Sheri Cobb South (7 page)

Margaret turned away from this touching scene with a sinking heart. For all the good her frank speaking had done, she might as well have saved her breath.

Chapter 5

The weather was indeed fine the following day, with a gusty breeze that hinted at the approaching autumn. At half past two, James and his pupil laid aside their Greek and Latin texts and set out to explore the neighborhood on foot, pausing on their way downstairs to invite the ladies of the household to join them. Aunt Hattie declined, citing an earlier promise to assist Cook in preserving the last of the summer peaches, and so James turned his attention to Margaret, laboring at a massive mahogany desk in the room that had once been her father’s study.

Margaret was not quite certain why she succumbed, when there were accounts to be paid and ledgers to be balanced. To be sure, it could not have been Mr. Fanshawe’s
beaux yeux—
not when one of his eyes was swollen almost shut and beginning to turn an interesting shade of purple. Still, there was something uncommonly persuasive about a gentleman who urged one to abandon one’s chores and come with him, just as if it were his dearest wish to spend the rest of the afternoon basking in one’s presence. It was not true, of course; any such sentiments on his part were undoubtedly reserved for Amanda, who was already hurrying upstairs to fetch her bonnet. Still, whatever the reason, Margaret found herself laying aside her quill and following her sister up the stairs.

It was Margaret’s intention that, in deference to the tutor’s injuries, they should limit their ramblings to the Darrington property, merely pointing out those parts of the duke’s lands that might be seen in the distance. However, upon James’s discovery that mild exercise, rather than exacerbating the soreness of his limbs, actually served to ease their stiffness, he suggested they venture rather farther afield, perhaps as far as the ruins of the ancient monastery. He was gratified to hear Philip and Amanda add their own entreaties, and even more so when Margaret consented to this plan. James could not have said what it was about the sprawling ducal estate that drew him so, especially when he could not recall ever having met or even heard of the duke of Montford, but he could not shake the feeling that the place held some significance for him.

“Tell me, Miss Darrington,” he said as they crossed the brook, eschewing Amanda’s stepping-stones in favor of the footbridge farther upstream. “Did the old duke leave any children? Young boys, that is, who might have need of a tutor?”

Margaret raised a quizzical eyebrow. “Are you by any chance searching for greener pastures,
Mr. Fanshawe? I fear you won’t find them at Montford. The old duke left no children, male or female, which accounts for the long delay in locating the new duke.”

James merely nodded, and dismissed a promising but unlikely theory. Once over the bridge, the foursome skirted the orchard, where Philip had to be restrained from shinnying up a tree and helping himself to contraband fruit. Finally they reached a stile spanning a gap in the hedgerow.

James, assisting first Amanda and then Margaret over the stile, found it surprising that the duke would bisect his own holdings with hedges, and said so. “I should have thought the stream would form a more natural barrier.”

“And so it does now,” Margaret conceded in a curiously stiff tone. “But the stream did not always mark the property line.”

James found this statement perplexing. “The stream meandered, or perhaps its course was deliberately altered?”

“No. The property between the hedges and the stream was not always part of the duke’s holdings.”

“What she means,” explained Philip, leaping from the highest rung and landing lightly on his feet, “is that the orchards once belonged to our family. Papa—or was it Grandpapa?—sold those acres to the duke years ago. Meg says we Darringtons have always been land-rich and cash-poor, only by this time we’ve sold off so many acres that now we’re just plain poor.”

“Philip,” was all Margaret said, but her voice held a note of warning.

“I see,” murmured James, after the younger members of the party had run ahead in pursuit of a brightly colored butterfly.

“If you have any fears regarding your salary, you need not,” Margaret hastened to assure him. “I made quite certain of our ability to pay before I engaged your services.”

James took her hand and tucked it into the crook of his elbow, and they began the grassy descent toward the crumbled walls of the old monastery. “I have no such fears, believe me. I only meant that I see now why Amanda’s marriage is of such vital importance. And also,” he added with a hint of a smile, “why your siblings feel a certain sense of entitlement where his Grace’s apples are concerned.”

“I thought perhaps, if Amanda were to marry the duke, he might deed the orchard back to Philip.”

