The Battling Bluestocking (6 page)

A moment later, his hands now gentle on her shoulders, Sir Brian set Jessica back upon her heels. For a long moment she stared at his broad chest, still feeling dizzy and a little disoriented. Then, almost shyly, she looked up. She was flushed, and her lips were still parted in a near-childlike expression of wonder. Sir Brian grinned, and his dark eyes began to dance.

“Remarkable, indeed,” he said.

“Oh!” All her outrage returned, and the memory of their argument with it, as deeper color flooded her countenance. “How dare you, sir!” she demanded. When his only response was a wider grin, Jessica’s ready temper leapt beyond control. Her hand formed a fist almost of its own accord, arcing back and then forward again in an upward right cross to Sir Brian’s firm jaw that would have done boxing champion Gentleman Jackson proud at the height of his career. Indeed, her fury seemed to lend the full strength of her body to that one blow, and, catching him completely off guard as it did, it staggered Sir Brian, causing him to take several steps backward, whereupon, catching his heel against one of the bricks lining the pathway, he fell victim to the law of gravity, pitched over the low privet hedge, and landed solidly upon his backside in the soft dirt of the rose garden, the lower part of his legs coming to rest atop the hedge.

Glaring down at him with her hands now upon her hips, totally unaware that she had accomplished anything out of the ordinary, Jessica informed him roundly that she only hoped he might have learned a good lesson. “Some of us,” she added militantly, “refuse to be exploited, sir!”

And with that as a parting shot, she turned upon her heel and strode back to the house. At the top of the terrace steps she turned to see that Sir Brian was still sitting in the rose garden where she had left him, though he had changed his position slightly. Having extricated his feet from the hedge, he had hunched up his knees and was presently resting his forearms upon them as he watched her. Remnants of the astonishment that had invaded his countenance at the moment of impact with the soft dirt lingered until he realized that she had turned to look at him. For a long moment he regarded her steadily, measuringly. Then he grinned again. With an angry flounce Jessica turned and entered the house, hurrying up to her own bedchamber and entering it with an immeasurable sense of gratitude that she had managed to do so without encountering anyone on the way.

Pouring cool water from the ewer into her china basin, she sponged her heated face until her senses ceased to reel, and within a half-hour she had recovered her equanimity sufficiently to ring for Mellin, her tirewoman, to assist her in changing her gown, and then to go about her usual business. Thus it was that she was able to greet, albeit with somewhat studied calm, the information, conveyed to the first-floor drawing room directly after supper, that Mr. Andrew Liskeard was below, inquiring to know whether Miss Sutton-Drew was at home to late callers.

Lord Gordon looked up from a stack of estate papers he had been perusing as he sipped his after-dinner port. “Andrew Liskeard?” He turned to regard his sister-in-law curiously. “Did Borthwick say Andrew Liskeard?”

“He did, Cyril,” she replied, “though I’ve no more notion than you have of what Mr. Liskeard can be doing here. To the best of my knowledge, he should still be in irons.”

“Well, I daresay I’m the one who’s wanted,” Lord Gordon declared, setting down his glass of port and preparing to raise himself from the comfortable chair. “Odd that Borthwick announced him to you, Jessica. Very odd. I shall speak to him.”

“Never mind, Cyril. If Mr. Liskeard is indeed below, it is I whom he has come to see. No doubt his uncle sent him. I doubt he has another pistol by him, but if I have need of you, I shall send Borthwick to fetch you.” She smiled sweetly at him, nodded at her sister, who was looking from one to the other of them in bewilderment, and took herself off to meet Andrew Liskeard. She assumed his uncle had sent him in hopes of swaying her from her course, and she was determined to be as firm with the boy as she had been with the man. Indeed, her temper was slightly ruffled at the thought that Sir Brian might think she could be so easily dissuaded that a mere lad scarcely dry behind the ears could accomplish it.

Andrew awaited her in the garden saloon, and when she entered, he took two steps toward her, then hesitated, watching her warily. “I…I hoped you would see me,” he said hastily.

There was no sign of the cocky arrogance that had irritated her earlier. Instead, his expression put her so forcibly in mind of a mischievous puppy who knows it had done wrong and isn’t sure whether or not it is to be kicked that Jessica felt her temper melting away.

