Sweet Bargain (5 page)

Carriage wheels crunching to a halt on the gravel of the drive broke his reverie. He heard voices and a shuffle of footsteps along the walk. Fleetingly, he regretted that no housekeeper or servant had yet been hired. Farre, at work in the stable, would not answer the door, and Nick would have to leave the visitors standing or answer himself. He had his boots off, too. He jammed them on his feet and strode to the door, reaching it as the fall of the knocker reverberated in the empty entry.

When he opened the door, two white-haired ladies, one on each arm of an equally aged coachmen, stood before him. Each carried a small basket. There was a brief moment in which the ladies stared at him and he at them. It occurred to him then that whatever they had expected it was not a young man in his shirtsleeves.

"My good man," said the thinner lady, apparently deciding he was a footman, "we have heard that your master is ill. We wished to convey to him our welcome to Ashecombe and our best wishes for his health. Nothing is more efficacious than my calf's-foot jelly or more soothing than Mrs. Elworthy's lavender water."

Nick hardly knew whether to laugh or swear. To be mistaken for a servant twice in a week was proof that he had escaped the rigid ceremonies of Haverly, but it was also a reminder that he, Nick, in himself was nothing. He guessed that these ladies did not even think he had enough consequence to be the butler.

"Thank you, ma'am," he said, and bowed because he thought a footman would. The ladies didn't move. "I'll see that the master gets your gifts straightaway. He cannot receive you, of course."

"Of course," said the ladies together.

"Good day," said Nick, hoping to put an end to the awkward conversation.

He now had a basket in each hand, and he could only close the door with his foot. As that did not seem a proper footmanly act, he backed into the entry, waiting for the ladies to leave. Another awkward moment passed, with the ladies looking at him as if they expected something or someone else.

"Give a hand, then, man," urged the coachman. So Nick put the baskets on the floor and, taking the frailer of the two ladies by the arm, assisted them to their carriage. As he turned to reenter the house, he caught sight of Farre at the stable door, watching the ladies' departure.

In the library, he pulled off his boots and took up the Courtland ledgers again. The ladies' visit puzzled him. He wondered where they had the notion of his being ill. The laconic Farre had certainly not spread any rumors about him in the village. An odd thought came to him that Bel Shaw had said something about him. She would be acquainted with all the country families about Ashecombe. The idea that she had spoken of him, that he had been on her mind, caused a tremor to pass along his body.

He must be a bigger fool than he had ever thought himself to become lost in unprofitable fancies about such a girl. He turned to the accounts of the most prosperous of Courtland's farms, where he might find some profit that would help him restore Courtland. But the gravel of the drive crunched again under the wheels of a vehicle.

After the third caller, he decided to keep his boots on, and after he had closed the door on a fifth, he dropped a basket of lemons beside the other remedies he had received from his new neighbors and turned and strode for the stable.

He found Farre attempting to replace a heavy beam that had once supported a harness rack. Strong as the older man was, he could not hold the beam in place and position the hammer at the same time. Nick stepped up and took the weight of the beam.

"You could have asked for help," he said.

"I could have."

They worked in silence for a few minutes, Farre hammering in the pegs that held the big beam in place, Nick noting all that Farre had accomplished and more that needed to be done. It was time to hire help for his friend. When the task was finished, Farre nodded and began to hang up collars and traces.

"Farre," said Nick, when the older man continued to ignore his presence, "I've been answering my own blasted door all afternoon."

"No ceremony in that, lad."

"Hoist on my own petard. I suppose I deserved it."

Farre paused in the act of coiling a rope. "You could have asked for help."

"I am asking."

"Well then, your lordship, you want me to play the butler?" Farre hung the coiled rope on a peg and turned to Nick. "What do you make of all these visitors?"

"They think I'm ill. That is, they think the earl's ill. They think I'm a footman."

The two men began to stroll toward the house.

"Where do you suppose they got the notion you were ill?"

"I was going to ask you that. Did you say anything in the village about Uncle Miles?" It was possible that someone hearing of his uncle's long illness had confused Nick with his predecessor.

Farre did not answer this but only lifted an eyebrow.