“But surely she need not wed the duke for that. I should think any gentleman of fortune who wins Miss Amanda’s hand might be willing to purchase the property and return it to the family.”

“Yes, and I should do my utmost to insist upon it as part of any marriage settlement—provided, of course, that his Grace was willing to sell. Perhaps he might be persuaded to do so as a favor to the bridal pair.”

“You would have made a formidable solicitor, Miss Darrington,” said James, his smile rendered crooked due to the swelling in his face. “The truth comes out at last!”

“The truth?” echoed Margaret, puzzled. “What truth?”

“The real reason for your single state. You claim a lack of suitors, but in fact, Miss Darrington, you drove too hard a bargain.”

“Touché,
Mr. Fanshawe. In fact, even had there been offers, I must have been obliged to decline them. I fear I should not make anyone a very good wife.”

“No? Why not, pray?”

“My dear Mr. Fanshawe, only consider! I have been accustomed to administering the estate for these five years and more, and if it has not precisely prospered, at least I have contrived to keep the house and its remaining grounds off the auction block. Were I to marry, I should no doubt attempt to manage my husband’s property. What gentleman would wish to saddle himself with so controlling a female?”

“I should think any man of property would be grateful to have the benefit of his wife’s expertise.”

She laughed. “If you truly think so, I can only say that your experience of the male sex has been vastly different from—oh!”

She broke off abruptly as a gust of wind tugged the bonnet from her head and sent it tumbling across the grass in the direction of the ancient ruins. James gave chase, his coattails flapping behind him, as Margaret called out encouragement. Once he almost grasped it by its fluttering ribbons, but a fickle breeze snatched the long strips of grosgrain from his reach. Sore muscles screaming in protest, he plunged down the hill toward the crumbling piles of gray stone. Here the bonnet was at last halted in its flight by one of the more intact remnants, a long section of wall about seven feet high.

“There
you are!” he muttered aloud to the mutinous millinery.

Its ribbons fluttered on the grass as if poised to resume flight. James stooped to pick it up, then turned and blinked in surprise. A short, stout man with the dark robe and tonsured head of a medieval monk stood in the shadow of the wall about thirty feet away, regarding him with an expression of mild curiosity.

“Oh! Good afternoon,” James said.

The man made no reply, but turned and walked away, rounding the corner at the end of the broken wall.

“I say—I beg your pardon,” James began, but halted in mid-stride at the end of the wall. There was no one there. No one, that is, but Philip, coming around the corner.

“Mr. Fanshawe? Were you calling me?”

“No, I was speaking to the other fellow, but he apparently has no desire for company.”

“What other fellow?”

James gestured toward the end of the wall. “The man in the long robe. Surely you saw him? He must have come right past you.”

Philip shook his head. “I’ve seen no one. Unless—” he added, his eyes growing wide with awe. “Never say you’ve seen the ghost!”

“In broad daylight? Nonsense!” put in Margaret, lifting her skirts so that she might pick her way between the fallen stones. “Besides, only the dukes of Montford may see him.”

“Perhaps the ghost mistook Mr. Fanshawe for one of the Weatherlys,” Philip insisted, reluctant to deprive his tutor of so thrilling an experience.

Unlikely though it was, something in the boy’s suggestion stirred a chord of memory, and James looked up sharply. Before he could catch hold of it, however, Margaret spoke, and whatever he had almost remembered was gone.

“If that is the case, then he must be a ghost with remarkably poor vision, for Mr. Fanshawe is quite fair, and the duke’s people have always been dark.”

“On the contrary, Miss Darrington,” James said in a flippant tone that belied his unnerving experience. “It would be a perfectly natural mistake. I have always felt there is nothing quite like a black eye and a fat lip for lending a fellow a certain aristocratic air.”

Margaret acknowledged this sally with a smile, but declined to answer it with one of her own. “In all seriousness, Mr. Fanshawe, I believe there are gypsies camped in the home wood; no doubt the person you saw was one of them.”

“Gypsies!” Having captured the elusive butterfly, Amanda now joined the party with her prize clasped loosely in her hands. “Oh, Meg, do let us have our fortunes told!”

