The Indian Maiden Page 3

  “But that’s over now, and if you’re just passing through, why bother to tease you with lessons in surviving in the ton? ... I’ll swear this is the coolest spot in the entire park, and unless someone’s of a mind to submerge themselves in the lake up to their necks, they’d do far better just remaining here until evening, don’t you think?” he asked brightly.

  “I hope to be gone by autumn,” she said very softly, after a thoughtful pause, “but my grandfather, you see, has other plans.”

  “Ah,” Lord Deal commented, finding it interesting to try to read his companion’s thoughts by watching the nape of her neck. It was a very lovely nape, to be sure, long and unblemished and shadowed now and again by stray wisps of honey hair that the wind sometimes caused to drift across it. It was a nape that he discovered himself very tempted to kiss in fact, not only because he wondered at whether that creamy skin would be as cool and fragrant as he imagined, but because then she would undoubtedly turn around and he would either be given a more classic embrace, or a deserved swift slap. But either way, he’d be able to see her face and her eyes, which he’d been enchanted to discover were gray as the first haze of dawn. Still, he could at least see her point.

  Sitting quite properly side-saddle, if she gazed straight ahead of her instead of looking off to the front of the horse as she was doing, she’d seem aloof and unfriendly if she didn’t incline her head that further fraction necessary to read his expression. Yet if she turned to him, since they were of necessity sharing the somewhat confined space of a horse’s back, they would be, essentially, nose to nose. A delightful circumstance for him, but unless she were known to be very short-sighted, a very compromising position for her. He sighed.

  “I don’t mean to be cryptic,” she said at once, misinterpreting the reason for the sound she’d heard. “It’s only that Grandfather sent me here for exactly the reasons you’d suppose. He’s the one looking for a husband,” she said crossly, “for me. And as I love him, the least I can do for him is to visit here as he wishes me to do, for a while at least. I’ve been here almost a month. But I want to go home,” she whispered very softly, and as she spoke it, he could swear he read that barely suppressed longing and loneliness for home in the dejected droop of her neck as well as he’d ever read it in anyone’s face.

  “You’re quite sure then that you don’t care to shop around and pick up a nice inexpensive English husband?” he asked pleasantly.

  “Oh no,” she replied at once, shaking her head in the negative so many times that several slips of hair slid loose to tempt him unmercifully.

  “Is it anything we’ve said?” he asked in hurt tones, and then was about to explain his jest as he would to most young women, since they usually took him quite literally, when she pleased him enormously by saying at once, “I’ve nothing against the English, believe me. I just don’t care to marry as yet. Not anyone, of any nationality. But knowing that you’ve been sent specifically for that purpose and having your hosts know it as well, makes it all that much more uncomfortable. I don’t want Grandfather to think I haven’t tried, and I don’t want to actually deceive him. He knows how I feel, you see, but he’s so sure I’ll meet my match here ... How long, do you think, would a person be expected to have to stay on before they gave up on such a search?” she asked.

  “That depends,” he said thoughtfully, “entirely on how old Grandfather is.”

  She chuckled. He was just as unexpected a person as his entrance had hinted at. He was very pleasant, one of the nicest gentlemen she’d met since she’d come here. So she turned her head and grinned at him. It was difficult talking with someone you couldn’t see, but, on the whole, she discovered as she quickly turned back to stare down the long, dark arched tunnel of evergreens again, it was more comfortable than keeping your gaze averted as he studied your profile, and far easier than looking directly into those kind and amused light eyes.

  “I’ll probably leave for home,” she said, “in the autumn. I thought I’d wait until Will gets himself a wife, for I doubt Grandfather would expect me to stay on here alone. Will’s looking for an English lady to call his own. He’s originally from London, you see, and came to America when he was very young. We arrived here together because he’s worked with Grandfather forever and now he’s made his fortune, he’s come back here to settle down, and Grandfather asked him to look after me. ... Do you know that I’ve told you more about us in a few moments than I’ve ever told half the people who pepper me with questions?” she said wonderingly.

