Mistress of the Hunt (18 page)

The following morning Rochford informed Philippa when she stepped in to wish him good day that he was determined to return to Wyvern Towers that day. “For although I still have my share of aches and pains, and the company is such that only a fool would make complaint, I am certainly well enough to sustain a carriage ride of less than five miles and must not trespass longer upon your goodness.”

Taking heart from his easy manner and twenty-four hours of good feeling between them, Philippa dared to tease him a little. “I daresay it will take longer for your pride to heal, sir, than your head or your ankle. Lord Alvanley and the others will surely continue to roast you until some other amongst them diverts their attention.”

He laughed ruefully. “I hold you personally to blame for all my discomfiture at their hands, madam, and shall have to think up a suitable punishment.”

When his eyes glinted with a purpose she could not fathom, the look was enough to make her retort rather rapidly, “I was not the one who came a cropper, my lord, and if anything good may be said to have come from this dreadful business, at least you must now agree that I ride well enough to join your hunt.”

He frowned but kept his voice under rigid control. “We have already plucked that crow, have we not? Surely you must realize that the very fact that an expert rider like myself can take such a dangerous fall merely proves that Leicestershire hunting is entirely too dangerous for a woman. You were very lucky, Philippa, to have escaped injury. A fragile female, after all, is not so likely to recover from a fall as quickly as I have done. There is good reason for the old Melton saying that the right place for a woman is upon a sofa, not a saddle.”

F
ORGETTING THE ODD LOOK IN
his eyes that had fluttered her nerves but a moment before, Philippa now had all she could do to control her leaping temper. Having convinced herself that once the viscount had come down from his high ropes he would see reason, her reason, she wanted nothing so much now as to favor him with a few home truths of her own. Had she not generously undertaken to entertain his little sister every weekday so that he might indulge in whatever took his fancy without having to fret over whether Lucinda was properly looked after? Had she not greeted him warmly whenever he chose to honor Chase Charley with his visits, although her butler had orders to deny her to other gentleman callers? Moreover, had she not included his uncle in her hospitality despite the fact that the old gentleman scarcely ever saw fit to speak more than a word or two to her?

Though Mr. Drake had indeed called to see how his nephew did, he had taken less than a moment to wonder why Rochford should have chosen to run counter to the fox and to tell him he ought to have watched himself more carefully, before briefly albeit punctiliously thanking Philippa for her care of the viscount. Then he had turned his attention to Miss Pellerin, and it was to her that he had addressed whatever else he had had to say upon that occasion.

And had Philippa not provided nursing for his lordship when he needed it, and a bed for him to sleep in that he might be spared the torturous journey to Wyvern Towers? And had she not seen to it that his slumber each night was undisturbed? To be sure, she had behaved very well, and for her trouble she received gratuitous insults. Gathering her dignity close about her, she suppressed her baser instincts and wished Rochford a chilly good day, leaving him once more to his solitude.

An hour later, when she received a hastily scrawled but gracefully apologetic request for her company, her first inclination was to refuse to see him. Therefore, having graciously risen above such ungenerous behavior, she was astonished when, gray eyes atwinkle, he asked whether she had got over her miff yet. “We ought not to be so quick to set each other at odds this way,” he said, smiling, “but I daresay that with our emotions so near the surface, as they are, no more may be expected of us.”

“Our emotions, sir?” she said softly, suspicions alerted.

“Come, Philippa, you cannot have been insensible to the growing warmth of feeling between us these past weeks. My fury on the hunting field was no more than reaction to fear for the safety of one who has become dear to me.”

She stared at him, dismayed. “Rochford, you are not being so daft as to make me an offer, are you?”

He returned her look with a bewildered one of his own. “But I thought—”

“What
I
thought,” she informed him awfully, “was that we had become friends, that you were different from the others, but you proved me wrong on the first count when you chased me from the hunt, and now you prove me wrong on the second. Surely I have told you that I have no wish to burden myself with another husband.”

“Yes,” he said quietly, even sadly, “you said as much, but I thought you had come to know your own feelings, and mine, in the meantime. ’Tis a pity you cannot see what is so clear to others.”