"Oh, I know you didn't. You wouldn't say 'Good day' if it didn't suit you. But five ladies from the village have called to offer fever remedies."

"Ladies, were they?"

"Yes, and don't tell me you didn't look around the corner at every one," said Nick.

"Well then, I suspect a lady told them you were ill."

Nick didn't trust himself to speak. His mind turned that quickly to Bel Shaw.

"Now," said Farre, "why would one lady tell another that a man who can chase a band of poachers off his land single-handed is ill?"

Nick released the breath he was holding. "If Miss Shaw did speak of me to someone, I would not have guessed that she would tell her neighbors I was ill. Ill-mannered, perhaps, but not ill."

"She's not a lass to spare you, is she? Wonder why she said it?"

"You think she meant to send every well-meaning woman in the village to my door?"

Suddenly Farre gave a short bark of laughter. "I'll wager you she did. You said you didn't want her to disturb you again. Well, she found a way around that."

Nick said nothing. He could hear the bubbling laughter of her little band of poachers as it floated to him around a curve of the Ashe. She'd had the last word at their first encounter, and now it seemed she'd scored against him again. Well, he wasn't going to take that without retaliating. But where was he to see her? He doubted she would trespass again, and he could hardly call on her to say what he wanted to say.

Visitors came and went the rest of the afternoon. Nick heard their carriages on the drive and their voices mingling with Farre's. It was late when Farre brought in a tray with the sort of supper the two of them had become accustomed to making. He set it down on the table.

"Thanks," Nick said, though he expected no acknowledgment from his friend. "Seen any likely prospects for our staff?" A sort of grunt was the reply, and Farre disappeared again. He returned a minute later bearing a second tray laden with the baskets and jars they had collected that afternoon.

"What will it be, my lord, Mrs. Pence's posset or Mrs. Nye's calf's-foot jelly? I'm told that both are excellent for the fever," said Farre, bowing with mock seriousness.

Nick reached for a particularly strong-smelling jar, the contents of which appeared to have been gathered from the depths of a murky pond.

"Leeches," said Farre.

"Can I dose Miss Shaw?" Nick asked. Farre looked at him shrewdly then, and Nick returned the jar to the tray. He began to help himself to bread and meat from the first tray.

"You know, lad, your uncle was sick nearly ten years, but no neighbor called or brought him naught. Here you are, a stranger to these folks, and at that girl's word a dozen of your neighbors call with gifts. Odd, don't you think?"

Nick was not fooled by the indifferent tone of this remark. Farre wanted him to consider that. "You think I ought to thank her? I'm not likely to see her again, and if I do, it's not thanking her I had in mind."

"Oh, you can see her. Soon enough, too." It was Farre's turn to serve himself from their tray.

Nick held himself in check while Farre arranged slices of cheese, bread, and cold roast on his plate, while he scooped mustard from the pot and spread it with studied evenness across three slices of bread, while he assembled symmetrical piles of the ingredients.

"Well?" Nick said at last.

"Church, lad—her uncle's the vicar. Go to church." Farre lifted one of the sandwiches he had so carefully composed and bit into it with apparent satisfaction.

THE CONGREGATION OF St. Edward's of Ashecombe rose with whispers and a rustle of muslins for the close of the service. Above the stir, the voice of the vicar, Charles Shaw, resounded in rich and solemn tones. "And we thank Thee, Lord, for the timely recovery of the Earl of Haverly."

In the first pew of the little stone church Nick stiffened, conscious of his neighbors' stares at his back. But he was safe. The strangers around him could see only the Earl of Haverly, all that his uncle wanted him to be, while he, Nick, the unwanted offspring of Haverly's wastrel brother, Nick the dreamer and book-reader, was invisible to them under the London coat of gray superfine.

He turned to leave the church, letting his face harden into the aloof lines he had learned from his uncle. Uncle Miles, inches shorter than Nick, had had the knack of looking down his nose as if he were regarding ants from a precipice. If Nick could not rate himself as highly as Uncle Miles had believed an earl should be rated, still Nick had no wish to be mistaken for a servant again. All of Ashecombe was watching, but he looked only for a pair of impertinent blue eyes, found them, and held their gaze. The wariness in those eyes gave him a certain wicked satisfaction.

