The Baskerville Tales (Short Stories) (11 page)

Lady Bancroft gentled her voice, as if Imogen were a five-year-old in a tantrum. “I truly think you should have a second look at Captain Smythe. An adoring wife is sometimes all a … well, an excessively self-assured young man requires to settle him down.”

And obviously that’s working well for you
. But Imogen gave herself a mental slap as she thought it. Her mother was trying to do the right thing for the family, even if it was the worst thing for her daughter. Unfortunately, the conflict was giving Imogen a stomachache. “Captain Smythe believes he is doing me a favor by bestowing his attention on me.”

Lady Bancroft gave her a sharp look. “Then it is up to you to convince him of your gratitude in the name of your father’s bid for Parliament. His father is an earl, you know, and the eldest son is consumptive. Diogenes stands to inherit. You could be a countess.”

Imogen felt a sting at the back of her throat that threatened tears, but she swallowed them down. She’d spent the early years of her life an invalid and knew how to wait out discomfort. This was just another episode that would eventually pass if she were stubborn enough. “I will see the young men and be polite to them, but do not expect an engagement by dinnertime.”

Her mother rose, her face as impassive as Imogen’s tone. “That is all I ask for now.”

Imogen remained on the piano bench, staring at her hands for long minutes after her mother had left. The room was silent except for the distant sound of footfalls elsewhere in the house. Horne Hill was quiet and genteel, everything a gentleman’s summer residence in the country should be. But to Imogen, it was a prison with Aubusson carpets.

She wished Evelina were there. They’d shared every hope and secret since girlhood, and her friend had a way of making unpleasant situations feel more like an adventure than a burden. Evelina would have figured out some creative way of getting rid of Smythe, but all Imogen had managed was a black temper. Marry him? She could barely stand to be in the same room.
I wonder what would happen if I started giggling hysterically the next time Smythe came to call?

She heard the thundering trot of her younger sister’s feet coming toward the sitting room. Slowly, she lifted her head and tried to arrange her features into something acceptable.

“There is no poetry at Horne Hill,” moaned Poppy as she burst through the door. “The soul of every brick was forged on the anvil of dullness.”

Imogen winced at the invasion—not to mention the jumbled metaphors. “We have a library. I’m sure I saw a copy of Pope’s
Iliad
there just this morning.” She noted with some surprise that the sun had advanced halfway across the floor. Apparently, she’d been sitting alone in a stupor for longer than she’d thought.

“Pope? Ugh! I don’t mean
that
kind of verse. I have real poets to read if I want words.”
Poppy knelt on the seat of an armchair and peered over the back as if she were four and not fourteen. Her long, tawny curls fell in a curtain, barely contained by a dark pink ribbon. “I don’t mean poetry of the written kind, I mean of the
soul
. There is no
romance
here.”

Imogen fought the urge to roll her eyes heavenward. Or weep. Or foam at the mouth. “Were you listening outside the door?”

“To what?” The girl actually looked innocent.

Imogen forced a smile. “Just as well. You’re too young to hear about such things.”

Poppy rested her chin on her arms, pouting over the chair back. “I am not too young for courting. And I would choose one of your young men rather than leave them sighing in distress. You’re a snow queen. You have no heart.”

So she did overhear
. Tears stung Imogen’s eyes and she closed them before she betrayed herself. Poppy was both too wise for her years and yet all too young. For one thing, her head was chock-a-block with swashbuckling and derring-do. As a girl, Imogen recalled having a tendre for the Count of Monte Cristo. With Poppy, it was a constant parade of knights in shining armor.

She turned away, trying to forgive the girl for simply being who she was. “You need something improving to keep you busy.”

“Improving.” Poppy snorted. “That sounds like something nasty one takes for indigestion.”

“Well, then how would you occupy your time?”

Poppy raised a tawny eyebrow. “With pirates. Or highwaymen.”

Despite herself, Imogen prayed that Poppy would never stop being outrageous. “I think those are more amusing on paper than in person. I hear the real ones have fleas.”

Her sister awarded her a scandalized glare. “Are you insensible to the thrill of a man on
horseback, sweeping you off your feet?”

Imogen swallowed.
Only if he could carry me away from here
. “Indeed, I’m sure such a man would be thrilling. I would marry him at once.”

