Baroness in Buckskin (15 page)

“I must get up,” she insisted, attempting to sit up in spite of the feeling of faintness that threatened to overwhelm her. “I had promised to call on the vicar’s wife this morning and bring her my receipt for quince preserves.”

“Mrs. Cummings may wait until Sunday, when you can take it to her at church.”

“No, for she particularly wished to make it this week,” Jane protested.

“Very well, then, Susannah may act as your deputy.”

“But Susannah hasn’t even met Mrs. Cummings!”

“Peter can drive her to the vicarage and perform the introductions,” Richard said in a voice that brooked no argument. “You are not moving from this spot until the doctor has had a chance to examine you, so you might as well resign yourself to remaining here.”

He drew up a chair before the sofa and planted himself in it as if daring her to try to escape. She gave a little sigh of what might have been resignation or contentment; she was not quite sure which.

“Very well, Richard,” she said meekly.

She had not long to wait, for Peter returned with the doctor in a surprisingly short time, having had the good fortune to meet him on the road on his way back from a call.

“I’m glad you could come so quickly, Doctor,” Richard said, surrendering his chair to the physician. “Miss Hawthorne, er, took a tumble on the stairs,” he explained with perhaps less than perfect truth.

“The stupidest thing,” Jane put in, but made no attempt to provide a more accurate description of the accident.

“Let’s have a look, then.”

The doctor took a seat in the chair Richard had vacated, and placed his black leather bag on the floor beside him. He took Jane’s ankle in both hands, and began to massage it gently. She flinched as he hit a particularly tender spot, and Richard, seeing this involuntary reaction, placed a comforting hand on her shoulder.

“Fortunately, the ankle does not appear to be broken,” declared the doctor at last, upon completing his examination. “Still, I would recommend—”

He was interrupted by the sudden appearance of Susannah, who burst into the room in a swirl of unfashionably full skirts and tangled russet curls. “Cousin Richard, I was just thinking—” She broke off abruptly, her eyes widening at the tableau that presented itself to her. “Oh! What has happened? Don’t tell me that
Jane
—”

“Miss Hawthorne fell on the stairs,” Richard said, fixing her with a gimlet stare that dared her to challenge this assertion at her peril. Having effectively silenced his betrothed, he turned back to the physician. “Susannah, allow me to present Dr. Calloway, who is tasked with preserving the health of the residents of Lower Nettleby. Dr. Calloway, Miss Ramsay, my young cousin from America. Now, Doctor, as to Miss Hawthorne’s injury—you were saying?”

The doctor acknowledged Susannah with a nod, then turned back to Richard. “Yes, well, it appears the bones of the ankle are not broken, but the muscles are badly sprained. You will need to refrain from putting any weight on it for at least a week, and possibly longer,” he added to Jane.

“Oh, but I can’t!” she protested. “There is too much to do!”

“In that case, you will need to give your orders to the staff, and let his lordship, Miss Ramsay, and young Peter see that they are carried out.” He gave her what seemed to her a rather condescending smile. “Who knows? By the time you are back on your feet, you may have decided you enjoy playing the domestic tyrant.”

Jane rather doubted this, but a pleading look at Richard left her in no doubt that he would make sure the physician’s instructions were followed to the letter.

In this prediction she was entirely correct. No sooner had the doctor quitted the premises (having left a bottle of laudanum, in case the pain should make it difficult for Miss Hawthorne to sleep) than Richard informed Peter and Susannah that, since they were indirectly responsible for Jane’s misfortune, they might make themselves useful.

“Susannah, you will be giving orders to the household staff soon enough, so you might as well begin now. You will require the housekeeper to write out the receipt for quince preserves. Peter, when that is done, you will drive Susannah to the vicarage, where she may give it to Mrs. Cummings with Miss Hawthorne’s compliments. And from now on,” he declared, “there will be no more sliding down banisters—by anyone! Is that understood?”

After Peter and Susannah had gone (having given their word in much the same manner as a pair of miscreant schoolchildren called on the carpet), Jane looked up from the sofa to regard Richard with a quizzical eye. “If your children are to have anything at all of their mother’s spirit—to say nothing of your own self-professed adventures as a boy—I wish you joy in attempting to enforce such a prohibition.”

“Yes,” he agreed in a flat voice. “Joy, indeed.”

