Elisabeth Fairchild (2 page)

Shy flower, she urged the pony further out of the road with a cluck of the tongue and a tug on the halter.

Alexander was used to the look of fear in the eyes of the young women of France, of Belgium. But his own countrywoman? What had she to fear in him? Did the weather worn uniform intimidate her, or his road wearied condition? Or was it merely that he was a stranger to her, in a place where strangers were few? He slowed his mount to a walk.

“Are you . . .?” His voice came out gruff with disuse--the first time he had volunteered speech in two days--the first time he had addressed a decent young Englishwoman since his return from Paris. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Beg pardon, miss, are you in need of assistance? Has the pony gone lame?”

The back of her bonnet shook a vigorous no. On she plodded, shoulders hunched, as if to make herself smaller in his eyes.

Was it his appearance frightened her? Had he shaved this morning? He stroked his chin, relieved to discover it smooth. He had neglected such niceties, of late--since their return. Val had rousted them early every morning, pushed them to the limits of exhaustion every evening. “C’mon lads,” he would remind them, even when he staggered drunkenly to the saddle and they both feared he must fall from the horse. “Must make it home in time for m’birthday. Sleep all you like once we’re there.”

And here they were, on Valentine’s Day, the distance almost covered.

Val’s voice made muffled shout from behind him. “Who’ve you found, Cupid? Piercing local hearts already, are you?”

The young woman turned, eyes wide, sparkling with an intensity of emotion.

“Val!” she murmured, the name thick in her throat. And then, face shuttered by the brim of the bonnet, she turned her back on them, cloak whirling. With a chirrup to the pony, she walked on.

Val and Oscar rode abreast, Val taking a quick pull from the hip flask he always carried.

“Offended her, have you?” he jested, eyes bright with the spirits, attention fixed on the girl, recognition there, and was it contempt?

Alexander opened his mouth on objection, but Val winked and said, “Never mind. Touch-me-not is easily offended.”

“Touch me what?”

Val did not wait to explain. He rode after the girl-- always did. With no more luck than Alexander this time. She would not turn her face to him, though he leaned down in the saddle to speak. The brisk shake of her head was unmistakable. In fact, every line of her body spoke of rejection.

Touch me not, Alexander thought.

Beside him, Oscar said quietly, “Looks as if our lad has lost his touch.”

Alexander nodded as he watched his pansy faced pretty strike off again with a resolution that inspired admiration. A bloom both sturdy and delicate, brave and frightened. In her steadfast refusals, in the straight-backed sway of the cloak at her heels, he found a pleasing level of independence and self-sufficiency.

“Come lads!” Val beckoned, and turning his horse rode past the young woman with a flick of his quirt and a show of his horse’s heels.

They trotted after him, tipping hats to the young woman. She did not so much as acknowledge them with a no When Alexander turned head in hopes of one last look into her eyes, she wore an expression of proud reserve, her gaze distant, even unfriendly

Well out of earshot of the woman, Val announced, “And so you meet the flower of Appleby who is both the most and least hospitable of all the blossoms hereabouts. Miss Touch-me-not herself.”

“Why insult her?” Alexander asked.

“Insult her?” Val laughed harshly. “Nonsense. She has been just such an oddity since she was a girl: remote, unapproachable, socially inept. She generally has more use for animals than people. Tames wild ponies, straight off the fells, and as wild as her horseflesh in her own way. She is constantly shadowed by a man-eating dog. I wonder where he is today.”

“How unlike you, Val, to speak ill of a female,” Alexander persisted.

Val reached for his hip flask, wrenched off the cap, and met his gaze with the same intensity with which he had met the French. “Is it?” he asked.

The strength of his words surprised Alexander. For an instant his comrade in arms seemed a stranger as he threw back his handsome head and downed another mouthful.

“Has our Val been spurned by the girl or bitten by the man-eater?” Oscar dared ask, one brow raised, gray eyes inquisitive.