“I hope you are completely recovered from your wound,” she said gently.

He moved his left arm easily. “Scarcely a twinge, ma’am, assure you.”

Jessica nodded, glad he had not been seriously injured. “Why did you wish to see me?”

“To apologize,” he answered. “I realize that I was a complete gudgeon, that what I did could have had serious consequences. You were right to be as angry as you were with me.”

“I daresay your uncle knows you are here,” she said conversationally.

“He sent me.” The young man met her steady gaze. “I would have come anyway, Miss Sutton-Drew. I’ve had a deal of time to think, over these past few days, and it didn’t take Uncle Brian’s orders to bring me here. I hope you believe that.”

“I do,” she said, smiling at him. He went on, earnestly explaining the lesson he had learned and assuring her just as earnestly that besides leaving him to the discomfort of a jail cell for three days’ time, his uncle has torn a proper strip off him for his prank, but Jessica listened with only half an ear. It occurred to her that although she ought to have been angry that Sir Brian had acted in opposition to her wishes, she was in fact relieved that the responsibility for Andrew’s fate was no longer laid upon her doorstep.

“And I had the devil’s own time finding
Marmion
again, because one of the housemaids put it back on the wrong bookshelf after you’d closed it,” Andrew concluded, breaking into her thoughts. Then, after a brief pause, he said, “So what shall I tell him?”

“Tell whom? I’m frightfully sorry, Andrew,” she apologized. “I’m afraid something distracted me.”

He smiled a little forlornly. “Uncle Brian said the decision is still up to you, ma’am. About the assizes.”

“You mean he still means to have you up on my charges unless I formally withdraw them?”

“Of course, ma’am. It’s the law, and Uncle Brian sets great store by the law. I can tell you,” he added ruefully and with a reminiscent gleam in his eye, “that I wish I had realized how much store he sets by it before I ever got myself involved in this tangle.”

Jessica let out a long breath, unsure as to how this turn of events affected her. But as she was examining her own feelings, she suddenly realized that her companion was regarding her with a great deal of anxiety. “Oh, Andrew, forgive me,” she said quickly, compassionately. “Of course I shall withdraw the charge. I never meant it, you know. Not once I realized you were not a hardened criminal. I’m afraid I was guilty of the very prejudice—in reverse, you know—that I accused your uncle and Lord Gordon of harboring. And then my dreadful temper got the better of me, and…well, that is all quite unimportant to you, is it not? You will tell your uncle for me to do as he thinks best in the matter. I do hope he was not too harsh with you.”

Andrew grinned, looking not unlike his uncle when he did so. “To say that he was mad as fire, ma’am, would still be to understate the case. I could scarcely stand upon my feet when he had done with me.” Noting her shocked expression, he added hastily, “No, no, my uncle ceased long ago to punish me physically for my misdeeds. Which is fortunate indeed, since I am a deal too old for whipping and he has the good fortune to be one of the foremost amateur pugilists in England. The reason I found it difficult to stand is simply that he has a way with words that turns my knees to pudding. And he doesn’t even raise his voice.”

Andrew grimaced at the memory of his private confrontation with his uncle, but once again Jessica’s thoughts had wandered. She, too, was remembering such a confrontation, and the information that Sir Brian was thought to be an outstanding man in the ring brought a smile to her lips as the vision of him thumping to his backside in the rose garden danced merrily through her mind.

Andrew left some moments later, and Jessica returned to the first-floor drawing room to report to Lord and Lady Gordon that she had agreed to withdraw her charge. Lord Gordon expressed vociferous approval, and her ladyship also appeared to be relieved. Jessica wondered what Sir Brian’s reaction would be.

She expected that he might call the next day to extend his gratitude, and when he did not, she began to watch the post, thinking he might send a note. When none was forthcoming, she began to wonder whether she would see him again at all. Possibly, she thought, he would simply remove to London, where the annual social Season was soon to get under way. The thought, since she did not intend to go to the metropolis for some weeks yet herself, was a rather daunting one.

