Joan Wolf (15 page)

There was absolute silence as Diccon finished. Even Lady Barbara appeared slightly moved by the music. Diccon looked up from the keys at me.

“You next, Miss Langley,” he said.

I opened my mouth to protest. I wouldn’t have minded following Lady Barbara, but to expect me to play after him!

“Yes, Miss Langley,” said Lord Brooks. “We would be honored.”

“I don’t play like his lordship,” I protested faintly.

“Only a handful of people in the world play like his lordship. We understand that perfectly.”

“Do play, Valentine,” said Grandmama. “She practices for hours every day,” she went on to inform Lord Brooks. “I believe she is every bit as good as Lord Leyburn
.
”

I restrained myself from looking heavenward and went over to the piano. They had asked for it, I thought, and launched with reckless abandon into Beethoven’s “Sonata Appassionata.” I had only been working on it for a short while, but at the moment it expressed my feelings perfectly.

When I had finished, I stared at Diccon a little defiantly. At least no one could accuse me of playing without passion, like Barbara. His dark eyes were partly screened by half-lowered lashes and we exchanged a look that was strangely unfathomable.

“You are perhaps lacking the technical brilliance of his lordship, Miss Langley,” came Lord Brooks’ voice, “but you play marvelously. I wonder if you would come one afternoon and play for me?”

His kindly eyes were smiling at me. “I should love to,” I said.

“What about some singing?” proposed the duchess, and it turned out that Barbara had a lovely voice. She sang us two songs in her sweet soprano, and then Martin, who had quite a decent baritone, joined her for a duet. They sang very well together.

“Why doesn’t Lord Leyburn join you in a duet, Barbara?” the duchess asked. I don’t think she was delighted by the sight of her daughter and Martin.

“It’s time we heard from Miss Langley as well,” said Lord Brooks.

I could feel myself flushing. I have quite a deep voice for a girl, and I had never had singing lessons.

“Come, Miss Langley, and sing something with me,” said Diccon. His dark eyes were laughing at me and I rose reluctantly from my chair and went to the piano.

“I'm not a soprano,” I told him nervously.

"Come along," he said.  "It won’t be so bad.”

I sat down next to him on the piano bench. “You play,” I said tensely.

“All right. Let’s try this, shall we?” And he pointed to a song that I and everyone else in the room had known from the cradle.

I nodded and he began to play.

He had an absolutely wonderful tenor voice. Wouldn’t you know it? I followed him, gaining confidence as we went along and adding volume as I became more sure of myself. Our voices fit together perfectly. When we had finished, he sat still for a moment, his hands on the keys. Then he turned his head a little and looked at me. I felt as if we had just made love.

“Good girl,” he murmured, and I lowered my eyes before he could read too much in them. Then the voices of the others broke in on us and once again the spell was broken.

How I loved him. It was all I could think of for the duration of the evening. When I was with him, I no longer felt lonely. It was as if a part of me, missing all of my life, had finally been found and I was whole again.

There would never be anyone else. I looked at Martin, at Lord Stowe. They were good men. Kind men. But they were not Diccon. I wondered bleakly what I was going to do with myself for the rest of my life.

Chapter 21

I was waiting with Grandmama for our carriage to be brought around to the front of Brooks House when Lord Stowe asked if he could take me riding in the park the following morning.

“I am heartily sick of Hyde Park,” I said forcefully. “I wish there was someplace I could gallop and gallop and gallop until I was dizzy.”

“There’s always Newmarket,” said Martin’s amused voice.

“Failing Newmarket, there is Richmond Park,” said Lord Stowe. “You’d like Richmond, Miss Langley. It’s out of the city and you can gallop all you want.”

“It sounds wonderful,” I said.

“You cannot go to Richmond without a chaperone, Valentine,” said Grandmama. “And I have no intention of taking part in such an all-day expedition.”

“I’ll take care of her, Aunt Mary,” said Martin immediately.

“You are hardly a chaperon, my dear boy.”

“Mama will come, won’t you, Mama?” said Lady Barbara unexpectedly. I glanced at her in surprise and caught her giving me a distinctly dirty look. Clearly she did not like the idea of Martin spending an entire day in my company.

