The Savage Miss Saxon (23 page)

I
t had been five days since Alix had last seen Nicholas—five days during which she relived the incident at the stream over and over again in her mind; alternately angered, embarrassed, or amazed at her reaction to lifting her eyes and seeing Mannering grinning down the hill at her.

The Earl had been wise to stay away from Saxon Hall for at least the two days it took Alix to get over the urge to skewer him on sight with her grandfather’s sword. For the sake of her blushes, it was also considerate of him to absent himself a further two days, during which time Alix debated whether she could ever face him again.

But now, on the fifth day, Mannering was doing himself a great disservice. For she had, after much long thought, come to the conclusion that, although she knew the emotion to be most unladylike, she had felt a definite wave of pleasure at Nicholas’s obvious appreciation of her feminine form.

Not that she wouldn’t thoroughly upbraid him for his audacity—indeed, Harold was still grumbling over the man’s insolence—but she was woman enough to know that Nicholas had very much approved of what he had seen. Mannering might be arrogant, overbearing, infuriating, and obstinate, but he was also the most exciting, interesting, amusing, and
attractive
man she had ever met. If he presented himself at Saxon Hall while she was in this mood of tense excitement that had kept her pulses racing with the remnants of last night’s rather unladylike dreams of the man, she might just have leaped into his arms like some love-crazy hoyden.

But, alas, the Earl did not appear. He was, for once, trying to be the Compleat Gentleman—giving the lady time to recover her poise before he placed himself in her—or the knife-wielding Harold’s—vicinity again.

Alix’s hopes were raised when Nutter came to fetch her from her efforts to make some order out of her grandfather’s cluttered chamber—the place gave new meaning to the term
Gordian knot
—saying she had visitors waiting in the Great Hall. After racing to her own chamber to make hasty repairs on her appearance, and pausing a moment more to press her hand to her breast to steady her erratic breathing, she made a graceful descent to the lower floor—only to find the Unholy Trio taking up residence just outside Harold’s wigwam, and a fourth, nervously shivering figure standing somewhat in the shadows near the closest exit.

Cuffy was the first to spy her out. “What ho, ma’am? Here we are, returned from our mission all right and tight. Jolly good fun it was too—though I did at first feel a bit like dear Mother Windsor.”

Knowing that Mother Windsor was an infamous procuress in London’s King’s Place—and also knowing that Alix would demand to know who the lady was—Jeremy quickly jumped in to divert her attention away from his large-mouthed cohort. “Your plan went off with nary a hitch, Alix,” he said quickly, then turned in the direction of the cowering shadow. “Come, come now, Reggie, old man. Front and center it is. You must make your bow to your hostess for the next few days.”

Slowly, and oh so cautiously—his eyes never leaving the open flap on the wigwam (where Harold’s head had appeared briefly some moments before)—the man called Reginald tippytoed his way toward Alix. As he made his painful progress across the room, Billy sidled up to Alix and whispered rather loudly in her ear, “A regular Captain Queernabs, ain’t he?”

Alix’s sporadic perusal of Billy’s cant dictionary allowed her to know that he meant friend Reginald to be a shabby dresser, and her first clear sight of the man only reinforced Billy’s comment.

“Welcome to Saxon Hall, Mr. Goodfellow,” Alix smiled warmly, extending her hand to the unprepossessing creature standing before her. “We are all so very glad you could come.”

Reginald mumbled something inaudible and made a jerky bow before returning once more to his dark corner.

“Told ya,” Billy pronounced. “Captain Queernabs. Don’t flash tatler nor fawney. Coaxes his vampers too, I wager, smack down in his beater cases. And his coat’s sleepy.”

Cuffy admonished his indiscreet friend. “So he doesn’t wear a watch or ring—so what? And as to him pulling down his darned stockings to hide them in his shoes, why, Billy, I’ve seen you do the same numerous times at school. Leave off the fellow, will you?”

“Yes,” Jeremy warned, joining the small group standing in the center of the chamber. “He might bolt else, and then where would we be?”