Poppy gave her the superior look of one who had clearly scored a point. “I thought so.”

The satisfaction in Poppy’s voice was too much for Imogen’s mood. She rose to leave, a cold tiredness stealing over her despite the warm day outside. “I have letters to write.” It was a lie, but it guaranteed her solitude for a time.

“Love letters?”

The habit of sarcasm was too easy. “Letters to the workhouse. They’ll be coming to fetch you shortly.”

“You’re just a miserable, sour old maid,” her little sister said cheerfully.

Imogen flinched. Unfortunately, Poppy was right about one thing. There was no romance at Horne Hill. No wonder people eloped.

* * *

Buckingham Penner dropped the steel weapons case on the ground, sending a puff of dust into the hot July air. Behind him, a stand of oaks cast a pool of green-dappled shadow. Before him, a low rock wall snaked along the edge of the lane where he stood. Beyond the wall lay verdant Devonshire fields, but to him they might as well have been blasted ruins. Nature was wasting its finery on him; he wanted blood.

Actually, he wanted one of the Sagging Swine’s excellent golden ales, but he knew very well he was supposed to be in a fit of manly pique and must behave accordingly. So he cleared
his throat against the dust, set his jaw, and carried on.

The silvery weapons case gleamed in the early afternoon sun, dazzling his eyes as he bent to press the latch. It sprang open with a loud click, the lid yawning until it was almost horizontal. With a whirring chatter, a platform rose from within, offering up a red velvet tray. With a determined air, Bucky plucked a Penner Reliable revolver—one of his father’s bestselling products—from the crimson cloth with a surge of grim satisfaction.

Smythe has no idea whom he has challenged
. The captain might have been a military man—a crack shot with swagger to spare—but it was sheer idiocy to demand satisfaction from the son of a gun maker. Bucky had built more weapons than Captain Diogenes Smythe had … well, just about anything that the bounder might have done. As little as he’d liked it, Bucky had grown up with a pistol in his hand.
And skill trumps a box of lucky bullets every time
.

Even so, practice was everything. Swift and sure, Bucky aimed his pistol at the row of pinecones he had set along the low rock wall. He squeezed the trigger, and the revolver kicked in his hand. It was an older weapon—far from the most recent lightweight design—but there was something purposeful about its sturdy simplicity.

The revolver’s report sent birds and squirrels into hysterics, and the pinecone exploded into smithereens. A grim smile played about his lips as he imagined the flying bits of cone were the remains of the man who had dared to entangle Imogen Roth’s peace of mind in his evil schemes.

Warm with exertion—or a lover’s passionate fury—he shrugged out of his jacket, letting the slight breeze tug at his sleeves. He tossed the coat to the grass and took aim at the next pinecone in the row. This one actually resembled Smythe, with his slightly pointy head. If a pinecone could look smug, this one was doing a reasonable job.
Crack
. Cone bits spewed into
the air.

What am I doing?
He wasn’t the kind of man who killed people. He just wasn’t. But now he was caught in an affair of honor because that ambulatory garden slug had hurt the woman he loved. And then there was that bit where he’d broken Smythe’s nose. Events had bounded from one height of idiocy to the next until somehow they’d landed at a duel. The whole thing was horrifying and extraordinarily stupid—but it was what gentlemen did. If he wanted to behave as a gentleman, he had to go through with the miserable business.
And women love a victor, don’t they?

“You’re a good shot,” said a young female voice behind him.

Bucky barely silenced a distinctly foul curse. He wheeled. “Poppy! What the devil are you doing creeping up on an armed man?”

Imogen’s little sister blinked at him out of eyes the green of a quiet forest glade. The two girls barely looked related, unless one knew the Roth family features as well as he did. Imogen’s eyes were a pale gray, and her sleek hair as pale as wheat. Poppy’s tumble of tawny curls looked like mice might have nested in it. She wore a dark green dress with an inch of dirt around the hem and clutched a book in one hand.

“I’m not about to take you for a bandit, Bucky Penner,” Poppy said primly. “You’ve been Tobias’s friend for as long as I can recall.”

He wasn’t in the mood to be lectured. Nevertheless, he tried to smile, because his mood wasn’t Poppy’s fault. “So you have come from Horne Hill to admire my marksmanship?”