In order to restore her senses to their usual calm state, she decided some three or four days after Andrew’s visit to accompany her sister to visit some of the Gordon tenants. There had been an outbreak of measles in one family, and Lady Gordon meant to take baskets of food and assure herself that the physician from Marazion had visited the household. The young mother, looking worn and bedraggled, greeted the two women with sincere gratitude and informed her ladyship that Dr. Hallworthy had indeed been to call and had given her all the proper instructions. Since she seemed to be more concerned about her husband’s comfort in a household of sick children than about the children themselves, Lady Gordon was reassured that none of the invalids was in any particular danger and climbed back into the carriage beside Jessica with a cheerful smile.

“There, that’s done, then,” she said.

Jessica chuckled. “The role of Lady Bountiful becomes you, Georgie.”

“I enjoy it,” replied her sister frankly. “You remember how I used to beg to go with Mama whenever she visited the tenants. You hated it. Said they ought to do for each other and not depend so much upon their landlord.”

“I know better now,” Jessica said. “I used to believe that things would be better if the lower classes refused to be dependent upon their betters, if they stood on their own. But I’m no longer so certain that that is true. Now I fight to make the men in control do right by their dependents.”

“Do you really, Jess? I thought you mostly spent your time in London trying to keep Aunt Susan out of the briars.”

Grinning, Jessica admitted the truth of her sister’s statement. “I suppose I do spend most of my time that way. But I doubt anyone could be in Aunt Susan’s company for very long before learning that there is a great deal of good left to be done in this world of ours. I’ve scarcely the energy she seems to have, or the motivation, but there are times when I wish I could be as involved as she is in something I believed in.”

“Well, I know that Papa certainly thinks Aunt Susan is a deal too busy. I’ve heard him give thanks time out of number for the fact that Grandpapa had the good sense to arrange his marriage with Mama and not with her elder sister. Really, Jess, everyone agrees that you would do better to go to more parties and fewer meetings of the Africa Institute and the Society to End the Employment of Climbing Boys. Those groups rarely accomplish anything.”

“I think they will accomplish a great deal in time, Georgie.”

They rode in silence for some moments, and Jessica stared idly out the window at the passing countryside. They were on the cliff road traveling now along the southwest side of Mount’s Bay. The view of the rolling blue waters of the bay below was wonderful and one of which Jessica never grew tired. The steady rocking of the carriage and the rhythmic movement of the distant water became almost hypnotic, so when the carriage suddenly lurched to a stop, Jessica started much as though she had been sharply wakened from a nap. Lady Gordon reached for a strap to steady herself, paling as the memory of the highwayman only days before flashed through her mind. Jessica, watching her, knew exactly what she was thinking, but hearing a feminine voice among those raised outside, was able to comfort her.

“That is no highwayman, Georgie. Something is going forward, no doubt in the road itself, which is why we have come to a halt. I’ll see what it is.”

“Oh, Jess, do you think you should?”

“Don’t be a goose. If Peters has come out without his blunderbuss again, which I very much doubt after the tongue-lashing Cyril gave him, rest assured that I have not.” Smugly she hefted the chinchilla muff, which had been skillfully mended so that no sign of the tiny bullet hole remained. “Lady Bountiful, meet Lady Intrepid.”

Grinning at the sally, Georgeanne relaxed against the plush squabs. “Very well, dearest, but do nothing foolish, I beg you.”

“I won’t.” Pushing open the door, Jessica let down the steps for herself and descended to the road to see that there was indeed a contretemps going forward. A burly man was confronting a young girl smack in the middle of the road, and there was no way, with the cliff on one side and the ditch on the other, by which the coach might pass unless the pair were to move. Just as that thought passed through Jessica’s mind, the man grabbed the young girl by the arm, pushing her toward the cliff.

“Here, stop that before you push her right over!” Jessica cried without thinking.

The man turned toward her, glaring. “And just who the de’il d’ye think ye might be?” he demanded.

“That is no concern of yours,” Jessica replied, “but I suggest that you take your hands from that young lady. I can plainly see that she is no relation of yours, so you can have no right to be manhandling her on a public road.”

The girl looked at her gratefully. Blond, blue-eyed, and petite, she was well dressed and appeared to be a gentlewoman with approximately seventeen summers to her credit, while the man was rough-clad, middle-aged, and clearly of the working class. The girl, ignoring the fact that the man still held her arm in a cruel grip, spoke to Jessica.