* * *

Meanwhile Peter and Susannah, having obtained the promised receipt from the housekeeper, betook themselves to the stables, where Peter instructed the groom to hitch his lordship’s big bay to the gig. Ever since the groom had learned of Susannah’s skill in the saddle, there had been nothing but the utmost respect in his demeanor toward his future mistress. In fact, she was obliged to listen in silent and self-conscious embarrassment as he regaled his subordinates with a very tiresome secondhand account of her exploits. Having completed his task, he held the horse while Peter handed Susannah up into the vehicle and climbed in after her.

“Although, if Miss is half as handy at driving as she is in the saddle, I shouldn’t wonder if you hadn’t ought to give her the reins,” he added for Peter’s benefit.

“An excellent notion,” Peter said with a rather forced smile, and offered to surrender the reins to his passenger.

Susannah, much abashed, shook her head vehemently.

“Very well, then, I daresay I shall contrive to keep us out of the ditch.” He nodded for the groom to stand back, and soon they were tooling their way down the long drive, leaving Ramsay Hall and its residents behind them.

“I’m sorry,” Susannah said, finding her tongue at last. “I should never have pressed you. Only it looked like fun—and indeed it was!—but I never meant for anyone to be hurt.”

“Of course you didn’t,” Peter said soothingly. “As for anyone being hurt, whoever would have guessed that Cousin Jane, of all people, would attempt such a thing?”

“Then you think she fell while sliding down the banister?” demanded Susannah, pleased to know he shared her own theory about Miss Hawthorne’s accident.

“I think she must have done, else why would Richard have given you that quelling look, when he feared you were about to say so? And I must say,” he added with a kindling eye, “I think it dam—er, dashed unjust of Richard to lay the blame at your door! It’s not as if you forced her to do it—nor did you force me, for that matter,” he added ruefully.

“No, but if we had not done it first, I doubt if it would have ever occurred to her, for she is such a fine lady. She’s everything a baroness should be—and everything I’m not.”

“Nonsense!” Peter objected with perhaps more vehemence than veracity.

“It’s true, Peter. You know it is!” She heaved a sigh. “I’m never going to fit in here.”

“You will—you have only to give yourself time.”

She looked up at him doubtfully. “Do you really think so?”

He transferred the reins to one hand so that he might lay the other over hers and give it a reassuring squeeze. “I know so.”

She gave him a weak smile. “I’m not sure I believe you, but it’s nice of you to say it all the same.”

They arrived at the vicarage a short time later, and Peter introduced his American cousin to the vicar, his wife, their three daughters, and a handsome brunette who proved to be their visiting niece. Susannah, whose experience with the clergy was limited to the childless missionary couple who had accompanied her aboard the
Concordia
and the Methodist circuit rider who occasionally enjoyed the hospitality of her father’s house as he made his solitary rounds, was charmed by the large and happy Cummings family—a delightful state of affairs that lasted only until Lydia, a bouncing lass of fifteen, giggled behind her hand and inquired archly as to whether an interesting announcement was shortly to be made concerning Susannah and her aristocratic cousin.

“Lydia Cummings!” her mother exclaimed, appalled. “What kind of talk is that?”

“I can’t imagine why else Miss Ramsay should have travelled all the way across the ocean,” pointed out Lydia in her own defense.

“No, I daresay you can’t, for you haven’t the least delicacy of mind.” Mrs. Cummings informed her roundly, then turned to Susannah with an apologetic smile. “Pray forgive my daughter, Miss Ramsay. My eldest, Amanda, is to go to London in the spring for her come-out, and my silly girls can think of nothing but courtship, and beaux, and marriage.”

“Oh, Mama!” protested the eldest Miss Cummings, blushing to the roots of her blonde hair.

“
I
can,” put in thirteen-year-old Mary. “If I were going to London, I should much rather see the horses at Astley’s Amphitheatre than be courted by a bunch of horrid gentlemen!”

“That’s put me in my place,” Peter said meekly, although his eyes twinkled.

“Not you, Mr. Ramsay!” Mary insisted, between peals of laughter. “You know I wasn’t talking about you!”

“Worse and worse!” cried Peter. “Do you mean to say I’m not horrid, or I’m not a gentleman?”

“You are not horrid at all, and if I had to marry someone, I would rather marry you than anyone else.”

“Why, Miss Mary, you unman me!” declared Peter. “Unfortunately, I’m afraid that by the time you come out, your eyes will have been opened, and another will replace me in your esteem.”