Her breast swelled with indignation, but the angry words she wished to say died away in the back of her throat when her gaze encountered the steady look in his light gray eyes. Though she could not speak, neither could she stay to listen, so once again she left him, and thenceforth spoke not another word to him before he took his departure in his own. well-sprung carriage later that afternoon. His sister accompanied him, for although Jessalyn had begged that Lucinda might be allowed to stay with her, Philippa had not seconded the invitation, and Rochford did not hesitate to refuse permission.

“I am certain that your stepmama’s peace has been cut up quite enough for a day or two,” he said, glancing at Philippa briefly before returning his attention to Jessalyn. “I think it would be as well, for that matter, if Lucy were to remain at home until Monday, for I shan’t be able to ride out until then, in any event, so I daresay she will be no trouble to me. How will that suit you, ma’am?”

“I am sure Lucinda is welcome whenever she chooses to come here,” Philippa said stiffly.

“Mercy me,” said Miss Pellerin, gazing in bewilderment from one to the other, “his lordship must realize that much by now, my dear, and is merely expressing his concern, as anyone might, for your well-being. So kind and generous are you to be giving lessons every day to the girls, but it will not harm them to have a day off, and I am persuaded it will do you a great deal of good to have several days all to yourself. That, no doubt, is what his lordship intends.”

“Just so,” said Rochford gently.

“As though butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth,” Philippa muttered a few moments later as they watched the carriage rattle away down the drive.

“Philippa!” exclaimed Miss Pellerin with a warning gesture toward Jessalyn, who was standing a little to one side, her eyes still on the departing carriage.

“Well, I’m sorry if it ill becomes me to speak so, Cousin, but you don’t know all that man has said to me. His behavior today alone has been unforgivable.”

“Mercy me, I had thought the quarrel between you all over and done,” said Miss Pellerin, shaking her head woefully. “Do you mean to say that he ripped up at you again, my dear?”

“Oh, no, ma’am. First he informed me that a woman belongs on a sofa, not on a saddle, and then, if you please, he as good as asked me to marry him, as if
that
would make all right again. Oh, Wakefield was right to warn me to beware of even the most charming of gentlemen,” she added, her voice rising in increasing agitation. “Not that Rochford is that, of course. Imagine his telling me I belong on a sofa—setting myself to please men, is what he meant, no doubt—as though I had been Harriette Wilson or that big-bosomed Cari person all the gentlemen were in such alt over three years ago when we were here. And he can’t say that they stayed only on sofas, either, now I come to think of it, for while I am not certain about Miss Wilson, I do know that the notorious Cari was used to ride out hunting on occasion, just like Letty Lade, for Wakefield said something about it and laughed, saying the men could not keep their eyes on their hounds whilst her mounds were bouncing about amongst them. A very good joke he thought it, too, as I recall.”

“Philippa, really,” Miss Pellerin said, frowning at her, “you cannot believe Rochford numbers you amongst such persons. Moreover, you ought not to repeat Wakefield’s jests to Jessalyn, nor yet even to introduce those dreadful women’s names in front of her.”

Philippa looked wildly at her stepdaughter, who was now listening avidly to their conversation. “Oh, to be sure, Jessalyn, you are not to repeat anything I have said. Goodness, I have said too much, but I am so angry there is no bearing it. I should have liked to—” But here, realizing that it would really be going beyond the line to say she would have liked nothing better than to have hit Rochford, she broke off and turned to her cousin. “I beg your pardon, ma’am. I have let my tongue run away with me. ’Tis most unseemly.”

“To be sure, my dear, I had thought you must have outgrown the lamentable tendency you displayed as a child to act rashly and without proper consideration whenever your emotions outran your good sense, but I see you have not. Moreover, I believe you have paid a great deal too much heed to Wakefield’s advice.”

Bristling, Philippa said stoutly, “He gave me very good advice.”

“With regard to matters of business, perhaps,” Miss Pellerin agreed, “but did you not say Rochford had proposed marriage?”

Philippa nodded, but she was not really attending. She was annoyed with herself for allowing her tongue to run on like a fiddlestick in Jessalyn’s hearing, but for all that, her temper had been fanned too many times of late to be easily brought under rein.

