Virtue's Reward (14 page)

“To be honest, at this moment I am vastly more interested in the elephant,” she said.

It was not necessary in the end to elbow their way to the menagerie, for the country people courteously made way for the gentry. Yet the density of the crowd made it inevitable that they should be jostled.

“Anyone who deliberately bumps us is a pickpocket,” Richard said in an aside to Helena. “Hold on to your reticule with both hands.”

The Magnificent Menagerie turned out to consist of one mangy lion, which lay slumped in a horse-drawn cage, and a trio of monkeys that leaped and rattled at their bars in the next cart. They screeched at the crowd.

“He may be Trained to Jump through Hoops,” Harry said, putting their coins in the cup. “But it’s the monkeys doing all the jumping. Ah, Behemoth at last!”

They were face to face with the elephant.

Helena gazed with awe at the huge monster. Its very skin seemed to be as ancient as the hills. She couldn’t take her eyes from the great sail-like ears and the tiny, wise eyes that stared back into hers.

The elephant lifted its trunk and carefully picked up a single wisp of hay, which it carried into its delicate pointed mouth.

“It’s wonderful,” she breathed.

A tiny brown-faced man in a turban stepped bowing before them. “The lady would wish to survey the world like an Indian princess?”

Before she could reply, Richard said something in the oddest language Helena had ever heard. His face wreathed in smiles, the elephant keeper replied in the same tongue.

“Good God,” Harry said with a grin. “Are we witnessing secret messages, or about to be carried off into sacred Hindu rites?”

“Neither,” Richard said. “We merely exchange courtesies—and at four, Behemoth gives rides for half a guinea. Are you game?”

“You could never keep me from it,” Harry said instantly. “Lady Lenwood, may we prevail upon you to ride with us upon this mighty beast?”

“I am not even much of a horsewoman, sir.” Helena laughed. “Does the elephant have a saddle?”

“She will have a little basket attached to her back. You will be quite safe,” Richard said.

“Then I won’t quail either. At four I also intend to ride the elephant.”

Richard lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her fingers. “Until then, we have the rest of the fair.”

At one end of the field there had earlier been a hiring fair, where dairymaids and shepherds, laborers and housemaids, had put themselves out for hire for another year, each wearing the badge or carrying the tools of their trade. Those who had been hired were now disporting themselves and spending the shilling they had received as a token from their new masters.

The young men were also taking part in uproarious games: leaping; running; climbing a greased pole; a blindfolded wheelbarrow race in which the participants seemed to be in serious danger of fatal injury. The prizes might be a shift or a pair of breeches, but the fame and glory attached to winning and impressing the girls provided equal motivation.

To her amazement, Helena found that many of the gentry were laying wagers on the outcome of the competitions, and a few sprigs of the aristocracy had even laid by their jackets to take part.

They left the games and wandered down between the stalls. Soon Helena found herself buying things, after all. Amid the tawdry and the glitter were also examples of the highest craftsmanship and good taste, and then they came across the exotic imports at the apothecary’s stand.

“Oh, look!” Helena said, pulling out her purse. “Galls of Aleppo.”

“And what, in heaven’s name, is that?” Harry queried.

“A growth in the bark of the Mediterranean gall oak,” Richard said. “A short, thickset cousin of our English oak.”

“But the best blue ones come from Aleppo,” Helena said. “I used to get them from a traveling peddler in Cornwall. Nothing makes better black ink. One and a half pounds to six quarts of rainwater with eight ounces of green copperas, eight ounces of gum arabic and two ounces of roche alum. The addition of a little salt and brandy will prevent the ink from either molding or freezing. To think I wasted time making ink with lampblack!”

Harry looked completely astonished. “But what do the galls do?” he asked.

“Make a superior black dye,” Richard said with a laugh. “Come, wife, how many pounds do we need?”

He was soon laden with Helena’s packages, and they went back to their carriage for lunch. Mrs. Hood had packed a picnic, amply supplemented with fresh gingerbread and a hot mutton pie purchased by Harry. It was the merriest possible meal. Helena could hardly believe that she had ever been concerned either for Richard or about his brother.

