A Difficult Disguise (11 page)

They would return to Lakeview in the morning. Fletcher had told her that as he had tied a bundle of food on his saddle and directed her to follow him out of the village of Ambleside in preparation of their ascent of the Old Man, one of his favorite climbs.

All that remained to be gotten through was the night, a night Fletcher planned to spend beneath the stars. He had been different today than he had been on their first day out. Not that he hadn’t been nice to her, for he had been, but Billy sensed a strain between them that Fletcher had made no move to breach. And he was acting so manly! Unrolling her blanket to begin making herself a bed as far from Fletcher as she could without encouraging his wrath, Billy paused, sitting back on her haunches, and nodded a single time. Yes, that was it. Fletcher was dying to act manly, and her female heart had been in constant danger of being destroyed by his recitation of disgustingly manly exploits.

He had been talking about his adventures in town, times he had been out on the strut with his cronies. He had made a point—or so it seemed now—of telling her how many rounds he had gone with Gentleman Jackson. He had all but bragged about the Covent Garden warbler he’d had in keeping before leaving for the Peninsula “to fight Boney as any real man would,” to quote him exactly.

As a matter of fact, Billy thought now, if Fletcher were to challenge her to a bout of arm-wrestling, just to show her how very manly he was, she wouldn’t even blink. She sat front once more, tugging a corner of the blanket until she was happy with the way it lay, then sighed. Men. Who could understand them?

“Comfortable?” Fletcher asked, coming up behind her, having just finished tending to their mounts. “I thought I’d rough it a bit more myself, maybe just stretch out on the ground, with some of this dry grass to cover me. We had it a lot rougher than this on the Peninsula, you know.”

“I know,” Billy answered sharply, for she had just about had enough of his silliness. “Does this mean you’ll be forgoing the meat pies you got for us in Ambleside so that you can find your dinner in the wilds? I hear some people think tree bark is quite palatable, although I don’t know if you have to cook it in salted water first to remove the bugs.”

Fletcher squatted, attacking his blanket roll so that it fairly exploded open in front of him, his linen and personal items spread out for all to see. Cursing, he gathered up his things, tucking them behind him, and stretched out on the blanket before answering. “No, brat, I don’t think tree bark shall ever become part of my diet, although I could work up an appetite for rabbit, if I had thought to bring my gun. As it is, we shall have to make do the best we can with the pies from the inn. Do you hunt?”

The question, which Fletcher had seemed to add as an afterthought, took Billy by surprise. “No,” she answered, shaking her head. “I never learned how. Do you?” she added fatalistically, knowing he was leading her into another “manly” discussion but feeling so strangely sorry for him that she did it anyway.

Fletcher idly began picking wildflowers, then abruptly stopped, as if suddenly realizing what he was about, and tossed the flowers into the bushes. “I am not a dedicated hunter, if that’s what you mean,” he answered. “Not since Beck and I were children. There’s just so much civilization and rules involved in hunting among grown-ups, you understand.”

“Civilization?” Billy questioned, not understanding but sensing that Fletcher was talking only to fill the silence—a silence she too wished to avoid. “What sort of rules?”

Fletcher rolled onto his back, his hands clasped behind his head as he looked up into the still-light sky. “When Beck and I were young, hunting was a game. We took only what we needed—small game, you understand—and ate what we shot.” He turned his head to look at Billy. “Did you ever hear of anyone eating a fox?”

Billy smiled, shaking her head, and reached into the basket to unearth the meat pies. “But I have heard of foxes eating chickens, and sheep, and all sorts of farm animals. Surely you aren’t against fox-hunting? They’re vermin and the bane of every landowner.”

Fletcher accepted one of the meat pies.
^“
Thank you. No, Billy, I don’t object to shooting foxes. It is the civilized method that perturbs me. And I don’t just mean the obvious rules, such as not shooting one’s host, one’s host’s hounds, any other dogs, or lastly, keepers and beaters, the keepers and beaters being not quite so important to the exercise but still not to be considered a fair trophy.”

