Mistress of the Hunt (3 page)

She and Miss Pellerin enjoyed a light repast at four o’clock, after which they spent the evening sorting through the desk and writing-table drawers in the library, where a crackling fire kept them cozy and where the glow from a dozen candleholders glinted off the gilt lettering of the books that lined the walls. After several hours of industrious occupation, the two ladies retired early to their separate bedchambers, Philippa’s in the southeast corner of the upper floor, adjacent to the morning room, and Miss Pellerin’s in the southwest corner, beyond the breakfast parlor.

Like other such houses of its period, Chase Charley had originally been built upon a low ground floor known as a rustic, which had contained several informal family rooms, including a breakfast room, a coffee room, a supping parlor, and a hunting hall, but over the past thirty years or so the family had moved its informal living upward and the kitchens had been moved from what was now the laundry pavilion into the rustic. Thus, as the baron had explained enthusiastically to Philippa upon her first visit to the house, although the servants must now carry breakfast up two flights of stairs to the “new” breakfast parlor, the food actually came warmer to the table than it had in the days when it had been necessary to carry it along the open colonnade from the kitchen pavilion to the rustic. As she surveyed the dishes lined up on the buffet for her examination the following morning, however, Philippa could not see that their warmth or lack of it was of much concern.

“Really, Cousin Adeliza, we must find a better cook. These eggs are green.”

“Used a tin pot instead of an iron one, saving her strength,” opined that lady as she accepted a silver tray containing the morning post from a straight-faced young footman. “ ’Tis a pity your Mrs. Lacy refused to accompany us from London.”

Philippa smiled, remembering her cook’s outrage at the suggestion that she might be induced to leave the city to take charge of a hunting-box kitchen, but her expression turned to one of scarcely veiled anxiety as she watched her companion begin to sort through the post. When Miss Pellerin paused to look at one letter more carefully, Philippa asked quickly, “Is that from Jessalyn?”

The older lady shook her head. “It carries the Rutland crest, I believe—two unicorns and the famous peacock.” She held it out. “I daresay the duchess has heard of your arrival and is very kindly observing the amenities.”

Setting her plate down on the sideboard, Philippa took the letter with more haste than grace and sat down in the nearest chair. “Perhaps she has received word from young Beth and will have news of Jessalyn.” Opening the missive, she read rapidly, her expression changing from curiosity to amazement to near-outrage.

“What is it?” demanded Miss Pellerin. “
Has
she heard something regarding that young scamp?”

Philippa looked up from the letter, her expression grim. “Elizabeth informs me that my darling stepdaughter has been her guest this past week and longer. It seems, if you please, that Miss Blandamore was given to understand that ‘dearest Jessalyn’ had my permission to assist her grace in the celebration of her recent birthday.”

T
HOUGH PHILIPPA HAD LITTLE CONCERN
after that for breaking her fast, she gave way to Miss Pellerin’s insistence that she sustain herself against the coming storm. “For I have not the least doubt,” said the older lady, “that you will set forth to collect the minx at once.”

“I shall indeed,” Philippa agreed, getting up to retrieve her plate and moving to take her place at the table. As she did, she spoke over her shoulder to the young footman, who was now holding her chair. “Stephen, you will relay instructions to the stables that my traveling carriage is to be brought round promptly at eleven o’clock, and see that someone fetches up two portmanteaux from the trunk room.”

“Yes, m’lady.” Pausing only long enough to pour out a cup of India tea for her and to refill Miss Pellerin’s cup, Stephen departed upon his errand, leaving the two ladies alone.

“The duchess has kindly offered to put us up for the night,” Philippa said, cutting a bite of ham before adding grimly, “Not that she had much choice in the matter once she had discovered Jessalyn’s deception.”

“What, precisely, does she say with regard to that matter?” inquired Miss Pellerin, lifting her cup to sip daintily at the hot tea.

“Her note is a brief one, which you may certainly read if you like, but the gist of the matter is that Jess and another child, one Lucinda Drake, decided off their own bat to accompany Lady Elizabeth Manners when she was called home to take part in her mother’s birthday festivities. Aside from the bit about Miss Blandamore’s having believed I had given Jessalyn my permission to make the excursion, she writes only that she will explain the whole upon our arrival, which she expects to be this afternoon.”

