Elisabeth Kidd (12 page)

It was a bright, almost relentlessly cheerful day, and all three ladies soon succumbed to the mild weather and had the coachman put down the top on the landaulet so that they might enjoy the soothing effect of the sun on their faces.

“Summer is my favorite season of the year,” Georgina declared, putting her face up to the sun in total disregard of the danger of freckles. “Lewis says he likes autumn, because the air is so brisk and bracing, but I must be a very indolent sort of person, because I prefer the warmth of summer.”

“I agree,” said Dulcie, “although I might have a small partiality for spring, when everything is new and green. Of course, the twins were born in spring, so that may influence my preference.”

“We should have brought them along with us!” Georgina said, referring to Dulcie and Henry’s six-year-old boys, Ian and Ivor.

“Oh, I think not,” said their fond mother. “They would be bored with shopping. Anyway, Henry promised to help them to build a treehouse today, and I’m sure that is a much more agreeable prospect than a tame carriage ride with their mother.”

“Which is your favorite season?” Georgina asked Sabina, who had thus far listened in silence to the conversation. “Let me guess—you go out riding in all weathers, so you must prefer the greater challenge of winter!”

Sabina had to laugh at that. “I know I must seem a very wintery sort of person just now, but actually I agree with Lewis. There is nothing like a ride through the woods with dry leaves underfoot and the sun shining through the bare branches.”

“Well, today at least is a fine day for a drive to the village. I wonder if Randolph has already collected the post. I was hoping for a letter from my mother.”

“Telling you how they have set the house aright again after my disruptive descent last week?” Sabina said. Dulcie looked bemusedly at her for a moment before she remembered the story that had been given the family about Sabina’s accident and took the hint.

“Oh, I’m sure it was no trouble at all, Sabina dear.”

Sabina smiled wryly, but said no more, as Georgina began waving to people she knew as they neared Ashtonbury.

As the party approached the village green, a murmur of voices could be heard, and when applied to, their coachman remarked that the annual village fête was being held today, and a fine day it was for it.

“Oh, dear,” Dulcie said. “I suppose we must avoid the High Street then. I cannot think how I could have forgotten the day. Put us down at the Feathers, John, and we will walk to the shops by way of Bosworth Lane. Does that seem agreeable to you, Sabina? Georgie?”

Georgina expressed herself willing to follow Dulcie’s lead in anything, and Sabina murmured her consent, but noted that her sister-in-law did not meet her eyes. She did not for a moment believe that Dulcie had forgotten the fête, since the Bromleys made a point of taking an active part in each year’s event. To be sure, since this year’s planning had unhappily coincided with the late earl’s final illness, none of the village officials had approached the family about their participation, but Sabina knew that Dulcie would, at the very least, have sent some of the servants to assist with setting up booths and baking cakes to be sold and painting banners. She would certainly not have forgotten when the event was to take place.

Sabina had no notion of what Dulcie intended by this minor deception, but she was in a mood not to question anything. Indeed, she preferred not to exercise her mind in any fashion, for lately she had found that whatever she turned it to invariably led down a path she did not wish to follow.

She did not, as it happened, discover that Dulcie had any ulterior motive. Their few errands accomplished, the ladies returned to the Feathers to recruit their energies with a cup of tea before starting for home. They seated themselves by one of the few small windows, with a view of the High Street. Sabina was a little surprised to find that the slight exercise of walking from shop to shop—not to mention doing so in Georgina’s bracing company—had already revived her flagging spirits, and she gazed about with unexpected interest.

“Oh, look,” Georgina said. “There are booths set up along the green. Would it be all right if we had just a quick look to see what is being offered?”

“You may do so, of course, dear,” Dulcie said. “We’ll follow along behind.”

“And hold your purse,” Sabina added, “lest you be tempted to extravagance.”

Since Georgina was an only child and the apple of her father’s eye, she was more than able to fund any extravagance she cared to name, so this admonition was greeted with no respect whatever. “Pooh,” said that young lady. “How could I possibly be extravagant at a village fair? This is scarcely Bond Street.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Sabina murmured as she and Dulcie repaired to one of the benches outside the inn and Georgina had gone ahead to pore over the bangles and beads at one of the stalls on the green. “I’ve never seen Bond Street.”