Mary might have argued the point, had her mother not judged it time to intervene. “If you insist upon putting poor Mr. Ramsay to the blush, Mary, I think it is high time you returned to the schoolroom.” Seeing Lydia eyeing her uncertainly, she added, “You may remain, Lydia, if you think you can behave like a lady.”

Lydia hastily assured her mother of her ability in this regard and, as the Reverend Mr. Cummings excused himself, citing the need to prepare for his sermon, the party was reduced to Peter and Susannah, Mrs. Cummings, the two elder Cummings girls, and Miss Elizabeth Hunsford, the daughter of Mrs. Cummings’s sister. It was this last to whom Peter now addressed himself.

“I understand Miss Cummings is to be brought out by her aunt. Would that be your mother, Miss Hunsford?”

“Yes. Papa and Mama have no acquaintances in London, so they are to bring Cousin Amanda out in exchange for letters of introduction from Aunt Cummings to all her Society friends.”

“You make it sound as if I am bosom-bows with half the aristocracy,” protested Mrs. Cummings, laughing. “It is no such thing, but over the years I have kept up correspondence with several ladies who I think will not balk at sending out cards to my sister and her charges.”

“And after they meet her,” put in Lydia, “Cousin Elizabeth is certain to be asked everywhere, for her dowry is
enormous
!”

Mrs. Cummings frowned. “That’s as may be, Lydia, but as to why you should consider it a good thing to be pursued by fortune-hunters—well, I fear your logic quite escapes me.”

“Oh, but surely it is better to be pursued by fortune-hunters than not to be pursued by any gentlemen at all!”

“If you think that, it only shows how ill-prepared you are to enter Society,” her mother informed her in dampening tones. “I can only hope you will learn wisdom over the next two years, if you think to make your own come-out.”

“Yes, for I can assure you it is not pleasant at all to wonder if a gentleman truly likes you, or only hopes to enrich himself by marrying you,” Susannah said.

“Very true, Miss Ramsay,” Miss Hunsford said, regarding the American girl with interest. “Am I to understand, then, that you are an heiress yourself?”

“My father left me a large property in Kentucky.” Seeing nothing but blank stares on the faces of the three young ladies, she felt compelled to explain. “The American frontier, you know.”

“Oh, the wilderness,” Miss Hunsford said with what Susannah thought was a rather dismissive nod.

“Have you ever seen a red Indian, Miss Ramsay?” Lydia asked.

“Well, last winter I shot at one who was trying to steal our horses,” Susannah confessed. “Still, he was quite far away, so I don’t know if he was actually an Indian or merely disguised as one to divert suspicion.”

“Did you kill him?” demanded Lydia, wide-eyed.

“No. In fact, I don’t think I hit him at all, but the sound of gunfire was sufficient to frighten him off.”

Miss Hunsford shuddered. “I should have been quite terrified! It seems to me, Miss Ramsay, that you must be as much a man as you are a woman.”

Peter, recalling his American cousin bathing in the lake, could not have agreed with this assessment had Susannah shot a dozen red Indians. Miss Hunsford noticed the thoughtful frown creasing his brow and, reading in it the same disapproval writ large on her Aunt Cummings’s countenance, added quickly, “I meant only that you must be the bravest female of my acquaintance, Miss Ramsay. Me, I am so timid I should have to have a man to protect me.”

This last was said with a coy glance in Peter’s direction, clearly an invitation for him to volunteer his services to Miss Hunsford in this capacity. But since he showed no sign of picking up the verbal glove she had let fall, it was perhaps fortunate that Lydia spoke up, sparing him the necessity.

“It is a good thing you sent Mary back to the schoolroom, Mama, for she would insist upon badgering Miss Ramsay with questions. Depend upon it, Miss Ramsay, you will be her new heroine!”

“I can’t imagine why I should be anyone’s heroine,” Susannah protested. “Miss Hunsford is right, you know; I’m not very ladylike at all, and I always manage to do the wrong thing. If Mary wants a heroine, she should look to Jane—Miss Hawthorne, that is—for she is exactly what a lady ought to be.” At her own mention of Jane Hawthorne, Susannah recalled the reason for their visit and turned to Mrs. Cummings. “Oh, I almost forgot! Peter and I are here at her behest, ma’am, for she bade me bring you the receipt you wanted. She would have brought it herself, but she, er, suffered an accident.”