“She must have routed that messenger out at an uncommonly early hour to get him here so quick,” Miss Pellerin said, “particularly in view of the fact that when I looked outside this morning, everything appeared to be hidden by fog.”

“Would you not do the same, ma’am, if you were to discover that a young lady visiting you was doing so under false pretenses? I daresay the messenger had his orders last night, for all that.” She paused, then flashed a rueful smile at her companion. “I am dreadfully sorry, Cousin Adeliza, to be dragging you out upon the road again just when you’ve begun to settle in.”

“Don’t give it a thought, my dear. I shall be pleased to see Belvoir Castle again. Back in the days before it became unseemly to puff off one’s skill in the French language, you know, we said the name properly. Now, calling it ‘Beaver’ as everyone does, one expects to find log dams cluttering the moat—or would if there were a moat. Isn’t one, as I recall.”

“No, ma’am. I suppose that means you haven’t been there since the present duke married. Elizabeth said it had all been let go to rack and ruin, because of the dowager and most of the Manners preferring to live at Haddon Hall or Cheveley. The sporting men amongst them came to Belvoir to hunt, of course, and the others appeared for the occasional hunting-season house party, but that was all. Elizabeth, on the other hand, has made a near-crusade out of renovating the house and turning it into a real castle.”

“Could be she thought her life would be less tumultuous away from her mother-in-law,” suggested Miss Pellerin with a twinkle.

“If that was her intent, it didn’t answer very well. The dowager spends more time there than ever she did before. But then, Elizabeth has made the place amazingly more comfortable, too, although she insists there is still much to be done. Her letters, even recently, have been as full of her plans for redoing the state apartments as of news of her infant son. You did know, did you not, that the duke has an heir at last? They had nearly despaired after fifteen years of marriage, three daughters, and I don’t know how many stillbirths and miscarriages.”

“Indeed, I did know there was a Marquess of Granby at last—born in August, was he not?”

“Yes. I daresay we shall be granted a peek at him, don’t you think?”

“No doubt,” agreed Miss Pellerin, setting down her cup. “However, if you mean to leave by eleven o’clock, we’d best stir our stumps, my dear. I’ve any number of chores that must be seen to, and you were meaning to speak to Weems about new gravel for the front drive and about setting someone to weeding those herbaceous borders. Ought to have been seen to last month, but I daresay there was rain the day they’d set aside for that particular chore.”

Philippa chuckled at this sour reference to the chief excuse that had been tendered for nearly every lack spotted by Miss Pellerin’s eagle eyes during the past week. Then her glance came to rest upon the duchess’s letter again, and the laughter faded.

Miss Pellerin, shaking crumbs from her skirts, did not fail to note her changing expression. “Young Jessalyn wants a hearty scold for this mischief, I’m thinking.”

“Indeed, ma’am, she deserves more than that. Only wait until I get my hands on that abominable girl.”

Since her temper did not improve noticeably during the next two hours, it was as well for her coachman that he brought her traveling carriage to the door promptly at eleven o’clock, as ordered. The morning fog had lifted, and the sun had managed to break through gray clouds, giving a burnished golden look to the pale yellow brick walls of the house. Glancing about her as she gathered the pomona-green skirts of her traveling dress in preparation for accepting the footman’s assistance to enter her silk-lined carriage, Philippa decided that the white gravel she had instructed Weems to order would be a distinct improvement over the gray that now decked the front drive. Her spirits lifted at the thought, and her gaze drifted to the lawn, where sunlight glinted on short, damp blades of grass, then further to the sparkling blue river below. Even the twin baroque towers of Wyvern looked welcoming, outlined as they seemed to be by gilded halos.

“You know, ma’am,” she said when Miss Pellerin had clambered in behind her and settled voluminous dove-gray skirts neatly about her on the crimson velvet seat, “it has just struck my mind that the Lucinda Drake to whom the duchess made reference might well be some connection of the Earl of Wyvern.”

“Got several daughters, the old earl has.”

“Yes, but I hadn’t realized he might have one so young. The two I have met are both older than I am. There is a son, too, is there not?”