Perhaps both of the frightening incidents had just been accidents, after all? A stray shot from a poacher. A malicious trick from a child with a dart, who didn’t understand how dangerous the consequences might be. Murder and mayhem seemed very far away from this bright English field.

“We haven’t seen the Learned Pig yet,” Harry said at last.

“Nor have we demonstrated our prowess in the shooting gallery. Come along!” Richard replied, getting up. “Helena will think the Actons are a sorry pair.”

The Learned Pig turned out to be a perfectly ordinary little sow who followed her trainer like a dog—until she was presented with problems of arithmetic, and with stamps of her little hooves was able to rap out the correct answers. The crowd roared with appreciation.

“I declare,” someone said behind them, “it’s a miracle!”

“Surely,” Helena whispered to Richard, “the pig can’t really count?”

“Watch the trainer instead of the animal.”

As the next problem was posed to the pig, Helena kept her eye on the man. Sure enough, she could see that he was making small nods of his head as the pig counted.

She laughed. “It’s still very clever,” she said.

“No doubt,” Richard said with a wink, and they moved on.

The shooting gallery was not set up like Manton’s in London, where gentlemen could practice their aim and try out fine weapons before purchase. Instead, with a backdrop of a hayrick and the target a row of coconuts, a prize of a bunch of blue ribbons and a guinea was being offered to anyone who could shoot six nuts in a row without missing.

Several gentlemen had already tried and a few had succeeded, but it was a long shot with an unfamiliar pistol. The guinea received as a prize was dwarfed by the amounts being laid amid much jocularity in wagers.

“I wager you six g—” Harry began.

“No, you don’t,” Richard interrupted. “I know better. Win the ribbons and be content. You shan’t get the contents of my purse as well.”

With a laugh, Harry paid his fee and took up the pistol. Helena didn’t really doubt the outcome. Her brother-in-law gave her a wink, then carelessly raised the weapon. The six coconuts fell in a row, spilling their milk one after another. The stall keeper grimaced and replaced them.

“Your turn,” Harry said, pocketing the guinea and with a bow presenting the blue ribbons to Helena.

Richard picked up the pistol and took careful aim. Helena held her breath. She very much wanted him to do as well as his brother. Then she castigated herself for such an unworthy thought. What did it matter?

Yet, to her delight, the first four coconuts joined their fellows in the grass. Alas, the fifth shot went over the target and thudded into the hay. Harry had gaily jolted his brother’s arm from behind.

“I should reserve this last bullet for your skull,” Richard said, but he was laughing.

Harry bowed, a picture of contrition, and Richard fired again. But his concentration was broken and the sixth shot grazed by the target.

“You have failed, sir,” Harry said. “Had you taken my wager, I should never have been able to interfere in honor with your aim, but now Helena will never know if you can shoot better than a poacher.”

“I can shoot well enough, brother,” Richard said. “But I shall never be as good as you. Besides, poachers are quite often good shots.”

Helena said nothing. If it was a poacher who had wounded Richard, thank God he wasn’t better.

“And now it’s time for the elephant.”

They left the young bloods still laying bets on the death of the coconuts, and walked back to the menagerie. The elephant had been saddled with a bright red-and-gold contraption. Freed from her chain, she was being led out of the crowd to a rickety-looking platform with steps, where anyone brave enough to mount her could climb to their perch.

A thick stand of trees bordered the back of the open space where she could ponderously parade up and down with her expected burden of squealing maids and shouting men.

As they came through the crowd, the man in the turban saw Richard and waved to him before calling out something in the language they had used before.

“I am summoned,” Richard said, “by our Indian friend. He wants my opinion of his magnificent harness. I shan’t be a moment.”

With that, he bowed and left Helena with Harry as he slipped through the rope that kept back the spectators and walked up to the elephant.

“Good God,” Harry said. “Stay here!”

Leaving Helena alone, he ran for the trees.

The elephant suddenly threw up its trunk and bellowed, the little eyes no longer kindly and wise. Tearing away from the grasp of its handler, it lumbered into a canter and began to bear down on Richard, defenseless in the open.

