A Difficult Disguise (4 page)

Yes, in retrospect, Smith had been a poor choice, but as Hedge (bless his drunken, uninquisitive nature) had never asked for a surname, the question—or the need to be prepared with an answer—had never arisen before the so handsome, so infuriating Fletcher Belden had asked.

“Higgenbottom,” Billy said aloud, belatedly struck with inspiration. “Higgenbottom would have been much better—or Perkins, or Clark, or even Fitchcomb. A hangdog look, a toe stubbed in the dirt, and a mumbled ‘Uh, sir, I dunno,’ would have been infinitely better. Anything but Smith!”

It was most depressing, as an active imagination had never failed Billy before Fletcher had driven pell-mell into the stable yard—and it was about time he had shown up!—to make imperious demands and ask a half-dozen stupid, unnecessary questions.

Yet luckily—or unluckily, depending on precisely whose luck was being considered in the matter—the maddening Fletcher Belden hadn’t stumbled onto a snippet of knowledge even more damning to the junior groom.

In point of fact, all carefully contrived outward appearances to the contrary, Billy Smith was guilty of a lie infinitely more damning than that of merely furnishing his employer with a patently false name. For, horror of horrors, the young groom was not a he at all. Billy Smith was a she!

The rough-woven breeches and long, loose-fitting tan smock she wore, combined with her slight, short figure, boyish haircut, and not entirely feigned rough-and-ready demeanor, had made easy work of fooling the frequently-in-his-cups Hedge into believing he had hired a stripling lad to do his dirty work for him around the stables—while he, Hedge, could then attend to more important duties, which had quite a bit to do with depleting as much of Fletcher Belden’s stock of carefully laid down brandy as possible before that good man’s return to Lakeview.

The young groom, whose true identity she had taken such great pains to hide, now knew that pulling the wool over Hedge’s bleary brown eyes and keeping the inquisitive Fletcher Belden unaware of her gender were tasks no more alike than chalk and cheese, and she would have to be awake on every suit from this moment on if she hoped to achieve her considered objective without being unmasked, chastised, and sent back home to the truly terrible fate she was doing her utmost to escape.

As she stood on a stool and ran a brush down the smooth flank of one of the splendid bays she had unhitched from the curricle, Billy closed her eyes and conjured up the sight of Fletcher Belden as he had tooled the magnificent equipage into the yard. His skill in handling the ribbons impressed her in spite of herself, although his first command to her had not been the sort to engender warm feelings of friendship. How dare he command her to come out in the rain? Wasn’t it enough that he was already wet?

Billy chuckled at her own arrogance and stupidity. Why shouldn’t he order her outside, for pity’s sake? She was his employee, wasn’t she? She ate his food, got to exercise his horses, slept on clean straw in his stable, and pocketed his money. Why shouldn’t he expect her to get wet for him?

“Of course, if he knew I was a lady, he wouldn’t have asked it of me,” she reasoned charitably, hopping down to move the stool to the other side of the horse and continue brushing the animal. “If I wish to keep my identity hidden, I shall have to swallow my stupid pride and take more care to act like a lad than a lassie. The next time Belden crooks his little finger in my direction, I shall run hotfoot to his aid, tugging at my forelock and gritting my teeth so that I don’t read him a lecture on proper behavior, even if I should feel as if I am going to have a spasm. And I shall have to begin cultivating cruder English as well, as I’m sure it was my prunes and prisms grammar that had him looking at me as if he could see straight through my disguise.”

That decision made, Billy turned her full attention to the horses, which she knew were prime bits of blood and bone deserving of only the best treatment, and made short work of settling them in their new stalls. Just as she was about to attend to the tack, which looked in sore need of an introduction to a polishing cloth, a high, whiny voice startled her into dropping one of the bridles.

“Lord luv a bloomin’ duck, boy. The master’s ’ome, ain’t ’e? Does yer wants us both turned off, yer brainless looby? Oi ain’t goin’ back ter Piccadilly ’cause yer ain’t gots the wits a bloomin’ ox wuz born with, Oi ain’t. It ain’t ’ealthy fer the likes o’me there. Why in bloody ’ell didn’ yer fetch me?”