The duchess frowned and looked forbidding. She did not want Barbara to spend an entire day in Martin’s company.

“I’ll join you,” said Diccon. “I would appreciate getting out into the country for the day also.”

Martin gave Diccon a dirty look. “Why don’t you return to Yorkshire, then?” he growled.

Diccon raised a black eyebrow. “I have business in London. Unfortunately.”

“Why don’t we send out the town crier and invite the rest of London?” Lord Stowe grumbled. He had not bargained on his ride in the park turning into such a parade of people.

Diccon smiled at the duchess. “Do say you will accompany us, Your Grace.”

He was most unscrupulous, the way he used that smile.

The duchess melted like ice in the sun. “Of course I will come, my lord, and I will bring my daughter.”

Diccon’s smile took on a tinge more radiance. “And you will engage to look after Miss Langley as well?”

“I should be delighted.” The duchess gave me a benign look. She would be happy to have me along to keep Martin occupied. I stared at the marble floor of Brooks House’s entry hall and thought that all these crosscurrents of purpose and emotion were getting extremely tedious.

It was a feeling that only became stronger as our party proceeded toward Richmond Park the following morning. I was so tired of it all— tired of Martin and his boring Barbara, tired of Lord Stowe and his reproachful looks, tired of Grandmama and Grandpapa and their attempts to push me into Martin’s arms. I wished, with a fierceness that shook my whole being, that all these people would disappear and it would just be Diccon and I, galloping together as we had once done so often across the moors of Yorkshire.

Diccon was riding a big, well-muscled dark bay I had not seen before.

“Is he another horse you are schooling for a friend?” I asked curiously.

His face was unsmiling. “No. I bought this fellow to hunt this winter. I rode him today because he needs the exercise.”

Martin looked disapproving.
“Another
horse, my lord?”

“Horses are my extravagance,” replied Diccon pleasantly, “as radical politics are yours.”

Martin pokered up. “They are hardly my extravagance,” he began.

“Enough!” I said loudly. “I am tired of listening to the two of you brangling. It is very tedious.”

Diccon looked as if no one had ever scolded him in his life. Probably no one had—at least since he had left the schoolroom. Which was too bad; he needed a scolding once in a while. I stared at him repressively.

“Really, Val,” Martin claimed my attention. “You sound as if we’re two years old.”

“You act two years old—the both of you.”

Martin stuck his jaw out and glared at me. I turned back to Diccon and found him convulsed with mirth.

“What’s so funny?” I asked austerely.

He ignored me. “Don’t let her bait you, Wakefield,” he advised.

Martin ignored Diccon. “Valentine, would you care to canter ahead for a little?”

“No,” I said rudely, “I don’t want to listen to your laments, Martin.”

“Val!” He sounded really wounded. Too bad. I was heartily sick of his moonstruck conversations. I didn’t relent, and after a minute he said stiffly, “I’ll relieve you of my presence, then.” Neither Diccon nor I said anything, and he trotted his horse up beside Barbara’s. Barbara beamed and the duchess gave him a dirty look.

“You can’t be thinking of marrying that pseudo-radical,” Diccon said. “You’d end up doing his breathing for him.”

For some reason this remark outraged me. “That’s not true. And Martin is not a pseudo-anything. His political convictions are quite deeply felt.”

“Then they do credit to his feelings, not his brain.”

“Stop being so magisterial.”

“Oh, Christ,” said Diccon with exasperation.

“Are you enjoying the day, Miss Langley,” asked Lord Stowe as he came up on the side of me Martin had left free.

Diccon said something under his breath and rode off precipitously.

* * * *

The outing to Richmond looked to be turning out every bit as tedious as all the other affairs I had gone to in London. We dismounted to rest under some lovely trees and Martin talked to Barbara, Lord Stowe talked to me, and Diccon made himself charming to the duchess. In fact, he distracted her so successfully that she hardly noticed Martin monopolizing her daughter. I didn’t understand his strategy at all.

We had tied the horses while we strolled about, and after a bit I went over to take a closer look at Diccon’s bay. Diccon and Barbara came over to join me, and Diccon untied the bay and walked him a little for me.

“I’m getting tired,” Barbara complained softly. “Isn’t it time we started home, my lord?”