Philip added his entreaties to his sister’s. James, for his part, had no great confidence in the purported psychic abilities of gypsies, but as he had had little enough success in ascertaining anything about himself, he reasoned that they could hardly do worse than he had thus far done.

“What say you, Miss Darrington?” he asked with a hint of a challenge in his voice. “Shall we visit the gypsies and put our fates to the test?”

“Yes, let’s,” she agreed readily, taking his proffered arm. “So long as we return home in time for tea, else Aunt Hattie will worry.”

His smile was somewhat sheepish. “I confess, Miss Darrington, you have taken the wind out of my sails. I felt sure you would consider such frivolity a shocking waste of funds.”

“And so it is.” The twinkle in her fine dark eyes robbed the words of any severity. “But surely everyone deserves an occasional flight of fancy. It has been my observation that harsh reality inevitably rears its ugly head.”

It struck James that Miss Darrington had not known enough frivolity in her life. Was she practical by nature, as he had first thought, or had she been forced by circumstances to become so?

As if she had read his thoughts, she added, “Besides, I suspect a close look at the camp will disabuse Amanda and Philip of any romantic notions about the nomadic life.”

In this assessment she was almost too correct. Seen at close range, the colorful canvas tents of the gypsies appeared grimy and faded. Two gaunt hounds of mixed breed snarled at their approach. The dogs’ animosity was reflected in the hostile stares of a trio of unkempt young men, one of whom poked at the smoldering embers of the campfire with a stout stick.

“What d’ye want?” was this individual’s unpromising greeting.

James suddenly found both his arms seized—the left by his employer, and the right by her sister. Glancing first at Miss Darrington, then at Amanda, he saw the two very different young ladies regarding the gypsies with identical expressions of trepidation.

“I—Good day.” Seeing the dauntless Miss Darrington for once bereft of speech, James assumed the role of spokesman for the group. “The ladies would like to have their fortunes told, if you please.”

Apparently the gypsies did not please, for they stared at the group for a long moment before making any attempt to accommodate them. At last one of the young men spat on the ground, then bellowed some strange words in a language James did not understand. Immediately the flap of one of the tents was thrown back, and an elderly woman appeared in the aperture. Her olive skin was deeply lined, but her black hair was scarcely touched with gray in spite of her advanced age. She held a brief discourse with the young man in the unknown tongue, then turned to address the newcomers in heavily accented English.

“You come in.”

James did as he was told, steering the Darrington siblings in the direction of the tent and stooping to lead the way through the opening. The abrupt change from sun to shadows made him blink. The interior was too dimly lit to make out much detail, but this might be a good thing, if the smell that assailed his nostrils was anything to judge by. The gypsy crone settled herself on a stool behind a low table covered with a threadbare cloth, then shuffled a deck of cards with surprisingly nimble fingers. Having mixed the cards to her satisfaction, she laid them out face down on the table in a geometric pattern.

“You.” She spoke to Amanda, who clung to James’s arm in a manner he would have found highly gratifying, had their circumstances been more conducive to romance. “I tell your fortune first.”

With the agility of long practice, she turned the cards up, revealing not the simple black and red pips seen in parlor games, but highly detailed scenes featuring elaborate configurations of swords, coins, batons, or cups.

“Ah!” The old gypsy woman grinned, exposing the gaps where several teeth were missing. “Two of cups, six of cups, ten of coins—good, good! You have good and loving husband, much money, and many children. Is very good, no?”

“Oh, very good indeed!” exclaimed Amanda, letting out her breath on a sigh of relief. “See, Meg? I told you everything would come about in the end.”

“Amanda, love, one has only to look at you to predict such an outcome,” chided Margaret in an undervoice, while the gypsy crone prophesied for Philip a future of travel, wealth, and adventure. “You would be wise not to set too much store by her predictions, however felicitous you may find them. I daresay she tells everyone the same thing, for who would pay good money only to be told of poverty, or illness, or spinsterhood? Depend upon it, she will predict a brilliant marriage for me as well, and assure Mr. Fanshawe that he will inherit a fortune or some such thing.”