“To be sure, young Viscount Rochford,” said Miss Pellerin, bracing herself against the carriage’s sudden lurch forward. “Not but what he’s a good bit older than you are, too, of course. Must be in his thirties at least. Still and all, the countess didn’t die till about seven years ago—maybe eight. No reason she mightn’t have had a late-born child. Old Wyvern stopped going about when she passed on, and Rochford’s been on the Continent, I believe, with Arthur Wellesley—Viscount Wellington, as they’ve chosen to style him since that dreadful battle at Talavera. Such a pity, all this fighting. Men, with all their opportunity for education, ought to recognize that war seldom serves any good purpose. Particularly war with France. Why, a gentleman must ever be better occupied chasing foxes than Frenchmen. He’s a good deal less apt to get himself killed by a fox.”

Chuckling, Philippa began to point out that not only had Lord Wellington enjoyed a great victory at Talavera, but also victories since at Vitoria and San Sebastían and, furthermore, that he had actually entered France at last, thereby causing many who might be counted upon to know about such things to predict Napoleon Bonaparte’s impending defeat. However, she had got no further than midway through her second sentence when the carriage lurched into and out of a pothole, causing her to bite her tongue painfully. Further attempts at conversation were therefore abandoned while the carriage made its lumbering way down the rutted road, through the village of Whissendine, and beyond to the river crossing. As they made their way across the bridge less than a hundred yards northwest of the tall gray towers, however, Miss Pellerin observed that the Earl of Wyvern seemed to be in residence.

“Someone is, in any event. Flag flying.”

There was indeed a green banner waving jauntily in the breeze from the left-hand tower. Philippa smiled at her companion.

“Perhaps you would care to stop and leave cards, ma’am. The earl is, after all, an eligible bachelor, and a warm one, I believe.”

“Humph,” said Miss Pellerin. “Warm in the pockets he may be, but if there’s any warmth in his personality, I never heard tell of it. As crotchety an old recluse as one might find, by all I’ve heard. And one doesn’t, as you know very well, Philippa, leave calling cards on single gentlemen.”

“Well, no,” that young lady conceded, enjoying herself, “but one might extend a gracious invitation to a neighbor to dine. That would be mere kindness, ma’am. He cannot be a recluse entirely, you know. I am certain he came to dine at least once or twice while I was here with Wakefield.”

“Be that as it may, it would be no kindness if you mean to single him out,” Miss Pellerin said severely. “I’ll not have you matchmaking, Philippa. I should enjoy such meddling in my affairs no more than you do yourself.”

“No, ma’am.” Philippa was properly chastened. She certainly did not enjoy such meddling, even when she knew it to be well-intentioned, and she had been given no reason to think for a moment that Cousin Adeliza was not thoroughly content with her lot. To be sure, it had taken no coaxing on Philippa’s part to convince her to act as companion. Miss Pellerin had fairly snatched at the opportunity, but her own explanation that it gave her something new to do seemed to be no more or less than the truth.

Conversation remained desultory at best, for even along the valley floor, the roads were in no great condition. They stopped for refreshment and to rest the horses in Waltham on the Wolds at the Grape and Saber, a charming little inn with a newly thatched roof and a jolly landlord, who insisted upon waiting upon them himself. After the jolting of the carriage, it was a welcome relief to be able to sit quietly in a private parlor for twenty minutes, but that was quite long enough for Philippa, who was anxious to reach Belvoir.

“Not that we shall arrive earlier than two o’clock or even half-past at this rate,” she said, “but there is no use in attempting to convince Witheridge to push the horses beyond what he considers to be a dignified pace.”

“Well, I, for one, prefer a sedate journey to one that brings my hat bouncing down over my eyes every few minutes,” stated Miss Pellerin with a look that told Philippa without words what her companion’s view would be of any attempt to urge the old coachman to greater speed. “We shall arrive looking like ladies, my dear, and since you intend to speak to your young stepdaughter on the very subject of ladylike behavior, I would suggest that you do nothing to make yourself appear nohow in the meantime.”

Philippa wrinkled her nose, but her eyes were twinkling. “You sound just like my mama,” she said.

“So I should think,” replied Miss Pellerin, getting in the last word before settling herself more comfortably and closing her eyes.