Dulcie looked stricken. “Oh dear, I’d forgotten that. You did not have a proper come-out, did you, Sabina?”

“Oh, I did, but only at the Leicester assemblies. Very tame it was, too, but at the time I did not wish to be away from home for even a few months.”

“Are you sorry now?”

“Not for that, no.”

Dulcie decided against inquiring further into this remark and tactfully changed the subject.

“Shall we invite some young people to the Hall to amuse Georgina?” she asked. “It need not be anything formal.”

“I think Georgina came to visit
us
,” Sabina said, smiling. “Lewis, in particular.”

“Oh, I see.” Dulcie was pensive for a moment, watching their cousin bartering cheerfully with an old man selling hand-woven reed baskets. “Henry said the same thing, but I was not sure what…”

“What she would see in him? You have only to watch them together, Dulcie. Georgina has loved Lewis since she was five years old, and his disability has had no effect on her feelings. Indeed, it matters only to him. You’ll see, she will wear him down.”

“I’m sure I hope so.”

When Georgina came back to show off her purchases, Dulcie asked her, “Would you care to watch any of the activities? We could find a spot at a discreet distance. I expect no one would disturb us.”

“Oh, let’s do!” Georgina exclaimed.

Sabina had been on the point of disclaiming any desire to watch small children dirtying themselves in sack races, but was reluctant to spoil her young cousin’s amusement. Additionally, just at that moment, a group of soldiers in uniform came around the corner and walked in their direction, talking animatedly among themselves. They were, Sabina saw as they came closer, cavalry officers, and one of them was Captain the Honorable Robert Ashton. As he passed near their bench, his eyes met hers briefly before he turned away as if he had not seen her, and he and his friends continued on their way.

Georgina glanced admiringly after the officers, then turned as if to ask about them, but just at that moment, Dulcie, who had been occupied with choosing cakes from a tray brought out to them by the waiter and had missed this little scene, turned to her companions again, and Sabina said to her, “I believe there must be racing of some sort to be seen. Perhaps we can watch for a short time.”

“The very thing!” Georgina agreed, then added slyly, “How did you know about the racing, Sabina?”

Sabina looked her cousin in the eye and said in Alicia’s most quelling manner, “There is racing
every
year.”

Dulcie signaled the waiter again, who confirmed that some officers who chanced to be passing through the village had agreed to display their equestrian skills and join some of the local young men in a race.

So it was that an hour later, the Bromley ladies sat in their open carriage under a conveniently shady tree not very distant from a paddock in which three or four officers were taking turns putting their mounts through their paces. They were obviously well acquainted with one another, and Sabina found herself envying them their cheerful camaraderie and wishing she had friends with whom she could be so at ease.

She had Dulcie, of course, who was all anyone could wish in a sister, but her first loyalty, naturally, was to her husband so that Sabina could not call on her whenever she wished, nor had they entirely the same interests in common.

Dulcie was teasing Georgina about the handsome black-haired officer who attracted as much feminine admiration as his fine black horse did from the gentleman, but Georgina declared him to be “nothing out of the common way.” Neither Dulcie nor Sabina saw anything unusual in Georgina’s sole dissent from the general opinion about the officer in question, given her undimmed loyalty to Lewis. One of the lieutenant’s fellows, however, was another matter.

“Oh, dear,” Dulcie said. “I do believe that is Robert Ashton on the big white stallion. I don’t think he has seen us, Sabina—do you wish to leave?”

“Our departure at this point would doubtless attract more attention than our staying,” Sabina said. “Do not concern, yourself, Dulcie. I shall not burst into tears again. Ever.”

Her sister-in-law squeezed her hand sympathetically, and Sabina felt a pang of guilt for supposing even for an instant that Dulcie had planned any of this. After all, there was no way she could have known that Captain Ashton would be here; they were scarcely acquainted. Georgina studied her slightly flushed face again, and Sabina had the distinct impression that her seemingly flighty cousin had the ability to see into her soul.