“Not to mention being terribly hard to carry home in a sack or mount on the wall of the study,” Billy put in, relaxing for the first time that day.

“Exactly, for that is the way all dedicated fox-hunters think. Just consider the logistics of the thing, Billy. Thirty men on horseback—thirty men who are almost always the worse for drink, hurtling their mounts pell-mell over the countryside behind a slobbering passel of baying, fox-crazy hounds—and all to capture and rend limb from limb one tiny red animal. I just can’t call that sporting—not unless we can find some way to arm the foxes.”

Billy closed her eyes and had a sudden vision of a small army of foxes, their hind legs easily fitting astride immense hunters, blunderbusses tucked in their front paws as their pointed ears and long noses twitched and their black eyes twinkled, on the alert for their two-legged quarry. This was followed by a second vision of that quarry: a red-coated covey of large-bellied, tipsy fox-hunters, scampering across the fields on all fours, their tongues hanging from their mouths as they huffed and puffed in fear, a pack of hounds nipping at their heels.

Surely she should share this vision with Fletcher. Laughing, she reached across the blanket to lay a hand on his arm, to gain his attention.

Fletcher pulled his arm away as if stung, got to his feet, and turned his back to her. “I think I’m going to take a walk before I eat,” he said, already moving away from her.

“But the meat pie is not going to last forever and should be eaten soon,” Billy pointed out, looking up at his departing back in confusion. Fletcher’s mood, which had been running hot and cold all day, had gone suddenly cold again as she had reached out to touch him. There could be only one reason.

It was her. Something had happened last night at the inn that had made him dislike her, she decided as Fletcher disappeared down the path, leaving her behind with nothing but the birds and the falling water to keep her company.

“I guess he liked Beatrice more than I thought he did,” she mumbled to herself, looking down at the meat pie, her appetite gone. “And it’s such a pity, for I am beginning to believe I could like Fletcher Belden very much.”

Chapter 5

T
he fire Fletcher had built still burned steadily as he and Billy sat across from each other, lost in thought. The silence, broken only by the cheerful babbling of the brook, might have been comfortable if it weren’t for those thoughts: Billy nervously remembering her reaction to Fletcher’s touch, and a shaken Fletcher doing his best to banish his treacherous feelings from his tortured brain.

“Mr. Belden?”

“What?”

She hesitated, wondering what to say now that she had opened her mouth, her eagerness to break the silence outstripping her preparation for what would come next.

“Well, what?” Fletcher’s voice sounded strained, his tone curt, and he sighed and added more gently, “You’re feeling bored, I suppose. I understand. It isn’t every man who appreciates a good silence.”

Instantly, as had become usual since meeting this man, Billy felt her hackles rise. How could Fletcher Belden be so boorish as to tell her how she felt? He didn’t know how she felt; he couldn’t know. And how did she feel? Billy thought about that for a moment, then hung her head.

She felt stupid—that’s how she felt. Stupid and childish, dressed up like some youthful urchin, itching in places she didn’t know she had, and willing to give up her only hope of heaven for an hour-long soak in a hot tub. Lord, but she had grown heartily sick of breeches.

She also felt guilty. Guilty for deliberately deceiving Fletcher as to her true identity, and guilty because she wasn’t such a simpleton that she hadn’t, in the past few uncomfortable hours, figured out that Fletcher believed himself attracted to her and was most probably, even at this moment, damning himself as perverse. For all her slight build, which allowed her to pass for a young lad, she had, after all, passed her eighteenth birthday and could lay claim to some wits. No wonder Beatrice had fled into the arms of the portly James Smith!

Well, it was time and enough to set things right. She had set out to get to know Fletcher, not drive him to distraction. Billy sat up, crossing her legs, determined to make a clean breast of things and have done with this farce. She’d feel much better once the truth emerged into the open. Besides, maybe then they could return to Lakeview, where there was bound to be a tub.

“Mr. Belden, I—I—” she began hastily, then faltered.