Billy sniffed her disdain and consciously coarsened her speech. “Ha! Fetch you, is it? That’s easier said than done. You’re a slippery piece of goods, Hedge, when you want to be, and you want to be more often than like. It wasn’t worth my trouble. But Mr. Belden’s coach will be arriving soon, with two more horses just for you.”

Hedge was a bandy-legged, no-longer-young ex-jockey. He had been forced to seek an early retirement from a lackluster career on the track by a horde of unhappy bettors to whom he had promised a winner, only to end up a lowly fifth in a race everyone but his mount had known to be fixed. He now walked up to stand nose to nose with an unrepentant Billy. Sticking out his bewhiskered chin and narrowing his eyes, Hedge looked his assistant up and down, then spat exactly one inch away from Billy’s left boot—for, although Hedge had never been a very good jockey, he was a prime spitter. “An’ since when is yer the one givin’ the orders ’round ’ere, eh, boy?”

Billy turned her head, trying her best to get away from the smell of stale brandy that had slammed into her face with the force of a slap. “I wouldn’t think to give you orders, Hedge,” she told him, daring to back up a pace so that she could inhale without fear of becoming intoxicated on the fumes.

“Oi should ’ope not, yer filthy little beggar,” Hedge stated emphatically, groaning aloud after nodding his head a mite too vigorously, for he had the very devil of a headache.

“It’s only that Mr. Belden told me he’s bringing along two horses just for his own pleasure, and I thought you’d want to have charge of them. I’ll take the four coach horses. Unless you want them?”

Hedge stuck the tip of his tongue against the inside of his left cheek. “That makes eight ’orses,” the groom said at last, having struggled to do the arithmetic in his head—or, as Billy supposed, by using the tip of his tongue to total the numbers by counting against his teeth. “With the five we already got, we’re gonna be busier than a two-penny whore on ’oliday. ’Ow many is that exactly, anyways?”

“It’s thirteen, Hedge,” Billy supplied helpfully when it looked as if this further bit of addition was beyond him—probably because she already knew he had no more than ten teeth left in his whole head.

“Thirteen! Are yer sure, boy? Oi doesn’t loik that. Oi doesn’t like that at’al. Oi’d as soon ’ave a week long ragin’ rumpus in m’bowels than ’ave such a sorry number livin’ ’ere in the stable with us.”

Billy bit her bottom lip to keep from smiling. Oh, the wealth of colorful language she had learned from Hedge’s lips in her two months at Lakeview! It was a great deal more interesting than anything her endless procession of governesses had ever taught her, that was for certain.

So, Hedge was superstitious, was he? She’d have to remember that. “It’s seventeen, actually, if we count the gelding, the mares, and the pony for Miss Belleville’s dog cart,” she supplied helpfully as Hedge was looking more than a little nervous.

Hedge slapped his young helper on the back with enough enthusiasm to send Billy reeling against a corner of the stalls. “So it is! Yer a regular right ’un, Billy boy, fer pointin’ that out. Oi wuz a mite scared there, Oi has ter tell yer, but we’ll be all right an’ tight now. Seventeen—‘ow ‘bout that! Four more’n bad luck is good luck, right? Now look lively and gets yerself up ter the ’ouse ter ‘elp with the baggage. Oi thinks Oi ’ears the coach comin’.”

Billy, a firm believer in omens herself, as long as they were good omens, ran to do Hedge’s bidding, her heart light once more.

Fletcher walked out onto the wide, curved portico that bordered the gravel drive and looked down the short flight of steps to where his friend was laboriously climbing out of the coach, his stiff leg extended in front of him.

“Ah, Beck, I heard a coach and prayed it would be you. None the worse for the ruts we met up with some five miles back, I trust? I’ve been missing you terribly, you know. I’ve been home for an hour with no one but a cheeky groom and straitlaced Lethbridge to welcome me, as dear Aunt Belleville seems to be out and about somewhere.”

“She isn’t here, then?” Beck responded, secretly pleased that he had been in time to act as a cushion between aunt and nephew.