The mahout called out and took up a hooked iron staff. Vainly he tried to grab at his pet as it thundered away. Now he was running after the lumbering feet and shouting.

Helena, against her nature and her training, screamed.

Yet surely Richard could duck out of the way?

The maddened elephant, trunk in the air and ears wide, seemed to be oblivious of the lean figure of the man who stood in her path.

The crowd began to panic. The mass of people surged back from the rope.

If Richard didn’t move immediately, he would be trampled and the elephant would plunge into the spectators.

Using all her strength, Helena hung on to the rope and watched, her heart thundering.

Richard changed his grip on his cane. As the elephant was almost upon him, he leaped. Not away from the creature’s feet, but as it seemed to Helena, right under them.

In the next instant he caught a trailing rope on the animal’s harness and swung himself up behind its great ears, until he was straddling the humped gray neck. Using both cane and booted heel, he began to flail at the elephant’s hide and speak sternly to it in the language he’d used earlier.

The elephant turned aside from the crowd and stopped. The mahout rushed up and caught Richard as he slipped down from his perch, and, with tears running down his brown face, kissed him repeatedly.

Then he ran his hands over his pet’s hide. He showed something to Richard.

“Some boy plays tricks, sir. It is not my little lady’s fault. She is as gentle as a palfrey.”

Helena slipped under the rope to join them.

Richard turned to her. “Helena, are you all right?”

She nodded, unable to speak.

He glanced around. “But where’s Harry?”

“For heaven’s sake!” Helena cried, her heart in her mouth. “Is that another of those darts?”

“Unfortunately so. Where’s Harry?”

“In the trees,” Helena said, pointing.

She had to run to keep up as Richard made straight for the place she had indicated.

Harry was kneeling under a spreading beech with a handful of darts in his hand. He looked up at his brother.

“Damnation!” he said. “Survived again, my lord?

They rode back to Acton Mead in silence. Obviously Richard would not discuss in front of the tigers what had happened. Harry seemed to be deep in a reverie of his own.

Helena felt lost in confusion and fear. Her days were overwhelmed with longing. Her blood sang with the knowledge that she loved her stranger husband, that she craved his touch, that his every lithe movement fired her with desire. Yet she also knew that he didn’t really care, that she wasn’t all that important to him.

She glanced up at him, golden and apparently carefree in the sun, and felt her heart contract.

Who had lain hidden in the trees to attack him again? Did Harry have an accomplice or was he innocent of wishing his brother harm? She could think of no one else who could possibly want Richard dead. None of it made sense. But she could no longer pretend to herself that these events were accidents. Someone was trying to harm her husband and didn’t care who got in the way.

The welcoming façade of Acton Mead at last put a stop to her whirling thoughts. Mrs. Hood appeared smiling on the steps. They stepped down from the carriage and Helena went up to her room to change her dress for dinner, leaving the men alone together in the study.

* * *

“We should be grateful,” Harry said as he flung himself into a chair and took a brandy from his brother, “that you know so much about elephants. Though I have to admit I had no idea I would ever get to witness your training as a mahout. It was really rather splendid.”

Richard stood frowning down into the fireplace.

“I thought the attack on Bayard unconscionable—but this!” He turned and fixed his careless brother with his black eyes. “For God’s sake! If I had failed, the elephant might have plowed into the crowd. There were women and children at risk.”

“And Lady Lenwood.”

“Why didn’t you stay with her as I asked?”

Harry sat up and met his brother’s gaze. “I saw someone moving in the trees. After what happened yesterday, I ran to investigate. Unfortunately, I was too late. The man had gone.”

“Scared off by your crashing through the underbrush, no doubt. Damn it all, Harry, your place was with my wife!”

“I think you might for once express some gratitude, sir, and even given thought to your own wretched skin. Had I not disturbed the fellow he might have fired another dart, then not even you could have tamed the indignant Behemoth. I’m damned if I wanted to watch your being trampled.”

“I was in absolutely no peril, as you should have known. Yet you left my wife alone and in danger in the rabble. Will you do as you’re asked next time, sir?”