Barbara looked breathtakingly lovely in a blue velvet habit, but her riding ability was not in the same class as her looks. She was on a harmless-looking chestnut gelding that ambled along on a loose rein, obediently following whatever horse was next to him.

“Why don’t you get on, Lady Barbara? I’m certain all the others will follow,” I said. I took Diccon’s reins, and without a word he went over to help her mount. As soon as Barbara was in the saddle, the duchess called imperiously.

“Come here a moment, Leyburn, please.” Diccon started across the grass toward the rest of the group and away from the horses. I glanced over at Barbara.

“Look out, Lady Barbara,” I said instantly, “there is a bee on your horse’s flanks.”

Too late. The gelding squealed, reared, and bolted. Barbara stayed on, but she had not been holding the reins securely and in the horse’s frantic flight she lost them entirely. Barbara’s scream was considerably more piercing than the gelding’s had been.

I was standing holding the reins of Diccon’s horse in my hands and without further thought I threw them over his neck, grabbed his mane in one hand and the front of the saddle in the other, and half-jumped, half-climbed onto the horse’s back. I sent the bay after Barbara.

I could catch Barbara, I didn’t have any doubt about that. The question was, Could I catch her before she fell off? The gelding was in full flight and Barbara looked distinctly unsteady in the saddle.

We were in a section of the park where the bridle path had the woods on one side and an open grassy field on the other. The path curved around the field in the manner of a great U. I reckoned that if I went across the field, I could cut Barbara off and stop the gelding from in front.

The problem was there was a five-foot fence around the field. Normally, of course, I wouldn’t have hesitated to jump the fence, but today I was riding a strange horse, sitting astride in a skirt, which was hardly comfortable, and I had not the use of the stirrups. Diccon’s were far too long for me to get my feet into. Also, there was very little space to put the horse at the fence because of the woods on the other side of the bridle path.

Oh, well. Diccon had said he planned to hunt the horse, so he must be a good jumper and at this rate Barbara was going to be off before I got to her. I pulled the bay up, tightened my legs, and put him at the fence.

He went over it like a dream. We galloped across the field and I felt intoxicated with the power I felt beneath me. For a few seconds I believe I quite forgot Barbara.

I remembered, however, as we approached the fence on the far side of the field, and I pulled the bay up a little as he would have to make a very fast turn once we landed so as not to crash into the woods. We sailed over the fence and negotiated the turn with a little more difficulty. Barbara was coming straight at us.

I put the bay directly across the path, and the gelding, seeing us, checked. Barbara lurched dangerously in the saddle. The silly fool was liable to fall if the gelding stopped too abruptly. I turned the bay in the direction Barbara was going and began to canter slowly. The gelding reached us and I planted the bay’s rear end right in his face and began to slow down even more. The gelding slowed with us until we stopped. I removed the flapping reins from the gelding’s neck and took them firmly into my possession.

“Come along,” I said to Barbara, “I’ll walk you back.”

Barbara was received by her pale-faced mother and an even paler-faced Martin. Martin lifted her off her horse and she collapsed, weeping, into his arms.

“That gelding is going to drop dead if we don’t keep him walking,” said Diccon.

“I know.” I frowned. The poor old fellow’s sides were heaving.

“You get on him, Valentine. I can’t sit in that ridiculous sidesaddle.”

“All right.” I patted the bay’s neck, which was slightly sweaty. “This fellow is marvelous, Diccon.”

He laughed up at me. “You looked as if you were enjoying yourself.”

I glanced guiltily over my shoulder at the hysterical Barbara, and then I grinned down at him.

“If you had taken that second fence at more of an angle, you wouldn’t have had to wrench him around so much when you landed.” He was right. It was an annoying habit of his.

“It was not having any stirrups that put me off a bit.”

“Not to mention the skirt,” he murmured, and stared at my leg. My skirt had pulled up far enough to expose the whole length of my high boot and my bare knee. “A very nice knee indeed,” Diccon said admiringly.

I pulled my skirt down. He reached up, his eyes full of wicked laughter, and put his hands around my waist. I could feel his touch through the fabric of my jacket. He lifted me down, and when I risked a glance up at him again, the look on his face was quite serious. I went over to Barbara’s horse and, without assistance, got into the saddle.