“Not exactly.” Poppy leaned against an oak, adjusting the brim of her bonnet to keep the sun from her eyes. “I’ve come to talk some sense into you.”

He wasn’t sure whether to be irritated or amused, so he turned back to his target practice,
picking out the next victim. “I’m going through with the duel.”
I just need luckier bullets
. Maybe he should make his own.

He should have sent Poppy back down the road to Horne Hill. She should be chaperoned, not alone with a man who wasn’t her brother—although he’d been the next best thing for years. She should know enough to call him “Mr. Penner” and wear gloves and keep her hem clean, but that was Poppy, and right now he was just a little bit grateful for it.

“Of course you are. That’s not the problem.”

“Then what is?”

“I know you followed us from London,” the girl went on relentlessly. “It’s not as though you have family in Devonshire, and I know very well Papa didn’t invite you. That’s why you’re staying at the inn.”

“I like the Sagging Swine.”

“That’s a bit like saying you enjoy sleeping on rubble. I’ve heard about their beds.”

Bucky shot another pinecone because he didn’t have a good answer. “Is there a point to these observations?”

“My mother spoke to Imogen this afternoon. I overheard everything. She is encouraging my sister to favor Captain Smythe’s suit. She’s holding firm, but that won’t last forever. Not when Mama gets her hooks into a person. She could teach the Inquisition a thing or two about persuasion.”

That was as much as Bucky feared.

“And Mama intercepted your letters, so you may as well forget about trying to send Imogen anything in writing.”

“How do you know about my letters?”

“I overheard Mama talking to Father.”

“You overhear rather a lot.”

“I have to work with what tools I have.” Poppy frowned. “But you’re straying from the point of the matter.”

“All right, I can find some other way of getting Imogen a letter,” Bucky said evenly. “I could build something that could fly a message through her bedroom window. Or it could be as simple a matter as sending it home with you.”

“Don’t bother.”

“Why not?” Bucky heard the edge in his voice.

“Letters are boring. Any lovelorn swain can scribble out some soggy sentences about how he can’t live another minute without his muse.”

Bucky shifted uncomfortably, wondering just who had read his notes.

“Obviously, you need advice,” Poppy said kindly. “That’s where I come in.”

“How generous.”

“And you need encouragement. You’re a better man than the captain.”

“Are you sure about that?” he asked, sounding as jealous and bitter as he felt. “I’m just an idle young man.” He didn’t have a problem being rich, young, and idle. Who in his right mind would? But that meant he wasn’t a cavalry officer, or an airship admiral, or the prime minister. He wasn’t exactly
useful
, except for making toys for his nieces and nephews. Making children laugh was far more satisfying than churning out guns and bullets like his father, but toys didn’t cut a dash with the ladies. Not like a uniform covered in gold braid.

Poppy tilted her head, considering. “I’m positive you are superior in every way—except perhaps for dancing. I think he has the advantage on the floor.”

“Thank you for that. Sadly, besides outshining me in the polka, Captain Smythe is the second son of an earl.” With bitter discontent, Bucky shot the last pinecone. The thing wheeled into the air, spiraling crazily before it plopped to the dirt. “I’m clever, but I can’t buy, sell, or manufacture that kind of pedigree. It doesn’t matter that he’s a liar.”

“Then what are you going to do about it,” she demanded, “besides putting a bullet in him and then spending your next decade on the Continent?”

Bucky turned to look at her in surprise. Her jaw was set, the book clutched to her narrow frame. He had the sudden uncomfortable feeling that she was expecting more from him. Well, the devil’s own truth was that he expected more from himself than becoming the terror of coniferous seed pods everywhere.

And, oddly, he respected Poppy’s insight. Most men wouldn’t pay attention to a schoolgirl, but Imogen’s sister had some interesting ideas if one took the time to listen. “I need to find a way to get through this duel honorably without losing my soul. And I need to convince your sister that she is the most wonderful creature who walks the earth. Unfortunately, all I know how to do is make wind-up ducks.”

“I see the difficulty.” Poppy peered at him critically from under the rim of her bonnet, and then she extended her book with as much ceremony as if it were Excalibur. “Maybe this will help.”