Meridon (Wideacre Trilogy 3) Read online

  I shrugged. ‘A little,’ I said. ‘Enough to prove to him who I am. Nothing more.’

  She nodded as if she were pleased. ‘Good,’ she said. ‘As your duenna I shall make rules for your behaviour. The first is that you will wear gloves all the time, and the other is even more important.’

  I waited.

  ‘You’ll speak of your past to no one,’ she said bluntly. ‘What you have told me you will tell no one else. When you move in society we shall say merely that you were living quietly in the country with humble people before you were found by the trustees. Your background will be obscure but deeply respectable. Have you got that?’

  I nodded. ‘Obscure but deeply respectable,’ I said turning the words over in my mouth. ‘Yes, I’ve got that.’

  She shot a sideways smile at me. ‘Good,’ she said.

  There was a tap at the door and she turned her head and called: ‘Enter!’

  Lord Peregrine put his head tentatively around the door. ‘It’s me, Mama,’ he said.

  ‘Excellent, you can come in,’ she said briskly.

  Bathed and dressed he was radiantly beautiful, as lovely as a girl. He was wearing a dark blue riding coat with pale tight breeches and high patent-leather hessian boots. His blond hair was tightly curled and still wet from his bath. His eyes were a limpid blue and only the violet shadows under them showed that he had missed a night’s sleep. His mother looked at him coolly.

  ‘You’ll do,’ she said.

  Lord Peregrine flashed an engaging smile at her. ‘Why, thank you, Mama!’ he said as if at a great compliment and then he stood quite still, as if he were awaiting orders.

  He soon had them. He was to escort me back to Wideacre Hall and to take his mama’s card to announce that she would visit Mr Fortescue that afternoon. He was to await a reply but to stay no longer than twenty minutes, and he was to drink nothing but tea or coffee.

  ‘I don’t know what sort of table you think he keeps there, Mama,’ Lord Peregrine said pleasantly. ‘But he doesn’t look to me like the sort of chap who offers you champagne at ten in the morning.’

  She smiled grimly. ‘I don’t doubt it,’ she said. ‘And then you’ll come straight home.’

  ‘Yes, Mama,’ he said, his smile unblemished.

  I took it that I was dismissed and I rose to leave. Lady Clara shot a quick measuring glance at me.

  ‘Properly dressed, you would be beautiful,’ she said. ‘I’ll have the Chichester dressmaker come out tomorrow. You will come to me then and be fitted for new clothes.’

  I nodded. ‘Thank you, Lady Clara,’ I said politely.

  She held out her hand to me and raised her cheek for a kiss and then I managed to get myself past the delicate little table and over the pale-coloured rugs without accident. I don’t think I breathed easy until the door was shut behind us, and Lord Peregrine was leading the way back down the gallery.

  ‘Taking you in hand, is she?’ he asked.

  ‘Aye,’ I said.

  He nodded, and paused at the top of the wooden staircase to look at me. ‘Well that’s good,’ he said encouragingly. ‘She’ll get you a girl’s dress. I was thinking about it while I was having my bath and I couldn’t think where to get one. I’m glad about that.’

  I chuckled. ‘I’m glad too,’ I said.

  ‘And you’ll be coming here again!’ he said. ‘That’s grand. I was afraid it was going to be awfully slow until I went to London, but you and I can ride together and I can show you around.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said.

  ‘No trouble at all,’ he said cordially and then he took my arm and we strolled across the marble hall as if we were young brothers, as if I had been born and bred in such a place, as if we were best friends.

  23

  Peregrine escorted me home riding a showy hunter from his mama’s stables. Mr Fortescue came out on the terrace when he saw us riding up the drive and I saw by his face that he was not pleased to see me with Perry.

  He invited him inside and offered him a dish of tea. Perry rolled his eyes at me and graciously accepted. He sat in the parlour with one eye on the clock, delivered his mama’s message – word-perfect – and then left as the clock ticked precisely to the twenty minutes.

  Mr Fortescue looked gravely at me.

  ‘You have attracted the attention of Lady Clara,’ he said. ‘She isn’t the woman I would have chosen to be your adviser.’

  I looked back at him, my face as insolent as when I used to face my da.

  ‘I daresay,’ I said. ‘But then you wanted me locked up here with some country widow for five years.’

  James half gasped and shook his head. He strode over to the window and jerked back the curtain to look out. I wondered why he did not yell at me, then I remembered Quality manners. He was waiting until he could speak to me civilly.

  I thought him a fool.

  ‘You are trying to misunderstand me,’ he said in a soft voice when he turned back to the room again. ‘I do not want to lock you up here, I do not want to dictate how you should live. You may have the friends you please. But I would not be doing my duty if I did not tell you that Lady Clara has a reputation in the wider world for being a spendthrift, a gambler and a woman of the world. Her son, Lord Perry, is still at university but even so he has the reputation of gambling and heavy drinking.’

  I looked at James and my face was hard. ‘You are saying they are not well-behaved people,’ I said blankly.

  James nodded. ‘I am sorry to speak ill of them and I would not gossip. But you do not know the world they move in and I have to tell you they are not suitable company for a young lady.’

  I smiled. ‘Then they’ll do well for me,’ I said. ‘There’s a lot I’ve not told you, Mr Fortescue, for I see no need for you to know. But hear now that my father was a drunkard and a gambler, that I made my living by horse-breaking and bad trading and by stacking the card decks for him. I am not the young lady you want me to be, and I’ll never learn to be. I’m too old and too wild and too hard to be made into that mould now. The Haverings will do well enough for me.’

  He was about to answer when Becky tapped at the door and asked if I was riding with Will Tyacke, for he was waiting for me in the yard.

  I nodded at James and it was me who ended the little scrap this time. I went out into the yard feeling elated with my victory. I had gone some way to even a score that was running between us; between him who was trying to make me the child I should have been if he had found me and brought me here in time – and the real hard-hearted vagrant I was.

  Will was in the yard, high on his horse. He smiled to see me.

  ‘You got Lord Perry home safe then, I see,’ he said.

  ‘Aye,’ I said. I didn’t choose to tell him any more.

  ‘He’s a pleasant enough youngster,’ Will said, invitingly.

  ‘Aye,’ I said. I swung up into the saddle, and bent my head to tighten the girth.

  The horses moved off, Will was waiting for me to say more.

  ‘Bit wild,’ he offered.

  ‘Aye,’ I said. I had the girth to my liking and I leaned forward and flicked Sea’s mane all over to the right side of his neck.

  ‘Still, there’s many a young woman who finds him handsome,’ Will said judicially.

  ‘Aye,’ I assented.

  ‘Some of the lasses don’t see him drunk, don’t see that he’s a lad who cares for no one but himself,’ Will said pompously.

  I nodded.

  ‘Then they think he’s a fine young gentleman, they’re mad for a smile from him.’

  ‘Oh aye,’ I said by way of variation.

  Will surrendered. ‘Do you like him, Sarah?’ he asked.

  I checked Sea and looked straight at him. His face was serious, I knew that this question mattered very much to him. He wanted an honest answer.

  ‘Nowt to do with you,’ I said blankly and shut my mouth on my silence.

  We rode without speaking down the drive to the lane, and then turned l