Outside, he found the vicar waiting to greet him and was surprised, as he had been in meeting Augustus Shaw, into a kind of intimacy quite unfamiliar to him. Like his brother, Charles Shaw offered a direct gaze, a warm if less forceful handshake, and a question about Courtland that invited Nick to stand among the Shaws in the shade of the elms, explaining what he hoped to achieve at the manor. His gaze strayed toward the door through which Bel Shaw would soon pass, and he wondered what she would think to see him conversing with her parents and uncle.

As soon as Nicholas Seymour passed her in his fine London coat, Bel knew he meant revenge. His glance told her as clearly as words could have that he had seen through the parade of visitors she had sent to his door. But what sort of revenge?

"Did you ever see such a coat?" her cousin Ellen whispered in her ear. She and Ellen had left St. Edward's Church, arms linked, every Sunday of their girlhood, and no one had ever aroused such curiosity in her cousin before. Ellen, nearly eighteen, counted her marriage prospects daily, dreamed fondly of a London season, and believed the cut of a man's coat was a great measure of his worth.

"How old do you think he is, Bel?" came the next whisper.

"Do be quiet, Ellen," Bel urged, frowning at her cousin.

"No one will hear us. Everyone's talking about him anyway." Ellen grinned.

Looking around, Bel saw it was true.

"He can't be older than Darlington, can he?"

"He can be as old as the squire for all it matters to us," said Bel repressively.

"Oh, Bel, he's a single man, of course it matters to us. Besides, he looked right at you. Do you think he's as handsome as Darlington? Do you think his dark straight hair is as fine as Darlington's golden curls? Do you think you could give up Darlington for the earl?"

"Ellen," said Bel as they came out into the churchyard, "the earl will hardly mix with the society of Ashecombe, not in the circles in which the Shaws may move. You shouldn't imagine that his coming here will make the least difference in our lives."
Except to diminish our pleasure in the Ashe.

Ellen turned her pretty, petulant face to Bel. "But, Bel," she said, "he did come here, even though the season is very much at its height in London. And besides, the Shaws are the best family for miles."

"There are no earls for miles about, and we hardly know what sort of friends Lord Haverly has elsewhere. Did you notice he wears a mourning band? Perhaps he doesn't wish to meet anyone." This remark was apparently lost on Ellen, who had turned her gaze to the crowd in front of them.

"Look," she said, with a defiant toss of her head, "the earl is talking to Uncle Augustus and Uncle Charles now. They'll get him to a Shaw dinner. Sunday sennight—you'll see." Ellen flounced off with a swish of skirts.

Bel slowed her steps. Ellen joined the earl's party, allowing herself to be presented with a pretty blush and curtsy. If Bel joined the group around her parents, would the earl receive her with the same grace? Surely he was gentleman enough to say nothing of their meeting at the river or the dozens of visitors who had come to his door. He looked up, and she halted. The glance he offered her was too challenging by half, as if he dared her to meet him.

The moment she returned his glance, Nick decided Miss Shaw's eyes ought not to be looked at suddenly by the unwary. One minute he was conversing rationally with his new neighbors, the next their words were a faint buzz in his ears, and he had taken a step, had actually taken a step toward Miss Shaw, so that the vicar, who was suggesting the names of reliable craftsmen, was compelled to step back. Nick forced his gaze to return to the man's face, but it was a minute or more before he again caught the meaning of the vicar's words. Bel Shaw was strolling toward them. If he could break away now, he would pass her on the path. His back would be to the others. There was no one behind her. He could say anything he liked for her ears alone.

The earl's gaze had nearly stopped Bel. She saw him step forward and thought fleetingly that he meant to speak after all—there, in front of all the Shaws. Then Alan Darlington stepped in her path.

"Good morning, Bel, looking for me?" His gaze swept over her in a lazy, impertinent perusal.

"Are the Shaws forgiven then ... Mr. Darlington?" she asked. She had nearly spoken another man's name. She steadied herself.

"They could be, Bel, if you would be kind to me. Come driving this afternoon. Emily Pence and Lyde want to go over to Hilcombe, and Mrs. Pence will allow it, if you come along."