  “It’s because I promised you something in return, don’t forget,” he explained. “And I’m sure you didn’t forget, you’re a canny Yankee trader. Now then, since you’re going to stay for an indefinite time, I think you might well have use for that advice. Don’t tease them, Miss Hamilton,” he said seriously, “they’ll believe anything you choose to tell them so it would be too easy for a bright young woman like yourself to mislead them. It’s no sport casting for fish in a barrel. But it’s not your sportsmanship I worry about, it’s the fact that they have great power, and can make you very wretched indeed if they’ve a mind to, and if they’re given the opportunity as well.”

  “What?” she said in amazement. “Are you funning me now in revenge for my earlier stories? What can they possibly do to me, my lord? Are you going to treat me to tales of chains and dungeons in return for my stories about snakes?”

  When she was done laughing, he went on to say, very clearly, very seriously, “They can give you a name, Miss Hamilton, which is far heavier to bear than chains, and they can tell tales about you which hurt more and are more poisonous than those snakes you invented. They can create you a dungeon out of the thin air by ostracizing you, and taunting you, and excluding you from society.”

  “But I have friends whom I trust to remain my friends,” she said, sitting up straighter. “And I’ve told you that I don’t care about your society. So I don’t believe I need any more advice. But thank you,” she added, inclining her head as would a queen to acknowledge some courtier’s small favor, an effect somewhat ruined by the fact that it could only be seen from the back by the one it was meant to dismiss. To show that she wasn’t concerned enough to even be angry, she changed the subject lightly by asking, “And by the way, how did you know I was bamming them?”

  “I’ve been to your country,” he answered quietly, turning the horse sharply where the trail suddenly divided.

  “Oh really?” she asked with lively interest. “When?”

  “The first time? Four years ago,” he said.

  “But...” She paused. “As a soldier?” she gasped.

  “Oh no,” he said calmly, “I’ve never bought colors.”

  “Then,” she said breathlessly, this time swinging her head around so swiftly, she felt a twinge, “as a spy?”

  “No, Miss Hamilton,” he answered with a trace of anger, “as a patriot.”

  They rode on in absolute silence for a few moments more, Faith now wondering why she’d been foolish enough to be shocked simply because a man had been true to his own country, and Lord Deal wondering why a girl whose grandfather had sent her to get an English husband would be angry at a gentleman for being English.

  “Good heavens,” she said at last, abandoning her bout with semantics and nationalism in an effort to normalize relations, “I’d no idea the lake was so far.”

  “It isn’t,” he replied, “we’ve only been going round and round the bridal path. See?”

  And now, looking past his pointed finger, she could see that the evergreens were beginning to slope lower and grow farther apart until they gave way at their end to a wide and grassy meadow. Beyond that, she could make out the group of ladies and gentlemen they’d so recently left, looking as though they’d been raised up by some giant hand and deposited gently in this new locale, for they were ranged around on their cushions and rugs again, only this time on the banks of a disappointingly bland, obviously artificial, and perfectly round ornamental pond. “And,” he bent h
is head to whisper to her as they rode into the clearing and he noted the back of her neck growing pink, “here’s another unsolicited lesson in British social niceties. Don’t bother to be vexed with me for the sake of appearances. They none of them will ask where we’ve been. It’s not only because, my dear Miss Hamilton, they believe you to be entirely moral. Neither is it so much that they trust me to be highly honorable, as it is that they know me to be highly eligible. And I am, I assure you. For you see,” he breathed, his whisper tickling her ear as he brought his lips nearer the nearer they came to her smiling hostess, “I just happen to be looking for a fiancée. Because as it turns out, I did lose one.”

  Faith was lifted down from the saddle immediately by the earl. Before she could get her balance back and take an unwavering step on firm ground, Lord Deal had made his abjectest apologies to the group, cited several pressing matters, and with a show of reluctance so outsized it bordered on mockery, he saluted them and was off again and gone back through the evergreen passage he’d so lately left.