“Ha! They are one and the same,” Val snapped, screwing the lid back onto the flask, the tension of the moment broken, the cheeky grin he gave them all too familiar. He spurred his mount into startled motion.

“Should have held tongue,” Oscar chastised himself, tweaking at his mustache, as he always did when he was nervous. He had tweaked it almost into oblivion in the greatest furor of fighting. “Lad’s in one of his moods,” he said. “This homecoming, perhaps.”

“And you? Alexander asked. “Have you no homecoming to look forward to?”

Oscar smoothed thinning hair away from an intelligent brow, and frowned. “I find myself strangely reluctant.” The frown melted into a lopsided grin beneath the sketchy mustache. “Strange, isn’t it?”

Alexander thought of his own postponed homecoming as he gigged the gray into motion. “Not in the least.”

Nerves on edge, spine stiff, her breath rasping too loud in her own ears, clouding the air before her, she watched them ride into the mists that led to Appleby, three young men in the dark green and black velvet uniform of the 95th, the turned back blacks of their coat tails bobbing in rhythm with their horse’s gait, black tassels swaying, cockaded shakos a bit bedraggled in the mist.

Nut brown of complexion, fine of figure, backs straight and tall, legs lean and muscular, the war had shaped them, hardened them. They wore a hungry keenness in their eyes. A dangerous keenness.

Brisk, brash, beloved Valentine Wharton had come home. Alive! His mother would be pleased, as would be the mothers of suitable unmarried daughters throughout the county. She wondered if they would notice, or even care, that something had changed in his eyes--some former lighthearted, self-confident brightness subdued.

He had smelled of strong spirits, just like the last time she had seen him. “Lady Anne, Lady Anne,” she whispered. “Give me strength.”

She closed her eyes, remembering that day.

He had spoken kindly, as kindly as in meeting her today. She had almost forgotten that quality in his voice. Deceitful sound. How it made her heart betray her better sense. How could it race after the way he had left her?

As for his companions. The quiet, slendellow looked like a ferret. Wily creature.

The other. Cupid. She guessed him a rogue. Why else call a man Cupid? And he the first man she had seen today, Valentine’s Day, which meant, if one believed the old superstition, that they must marry. She could not restrain a sharp, short laugh.

Small chance of that.

Cupid. Unlike any Rococo cupid she had ever seen depicted. Nothing cherubic about him. Tall, lean, broad shouldered. Muscled thighs gripped the saddle, muscled hands the reins. Low voiced, this Cupid, with a peculiarly rigid jaw, as if he refrained too often from speaking his mind.

No cupid curls. He had dark hair--cropped short-- straight as broom bristle, and keen eyes, bright as glass, green like the cockade that topped his shako.

No mischief in those eyes as he had offered assistance. She had expected mischief from a friend of Val’s. But there had been only curiosity there, concern, surprise, and something darker, guardedly wistful--not at all what she thought of in connection with Valentine, or a Cupid.

What struck her most about him was the largeness of him--not size, though both he and the gray were big--no, it was more a sense of how he filled the space around him. He seemed somehow to overflow the boundaries of his muscular form, to change the very air.

Not she. She was the mist that swirled and eddied in his wake.

Foolish thought. She trudged on, cheeks and fingertips cold, the core of her body heated by her exertions, by her encounter.

“Lady Anne, Lady Anne,” she said aloud. The pony’s ears swiveled. “Why should I be the first to see Valentine! Riding into Appleby on Valentine’s Day, of all days! And with him, a Cupid.” She laughed, the rich sound of her own amusement too loud in the stillness. The pony lifted his head with a snort.

She stroked the velvet softness of his nose with gloved hand, and pressed her cheek to his strongly boned cheek. “Ah, Archer, lad, Lady Anne gives me  no answer.”

Archer’s clipped ears swiveled, listening. The depths of his brown eyes seemed to understand her every word.

Ahead, the thinning fog swallowed the uniformed men, leaving her alone with the wet clop of hooves, the sound of her own breath, and the wet drip of the trees.