But Billy had one more insult left in his quiver. “He’s beetle-browed,” he muttered stubbornly.

Jeremy took a good look at Reginald’s rather bushy eyebrows. “Stubble it, Billy,” he ordered, trying hard not to laugh. “Those thick brows are his one redeeming feature!”

While Jeremy and Billy cast daggers at each other—clearly the lightning-fast jaunt back and forth across the country had set their nerves on edge—Alix asked Cuffy what his cousin meant by saying Reginald’s coat was “sleepy.”

“It means old Reggie’s coat hasn’t had a ‘nap’ in a long time,” Cuffy supplied, his eyes twinkling, and Alix had to hide her face until she could once again gain control of herself.

“Really,” she admonished, turning back to Cuffy, “Billy’s cant can prove extremely wearing at times, but then again, there are
times
...”

“I know what you mean,” Cuffy agreed. “Then again there are times when it seems so very appropriate, doesn’t it?”

Their badinage at last dwindling, Alix reminded the boys that only half of their plan had been accomplished. There was still the elopement to consider—and at least one consultation with the eloping bride.

“What if Helene balks at marrying over the anvil?” Jeremy questioned, some of the enormity of what they had done coming home to him. “Then we’d have three Anselms
and
friend Reggie here cluttering up the place!”

“That is not to be thought of!” Alix insisted, passionately, “Our plan will work—it
has
to work!”

The unsuppressible Billy stepped into the breech, saying, “We just lug them off to the gospel shop, have the Autem bawler spout a few whiners over ’em, and—ta da!—they’re shut up right and tight in parson’s pound. Less, o’course, the old lady tumbles our lay,” he added reluctantly. “Then we’ll all be put to bed with a mattock and tucked up with a spade. That means”—he performed his own translation of this last; perhaps his anxiety was getting the best of him—“Mrs. A. will kill us if she catches even a sniff of what we’re about.”

Alix, with more bravado than conviction, assured Billy and the rest of them that Mrs. Anselm would never get wind of the elopement. After all, who would tell her? Helene certainly wouldn’t jeopardize her one chance at happiness, and Reginald would stay safely secreted at Saxon Hall until the very night of the elopement. Nothing, she assured them, could possibly go wrong.

“One slip and we’re for the bubblebath and it’ll be the briars for you,” Billy warned one last time, obviously quite concerned for their safety.

“I’d rather be in the bubblebath than the briars, Billy,” Alix confessed, smiling. “Besides, why must I be stuck with thorns while you all loll about in a pleasant tub?”

“Probably because Nick will know it was you who masterminded this little plan and go after you with blood in his eye,” Jeremy told her grimly. Then another thought hit him. “What about your grandfather? What does he say about it?”

Cuffy gave a theatrical sigh. “Ah, yes, Sir Middle Ages. What does he say, ma’am, or have you thought you could hide Reggie here in the dungeon with none the wiser? Your grandfather, I fear, pardon me ma’am, does have the disposition of a curst warthog—not that he’s not a famous sport sometimes too, when he’s in the mood to be amusing.”

Alix told them that she had finally apprised Sir Alexander of her plan, and as she had expected, the old man had been thrilled with the idea of putting a crimp in Matilda Anselm’s matrimonial plans.

Before the boys left—scant moments after Nutter came to announce luncheon—Reginald had been installed in a chamber upstairs and Alix was making plans for a mandatory trip to Linton Hall where she could inform Helene of her beloved’s presence in the neighborhood. She warned the boys not to say a word to the girl—as she wished to prepare her for what would doubtless be a bit of a shock.

“You really like Helene, Alix,” Jeremy said. “That’s awfully sporting of you, seeing as how she’s dashed in the way.”

“Don’t be silly, Jeremy,” Alix denied pleasantly. “I don’t care a button for such a dead bore of a girl. I’m merely clearing the field for a battle of my own.”

“You don’t like her at all?” Cuffy asked, clearly puzzled. “Then why go to all this trouble to help her?”