  “The fellow,” the earl drawled, “certainly knows how to make his entrances and exits. But how was the performance itself?” he asked Faith as they strolled back to where her patchwork cushion had been placed upon the grass. “Did he entertain you? He took such a time delivering you to us, we’d begun to wonder whether we’d have to send either a search party or a vicar after the two of you.”

  Though the words caused Faith to feel guilt for no reason at all, Lord Deal had said that no one would mind their absence, and then too, the earl’s voice held no more than its usual boredom, despite his words. So she only laughed and said dismissively, “You’d have done better to send a gardener with pruning shears. I’d no idea that you English kept timber on your land as impenetrable as our deepest forests.”

  “Oh?” he said with a little interest lightening his gray eyes, “like the ones with all those dreadful creatures lying in wait within them? Why don’t you tell us some more about them? Lord knows we could do with some enthralling conversation. The company’s gone into a decline since you’ve left. As you can see,” he whispered as he gave her one long white hand in assistance so that she could gracefully settle down to her lawn seating again, “they’re all positively wilting, and it isn’t just the weather that’s breeding ennui. We could use a little enlivenment from our intrepid young American visitor.”

  He smiled down at her, and from where she sat upon the ground, he seemed even taller, for to read his expression she had to tilt her head so far back as to look foolish. Perhaps that was why she decided to only shake her head in denial of his request, because it seemed silly to carry on a conversation with someone yards above you, and not, she told herself bracingly, most certainly not because she’d just been warned against indulging herself by telling more such tales. This day, she mused, she seemed to be being invited to the most awkward discussions with gentlemen she’d have otherwise enjoyed chatting with, for they seemed either to tower over her or sit behind her when they spoke.

  That was why, after she noted the earl had removed himself a pace from her, she greeted young Lord Greyville with such a wide smile when he approached and then without ceremony plunked himself down beside her with a sigh, and hugging his knees, said disarmingly, “What a pack of dead bores you must take us for, Miss Hamilton. Your only excitement today was when the Viking took you for a ride, but then he dropped you off and went on his way again. And this Duke of Limbs,” he whispered, gesturing with one raised shoulder to the earl behind him, “only says sweet somethings into your ears, and those, from two miles away. Poor sport! I’ll wager you don’t pass your afternoons in such no-account fashion back where you come from,” he concluded, looking at her eagerly.

  “Of course she doesn’t, ignorant puppy,” the earl commented laconically, causing the young gentleman to wince, since he’d only approached the American girl when it seemed that the older man had moved away from her and had been thoroughly engrossed with staring out at something across the waters. “But she doesn’t dare tell you the whole of it for fear you’d drown yourself in the lake in shame for your lack of enterprise. Then too,” he mused, “perhaps she’s afraid the Viking will come bounding out of the forest again to repudiate her.”

  “The Viking?” Faith asked curiously, for she’d thought the first mention had just been Lord Greyville’s jest regarding Lord Deal’s dramatic appearance, but now the earl’s continued reference to it confused her.

  “That is our little name for Lord Deal,” the earl commented, with a sidewise smile at Lord Greyville which was instantly reciprocated, “whose last visit seems to have silenced you.”

  “Oh too bad,” Lord Greyville said with disappointment, “since I wondered at what American fellows did for fun on summer afternoons.”

  When Faith did not answer at once, the earl looked down at her indecision and said in kindlier fashion than was his usual wont, “You might as well tell him, Miss Hamilton, since he’ll doubtless cling like a burr until you do. And I shouldn’t worry about the Viking. I don’t know how Lord Deal would be able to contradict you on the subject of American gentlemen and the way they spend their leisure even if he came down on a thunderbolt to interrupt you this time, since when he visited your nation last I imagine your countrymen had very few idle hours, and likely were all engaged in shooting at him in any event.”