The display of clever steps having concluded, the officers offered to take on any challengers in a race, the small fee paid by each racer to be paid to the fund for the restoration of the church belfry. The lieutenant with the roguish grin proved to be the most attractive target of challenge, and every other race was his, for no one seemed able to beat him. Captain Ashton evoked sufficient interest, however, for the onlookers to see him win twice and lose by half a length once—to an elderly gentleman who looked by his bearing in the saddle to be a veteran of another, earlier campaign.

“They are remarkable horsemen,” Dulcie observed. “I suppose it is no wonder that they accredited themselves so well in the charge at Waterloo.”

“The Union Brigade’s charge?” Sabina asked interestedly. “I did not know James—Captain Ashton took part in that.”

“Oh, yes. Henry read me the account in the newspapers. I would not have remembered except that my maid is acquainted with a kitchen maid at Ashtonbury Abbey, and she repeated the story when the captain came home. You know how servants like to spread such tidbits about local people—especially about a member of such a prominent family.”

“You need not sing the Ashtons’ praises, Dulcie. I am aware of your partiality in that direction.”

“Not at all. I married Henry, you may recall, and I daresay Richard no longer gives me even a passing thought.”

Georgina eyed her elder cousin with interest. “Did you ever love him? How came you to be betrothed to him?”

“It was an arranged match, of course, but I was not opposed to it. I had never felt the slightest
tendre
for anyone else, and I supposed myself immune. I had also heard that within such marriages both parties are free to follow their own lives, once an heir has been produced. I was very young, and I fancied this an advanced idea which would suit me down to the ground.”

She laughed. “Of course, after I met Henry, the idea that any husband of mine would fail to dance attendance on me from daybreak to dusk was an appalling notion. I am perfectly capable of reminding him, should he be remiss in this regard, that had I married Richard, I should have been a countess by now. Oh, look, the blacksmith has raised a challenge to all four officers!”

This indeed proved to be the case, for, like many another villager, the waiter from the Feathers had laid aside his toil to watch, and he came to inform the ladies of the details of the challenge, also advising them that the blacksmith’s name was Jack Belfield. Dulcie thanked the obliging waiter for the information and requested their coachman to give him a seat beside him to watch the race, a vantage point the waiter was happy to take up. He struck up a lively conversation with the coachman, and the two were shortly making wagers on the race, an activity to which the ladies turned discreetly deaf ears.

“Now, we know Captain Ashton,” Dulcie said, “and I believe the bruising rider with the black hair is Lieutenant the Viscount Markham. Therefore, the stout gentleman and the thin, red-headed one must be—since apparently they have all sold out and we need no longer use their ranks—Mr. Trent and Mr. Williams.”

“You are as good as a playbill, Dulcie,” Sabina said, falling into the spirit of the occasion despite herself. “Which do you fancy to win against the blacksmith?”

“Do you care to lay a small wager amongst ourselves?” Dulcie asked. “I confess, I am partial to the black-haired viscount.”

“Then you must give me odds. He has won every race he has run thus far.”

“Yes, but his horse must be tired, and both the blacksmith and his mount are fresh,” Georgina observed. “How do you fancy Captain Ashton’s chances?” she added with a mischievous glint in her eye.

Sabina was mightily tempted to back one of the other gentlemen, but instinct—and her father’s advice remembered from when she attended her first race meeting—told her not to bet for any other reason than that she was sure she had a winner.

“Enough to place a wager on him,” she said.

They pooled the remaining shillings in their purses and settled their wagers amongst themselves just as Mr. Trent’s showy bay leapt from the starting gate, getting a fast lead on Jack Belfield’s sturdy roan—which he quickly lost, the blacksmith finishing several lengths ahead. The crowd cheered wildly for their own champion, and Sabina saw Captain Ashton exchange an enigmatic look with his friend Markham. Suddenly she knew how the race would end.

As the waiter had explained, the blacksmith would be declared the victor if he beat three of the four officers. Mr. Williams was in the saddle first and gave a good account of himself, finishing only half a length behind Jack Belfield’s roan, which left it up to the remaining two officers to maintain the reputation of the corps.