“Don’t look so delighted, my friend. Although it pains me most grievously to tell you, I fear she’s up to her old tricks, visiting the sick or some such thing, and I have been waiting with bated breath to hear your opinion on the matter. Do you think it’s fair, Beck, to allow her to do so? I mean, I would have thought being ill to be unlucky enough in itself, without having to be burdened with my aunt’s ministrations as well, wouldn’t you?”

Beck pushed away the coachman’s helping hand, as he did not like being reminded of his ungainly appearance when trying to do things a moderately intelligent monkey could accomplish with relative ease. “She nurses them, Fletch. You act as if she visits the ill only to help measure them for the undertaker,” he said once he was standing firm on the drive, brushing at his dark coat in order to rid himself of some of the road dust it had accumulated on the trip from the inn they had left that morning. “And, remember, Fletch, you promised to be good. Lethbridge might hear you, and I’d hate to see the old fellow go into a decline because you’ve been making jokes about the love of his life.”

Fletcher waited until his friend had mounted the steps before exaggeratedly bowing in Beck’s direction. “Forgive me, I beg you. I shan’t do it again, as I like Lethbridge as much as you do—as much, I daresay, as anyone can, given the man’s disposition. I’m nothing but the lowest of ramshackle creatures, without the faintest hint of how I should go on. Please, Beck, will you agree to become my mentor, pointing out the pitfalls of dealing with the love affair between my aunt and my butler without injuring either of their sensibilities? I should be ever so grateful for your assistance, truly I would.”

Beck stood back, sniffing. “Point out the pitfalls for you, is it? Why? Just so you can be sure you haven’t missed any of them?” He shook his head. “I don’t know. I think maybe you shouldn’t have left London, after all. It might have been better if you had remained there until all the frisk was out of you. You’ve been at Lakeview for less than an hour and already you are planning ways of driving its inhabitants to distraction.”

“All the way to distraction, dearest Beck? I hadn’t thought I should like them to go that far. But if you say so...” Fletcher shrugged, taking Beck’s arm. “You’re right, of course, but then, you’re always right, aren’t you? Tell me, does it ever depress you—being right, that is? It depresses me terribly, you know. I had already promised myself I would be good, but my first sight of the yellow saloon drove all my good intentions out of my head.”

“What’s wrong with the yellow saloon?” Beck asked worriedly as the two men entered the house. “It was fine when I left it three months ago to make things ready for you in town.”

Fletcher smiled, a single, slashing dimple showing in his right cheek. “That’s because it was yellow when you saw it three months ago, I should imagine.”

“What?” Beck stopped dead, to gape at his employer.

“Yes, you may stare. Lord knows I did. But to continue. It was a perfectly lovely yellow: soft, creamy, and extremely soothing to the soul. But, alas, it is purple now. I don’t like purple, Beck, not above half. Not only that, but I like elephant-foot tables even less than I like purple walls. Yes, if a person were ever to have come up to me—taking a survey of likes and dislikes or some such thing—I should have most certainly told that person that above all things I dislike purple walls and elephant-foot tables. Unfortunately, I have arrived home, to the beloved place of my birth, the comfortable, unchanging haven I dreamed about all those years I was away, to find that I am the possessor of both a purple saloon and elephant-foot tables—three elephant-foot tables to be precise about the business. I have to tell you, Beck, it’s damned depressing.”

Beck, whose mouth had fallen open at Fletcher’s first words, brushed past his employer, his straight left leg swinging out widely as he raced clumsily through the foyer to stand at the entranceway to the yellow saloon. His eyes nearly popped out of his head as he surveyed the scene before him. “My God,” he said on a groan, his voice hushed with awe. “She said... But I never thought... I never imagined. She did it. The daft woman actually did it.”

Now, this was interesting, or at least Fletcher thought so. “You must tell me more, my friend.” Fletcher slid his arm around Beck’s shoulders so that the two of them could stand and gaze in wonder at the changes Aunt Belleville had wrought. “I did hear you correctly, didn’t I? You did know Aunt Belleville was considering just such a redecoration?”

Beck nodded, swallowing hard. “She did talk about it once or twice. Only in passing, you understand. She had seen just such an arrangement somewhere and thought it the height of fashion.”