“Yes?” Fletcher lifted his head, the dimple in his right cheek flashing as he smiled. “What’s the matter? And please don’t tell me you were wondering how to ask me if you might disappear into the trees again to relieve yourself. I never saw such modesty. You may as well be a woman, Billy, for all your missish ways.”

Billy’s jaw dropped in astonishment, all thought of confession evaporating in her brain at the wretched mistiming of Fletcher’s verbal jab. How could the odious man say such embarrassing things, talking down to her as if she were some knock-in-the-cradle baby? How could she possibly say anything after that lowering remark?

“No,” she blurted at last, glad it had grown dark enough to hide her red cheeks. “That wasn’t at all what I had intended to ask,” she added, shaking her head. “I just thought we could talk, that’s all.”

“Talk,” Fletcher repeated, astonished once more by Billy’s modesty. He couldn’t wait to return to Lakeview and be shed of the boy—and his traitorous thoughts. But maybe Billy had the right idea. Talking would help pass the hours, for one thing, and give Fletcher less time to consider his feelings. “Very well. What would you like to talk about?”

Billy began slowly shaking his head, as if the action would jolt loose some inspiration. “Um... um... I don’t know. London? Yes, that’s good—we could talk about London. I’ve never been, you know.”

“You haven’t?” Fletcher asked blandly. “I would never have known, what with all the air of sophistication and town bronze you have about you.” He withdrew a thin cheroot from his pocket and leaned forward to light it in the flames, not knowing how close he was to disaster, as Billy was once more harboring an urge to murder him. “And what would you like to know about London?”

Wasn’t it enough that she had given him a general topic? Did she now need to be specific? Had the man no imagination of his own? London. It was a simple subject—a worldly man such as he should be able to prose on about it for hours with no prodding from her. Did she have to think of everything?

“I don’t know,” she said. “Beau Brummell,” she all but shouted, suddenly inspired. “Yes, I should like to hear all about Beau Brummell.”

Fletcher flopped over onto his back, smiling at Billy’s innocent curiosity. Poor Beau. He had been doomed to evermore be the center of attention, even of small boys from the Lake District. After thinking silently for a few moments more, Fletcher quoted, “ ‘Oh ye! who so lately were blythesome and gay, at the butterfly’s banquet carousing away; your feats and your revels of pleasure are fled, for the soul of the banquet, the butterfly’s dead!’ ”

“What?” Billy looked toward the bottle of wine Fletcher had been sipping from all evening, wondering if the man had grown bosky. “What on earth is that?”

“That, my little friend,” Fletcher responded, turning onto his side and raising up his head on one propping hand, “is ‘The Butterfly’s Funeral.’ Beau wrote it about a dozen years ago, when he wallowed in some muse-ridden frame of mind, I suppose. There may be more verses, I cannot quite remember now, but that much has always stayed with me. I have wondered many times if he had some premonition about his falling out with Swellfoot and wrote the poem in order to be ready for it. Of course, just whom he intended cast in the role of Butterfly remains his secret.”

Billy found herself interested in spite of herself. “Why doesn’t the Prince Regent like Mr. Brummell anymore? They were the greatest of good friends for a long time, weren’t they?”

Fletcher puffed on the cheroot, remembering all the tales he had heard about Beau and Prinny. He chuckled aloud. “Almost twenty years, if I’m right, dating all the way back to Beau’s time in the Tenth Light Dragoons.” He shook his head. “I doubt the dragoons ever recovered from the insult.”

“Insult? I don’t understand. What did Mr. Brummell do?”

Fletcher held the cheroot in front of him, gazing into the red tip. “No more than he had to, actually,” he said, chuckling once more. “As a matter of fact, poor Beau got himself so caught up with the social whirl of London and Brighton that he had difficulty finding his place for the parade, having been unable to commit his troop number to memory. Luckily, the man Beau stood directly in front of for parade was the possessor of a lovely—and quite enormous—blue nose, making it a simple thing for Beau to locate his place in line. Then misfortune struck and the game was up.”