“Oh, I guess I do like her a bit, although she is, you must admit, a particularly spineless chit,” Alix expanded a bit. “Like m’grandfather, the idea of besting Mrs. Anselm has gone a long way toward making this a pleasant project. But as I also said, I have my own battles to fight. Above all things, I desire anyone not involved in my war out of the way before I take to the field.”

“Nicholas,” Jeremy nodded, sure he was correct in his assessment when Alix suddenly looked a bit flustered and unsure of herself. “Do us all a favor, Alix, will you,” he begged with an exaggerated shiver, “and warn us when this battle is to take place. I don’t know whether I wish to be a hundred miles from here or if I’d rather sell tickets to the spectacle. But I do know I will want to be a good distance away from the line of fire. You and m’brother battling—why, it makes Waterloo sound like a picnic in the park!”

The boys left then and Alix returned to her endless housecleaning. It wasn’t that she truly enjoyed working with a mop and a pail; it was just her love of order that kept her working—that, and a strong desire to keep herself too busy to think about things best left alone. But this afternoon she found even the chore of cleaning the chicken bones out from beneath Sir Alexander’s bed was not sufficient diversion.

Nicholas was on her mind—again. Her brave words to the boys about this eagerly awaited battle she had been contemplating for so long had fallen hollow on her ears. She had known for some time now—even if she had not before admitted it to herself—that she had no desire to see Nicholas stripped of his lands and fortune.

Now, she worried even more about Mannering’s stubborn
pride
. Taking aim at his lands and fortune was bad enough, but a direct hit in his pride—which was what proving the parchment legitimate would be—would also be the death knell to any relationship between the two of them.

And suddenly Alix wanted that relationship more than anything else in the world.

Alix’s quick scrutiny took in the people occupying the room, and she gave an almost audible sigh of relief when she saw that Nicholas was not one of their number. She had dreaded seeing him again, but the need to talk with Helene had overborne her sensibilities, and here she was—Sir Alexander bringing up a reluctant rear—once again a dinner guest at Linton Hall.

“Ah, you have arrived at last, Miss Saxon,” Mrs. Anselm observed unnecessarily, spying her out. “Come, come now, dear,” the lady went on cuttingly, “one must not stand about gawking when one is being entertained in a gentleman’s home. No, no! One must at least take on a semblance of knowing what one’s about—like greeting one’s hostess, for one thing. Come here, girl, and let me look at you.”

As Alix, choking down the urge to give the smirking Mrs. Anselm a poke in her hatchet nose, came closer, she limited herself to only a verbal-poke, saying sweetly, “
One
must first discover a hostess in residence, mustn’t
one
, Mrs. Anselm? As you too are a guest in this house, perhaps you would be so kind as to point her out? Although,” she added, seemingly as an afterthought, “I did not know that in England it is customary to greet a hostess whose only presence in the residence is in a likeness captured on canvas.” Alix’s eyes slid to the portrait of the late Countess of Linton hanging over the fireplace before once again settling on the flushed face of Mrs. Anselm.

“Helene!” Mrs. Anselm whined, touching a hand to her brow. “I feel quite faint. Fetch me my lavender drops at once.”

By now Sir Alexander was already in possession of his first drink of the evening—but not his first of the day, not by a long chalk. “Oh, stubble it, Matilda,” he said most unkindly. “You’re as strong as a brace of donkeys. Why don’t you just admit it—you’ve been bested by my granddaughter here. She has more than just the look of her grandmother, y’know; she’s got her same sure way around a set down. Best keep your tongue in check, old girl, ’cause even if you do fill out that settee you’re perched on, you aren’t up to m’granddaughter’s weight!”

While it was to be expected that such a statement should reduce Cuffy, Jeremy, and Billy to near insensibility—so manfully were they trying to suppress their giggles—it was with some surprise that Alix observed Rupert smiling broadly into his lace cuffs, obviously quite amused at his mama’s discomfiture. So that’s how the land lies, Alix thought, storing away the knowledge for possible future use.

Just then the host of the little party made his own entrance, and Alix, her back turned to him, stiffened noticeably as she heard his voice raised in apology for his tardiness.