She had learned to enjoy the stillness, felt safer there, none but Archer to keep her silent company, the two of them wrapped in the receding walls of fog. A familiar state of being.

Familiar too, the faint regret, the inner doubt. It matched what she had seen in Cupid’s eyes. Perhaps she should have said yes, allowed him to help her. Who better suited, after all, on Valentine’s Day?

Chapter Two

They trotted across a small, mist draped sandstone bridge, the River Eden chuckling beneath, winter stripped trees standing attention along its banks. Up a gently rising street they pushed their tired mounts, Val pointing out the looming castle keep.

“Caesar’s Tower. Norman Conquest,” he said.

They clopped past a tall pillar, street lamp at the base, weather vane at the top, marking the main cross street. It bore the motto,
“Retain your loyalty, preserve your rights.”

“Lady Anne,” he explained, and when they stared at him blankly. “Countess of Dorset, Pembroke and Montgomery. Srely you’ve heard of her?”

His fair brows rose when they shook their heads.

“Opposed Cromwell. Had a hand in rebuilding almost every church, and castle in the district. These almshouses are her doing.” He waved at the red stone buildings they approached. “She’s quite the thing around here.”

Alexander cared nothing of this Lady Anne. His thoughts still centered on the young woman, the sweet shape of her face, the unusual color of her eyes. Why did Val bristle so in her company? Why declare her a touch-me-not? Unless, of course, he had been rebuffed in the touching of her.

Ahead of them a black and white building intruded upon the avenue. Moot Hall, beyond it another pillar to match the one they had already seen, backed by a Norman church with crenelated tower, skirted by an attractive, arched stone screen.

Before the arches people milled.

“Here’s some fun at the butter market. “ Val gigged his mount into the midst of the crowd, calling back over his shoulder. “Come along.”

“Wharton!” someone cried.

Heads turned. Smiles bloomed.

“Val!”

“It’s our Valentine! Come home!”

“Happy birthday Val!”

A good quarter of an hour, by the church tower’s black faced-clock, was passed in vigorous hand shaking and back slapping while Alexander and Oscar sat their horses, watching. Alexander thought again of the young woman. He could not stop thinking of her.

“Your name must go into the hat, and a shilling for the widows and orphans, Master Wharton,” a gentleman who could be none other than the vicar waved a worn top hat, in which slips of paper fluttered.

Val nodded, grinning broadly. Whiskey sometimes made him playful in the mornings.

Oscar noticed. “A fine sight to see him smile again,” he said.

“Indeed. Up to mischief from the looks of it.”

Two more shillings clinked into the hat. The vicar looked in their direction, calling out, “Two more names, ladies. And a good thing, too. We are short on gentlemen this year, with so many of the lads away with their regiments.”

A feminine buzz acknowledged the truth of what he said, and more than one pair of curious eyes turned in their direction.

A lad stood ready to jot pencil to paper.

“Oscar Hervey,” Val called out clearly, “A better fellow you’ll never have the chance to meet, and . . .” he paused, locking eyes with Alexander’s, brows raised.

A shake of the head was all it took.

Val’s smile widened. “And my good friend, and comrade in arms, a gentleman whose shot always goes straight to the heart, none other than Cupid himself, ladies.”

Gasps were followed by giggles and turned heads.

The vicar’s brows rose. The boy’s hand faltered.

Whispers and laughter swept the crowd.

“Valentine brings Cupid with him, does he?” someone shouted. Chuckles rumbled. The vicar beamed and nodded.

Oscar laughed, and bowing, arms and gaze sweeping in Alexander’s direction, made it clear who Cupid was and wasn’t.

“Well, ladies, a special Valentine indeed,” the vicar chortled. “I think you’ll agree. Shall we begin the draw?”

She walked into view in that moment, purple cloak catching in the wind, startling the liver brown pony,o went wall-eyed, rearing with a shrill whinny.

Alexander reacted instinctively. He turned the gray with no more than a squeeze of his thighs, the charger leaping with a clatter across the intervening cobbles.