She wanted nothing so much as to teach the viscount a lesson. Had she been a man and he not injured, she would have liked to knock him down for treating her feelings and wishes so lightly. Yes, and it was another offense of nature that ladies were not allowed to fight duels, for surely there were times such as this in any woman’s life when she must wish for the chance to take sword in hand to right her wrongs. Men had life well in hand, did they not? A man could lose his temper and have little fear of being made to suffer for it, but a lady must always contain her emotions. That rule of conduct was as contemptible as the one which sought to deny ladies the pleasures of the hunting field.

She was still lost in thought some moments later when they entered the stone hall and Miss Pellerin dismissed Jessalyn to her bedchamber to prepare for dinner. “You are very angry still, are you not, Philippa?”

Philippa regarded the older woman blankly for a moment before the words penetrated, bringing a hard glint to her eyes. “Angry? Indeed, I am, ma’am. Rochford deserves to be boiled in oil.”

“But, mercy me, you cannot be angry with a man for wishing to marry you, and Mr. Assheton-Smith said the same thing about sofas and saddles. You were annoyed, to be sure, but you were not ready to order him boiled in oil.”

“Truly, ma’am,” Philippa said, drawing herself up grandly, “I cannot think why the words should sound so much more offensive on Rochford’s lips, but that is the case. And Mr. Assheton-Smith had no reason to think himself beholden to me, what’s more,” she added as though putting in the clincher.

Miss Pellerin stared at her in no little dismay. “Why, I do believe you offered to help Lucinda merely to put Rochford under an obligation to you, and you did flirt with him—you know you did—and for the selfsame reason, I make no doubt.”

“Nonsense,” Philippa said, but she could not make the word sound convincing even to her own ears. Oddly, this failure served only to make her want to cry one moment and to exacerbate her temper the next, and the fact that she could not explain all her wrongs with perfect clarity to her cousin made matters that much worse. Thus it was that, pleading an incipient headache, she soon excused herself to her room, denying all interest in dinner.

The wish to be revenged upon the viscount continued to grow, but rack her brain as she would, she could think of no suitable way to bring him to a clear recognition of his misdeeds. Indeed, the more she thought and the more she attempted to paint him a villain, the more her imagination tended to present her with a mental picture of the viscount laughing or recounting an amusing tale of his adventures on the Continent as he had been wont to do from time to time when he visited them in the afternoon. She next found herself remembering her encounter with him on the parapeted terrace at Belvoir Castle, remembering the feelings that had swept through her as she stood near him, the happy little humming that had filled her mind when he smiled at her that day. From that thought others followed, until it was with truly affectionate amusement that she recalled the exasperated way he had shaken his head at Lord Robert Manners’s description of the feud between the duke and Sir William Manners. It was at this point in her reflection, however, that Philippa suddenly sat up straighter and smiled. It was not a friendly smile. Her thoughts had become clear at last, and before she fell asleep that night, she knew precisely how she would punish the viscount.

Accordingly, the next morning she sent for her bailiff to present himself to her in the common parlor at his earliest convenience. Since Mr. Weems was astute enough to recognize a royal command when he heard one, he came at once and found his mistress, attired in a becoming sprigged-muslin morning gown, standing at the window in rapt contemplation of the front drive. She turned to face him, but she did not speak immediately. Indeed, she looked as though she were still lost in thought.

“What is it, my lady? I had not believed you would wish to see the accounts before Monday morning.”

“Never mind the accounts now,” Philippa responded tersely, giving herself a little shake to clear her mind. “I have more important business for you to attend to. I want signs clearly posted all around our land, tenant farms included, barring anyone from trespassing without permission from me.”

The plump little man stared at her uncomprehendingly. “No-trespassing signs, my lady? Surely you can’t mean that.”

“I do mean it, Mr. Weems. I have never in my life been more serious about anything. This property is no longer open to any hunter who chooses to ride his horse across it without regard for crop or garden. Why, I heard that only last year one of Mr. Assheton-Smith’s hunts ended in a front garden in Leicestershire, so I suppose we must be grateful that they have not ridden straight up our drive or even into the stone hall.”