  “Well,” said Faith, looking up him, and raising her chin, she went on defiantly, “as it happens you’re right both ways, your grace. I’m not worried about being contradicted, and my countrymen often pass their leisure time shooting, whether we are at war or not. Because, you see, there’s so much to shoot at. For example, I’m sure you’ve heard about our great bears?”

  “I’d wring your neck Fay, my dear,” Will Rossiter remarked pleasantly as he took her arm and marched her a few paces ahead of the rest of the company that was straggling back to the manor, “if there weren’t so many witnesses.”

  “But then you’d have to leave sweet Mary’s side for an extra minute to do so,” Faith replied just as charmingly and in just as low a voice.

  They smiled at each other so prettily, and seemed so much in charity, that to the rest of the houseguests, who could not hear them, it seemed as it always did, that the two young Americans were brother and sister. They were a handsome couple, and it was generally agreed to be especially charming to see them when they conferred together. Though they did not exactly look alike, there was a likeness about them. She was nearing her twenty-first year and he was only four years her senior. Miss Hamilton had those long straight gleaming brown tresses, and Mr. Rossiter, a stylish crop only a shade darker. She had a shapely, graceful form, and he was trim and well-coordinated. And though his eyes were the shade of deep brewed tea, and hers smoky gray, when they spoke together their accents made them seem as twinned as the Washburn sisters were.

  Mr. Rossiter had been born in England, and it was true that each time he spoke with an Englishman he sounded more British, but like so many afflicted with unintentional mimicry, he seemed to lapse when he chatted with Miss Hamilton. What those two spoke in those oddly flat and nasal accents sounded so different from English as to be another language entirely, and yet what they said was comprehensible. Listening to them, as one amazed gentleman said, was more than amusing, it was like suddenly discovering you understood Latin, a thoroughly unexpected and delightful experience. Even now, some of the guests, seeing them deep in whispered conference, felt it was too bad that they were missing out on the fun, since no one could hear what the two were conversing about.

  “Do you suppose,” Harry Fabian remarked half-seriously to Jeremy Tuttle as they sauntered in the wake of the pair, “that all Americans act as though they’re related to each other? Is that what they mean by the democratic principle they’re always going on about?”

  “I shouldn’t think so,” his companion replied quite seriously, since he seldom saw humor unless he could actually see it with his eyes, and Harry seemed to be straight-
faced, “because I understand their population’s growing and it can’t be all due to immigration.”

  “I couldn’t stop you once you were in full spate,” Will went on, his pleasant smile for the company’s sake at odds with the annoyance in his tone for her, “but you’ve got to decide whether you want to be received as a guest or an entertainer here. If your grandfather could hear you, my girl, he’d whack you. I would if I dared. You’ve got to stop spouting that nonsense. You’re making it seem like we all grew up in haystacks, or just swung down from the trees.”

  “Ah, you’re afraid I’ll hobble your style,” she said.

  “It’s you I worry about,” he replied, before she cut in with just enough anger to silence him, “Bother it’s me, my boy. I’ve got the pack of them eating out of my hands. It’s your Lady Mary you’re worried about. And as they’re all tickled at whatever I say since they’ve been told it’s a very rich American lady says it, she’ll take you as you come, Will. You’re not accountable for me.”

  “But I am, Fay,” he said unhappily, his brown eyes so serious that she heard him out. “I promised to look after you while we’re here, and you know I’ve offered more than that to you, many times. And not just for your money either. We’re friends, and if you’ve changed your mind about it and dislike me making up to Lady Mary, tell me now, before I get too involved, because I tell you I will get more involved if you do not.”

  “Ah, Will,” she said softly, “many times indeed. You’ve offered for me four times, this makes it the fifth, and I’ll tell you again, no. And I know we’re friends, just as I know it’s only that between us, though you’re right, there’s no ‘only’ about such a nice thing. So court your lady and good luck to you, she’s sweet and kind, besides being outrageously beautiful, and I’d like to see you make a match of it. Don’t worry so much about me. I’ll do fine for myself.”