as Grandmamma!”

Anders folded his arms and shook his head in a way he had when he was displeased with her, but his words showed he was softening a little. “Well, you can do your talking in my company next time, or you’ll not do it at all!”

She looked at him pleadingly, but could see no sign of his relenting further. “Oh, very well!” she said crossly, then hesitated, before adding. “Please don’t tell Grandmamma about Mr Lanby! You won’t, dearest Anders, will you? You know how unreasonable she can be when she takes a dislike to someone’s family!”

“I’ll meet the gentleman first, Miss Eleanor, and then we’ll see. If he seems respectable, and if you promise me faithfully that you’ll always take someone with you when you go to meet him, then perhaps, just perhaps, we need not inform her ladyship. But I’m making no promises, mind!”

She flung her arms round his neck and hugged him ruthlessly, in spite of his protests. “You’re a dear and I don’t know what I’d do without you, Ander-Panders!” It had been her childhood nickname for him.

“Give over, do, Miss Eleanor!” he said, quite failing to conceal his pleasure. “What would her ladyship say if she saw you a-hugging of me like that?”

“She’d say I was being over-familiar with a servant and give me a scolding about what’s suitable behaviour for a person of my rank.” She pulled a face. “But I don’t care for such nonsense. Why, I’ve known you for longer than absolutely anyone else, even Bea, and if I can’t hug you, who can I hug? And anyway, Grandmamma never comes down to the stables, does she, so we’re quite safe.”

She grinned at him cheekily and he shook his head at her again, trying without success to hide his own smile. A minx she was, a proper minx, but not a nasty bone in her body.

He stood and watched her run back to the house, leaving the dirty, yawning puppy sprawled across his boots, chewing at their laces. When she’d disappeared from sight, he bent down to pick the little animal up, sighing. Not for him to question her ladyship’s ways, but it was a shame to keep a lively lass like Miss Eleanor shut away from other folk of her own age, a proper shame, it was! He wouldn’t allow his young lady to make any unsuitable acquaintances, but it wouldn’t hurt to look this fellow over. If he was visiting the Treevers, he must be a gentleman, and Miss Eleanor had been moping about ever since Miss Beatrice went up to London, in spite of that dratted puppy.

He would make inquiries of the grooms at Treevers Hall about this fellow Lanby. The servants’ grapevine could yield a lot of information that would surprise the gentry. He picked the puppy up, looked it in the eyes and shook his head at it. “See what you’ve done now, little fellow! You’d better watch your step in future, or I shall give you a proper scolding!”

Snowy tried to lick his nose.

He cradled the small warm body against his chest. “Well, let’s go and take a look at that leg of yours, shall we? And I dare say a bowl of bread and milk wouldn’t come amiss, either, eh?” One rough fingertip tickled it gently under the chin, but a frown remained on his face as he ministered to the puppy. He wished very much that Miss Beatrice were here to take charge of the situation. She’d know what was the right thing to do and he had a great deal of respect for her judgment.

The idea of some strange gentleman taking advantage of his Miss Eleanor was a worry that even haunted his dreams that night.

As Mr Lanby haunted Eleanor’s dreams.