Chapter 16
CHAPTER 16
“ O n your mark, get set, go!” called out Lady Meredith Quince, Frederick’s pocket watch in her hand to time the three men racing in their shirt sleeves to the bottom of the middle field in the garden of Colborne House.
Annabelle and Victoria stood watching and calling out encouragement equally to all three runners, while Lord Emberly stations himself a little to one side, in good temper but not quite joining in with the merriment.
The ladies called out more loudly on the return leg, especially Victoria.
“Come on then, stir yourselves!” she yelled in fun. “No lemonade for the last man in!”
The vigor of her voice and words made Annabelle giggle, as did the shocked expression on Stephen’s face.
Frederick and Jacob Rawlings came in neck and neck over the pathway marking the race’s endpoint, with Oswald a few steps behind.
“I hope Miss Crawford didn’t mean what she said about the lemonade,” he laughed breathlessly. “I always let Jacob win these things, because otherwise he gets upset. I would have run harder if I’d known the stakes were so high at the start.”
“I was only teasing, Lord Darrington,” Victoria assured him, going over to the laden picnic table and pouring glasses of cold lemonade from a bottle in a covered ice bucket.
“Anyway, at least you ran,” Annabelle added, handing out three glasses to the panting men. “That alone earns you lemonade.”
“Do you not like sport at all, Lord Emberly?” asked Victoria, looking over to Annabelle’s brother with a raised eyebrow. “I suppose it is insufficiently serious to engage you, although it was viewed as an essential element of education and good health for the ancient greeks.”
For a moment, Stephen was silent, surprised to be directly challenged on his unwillingness to join in the race with the other men. He and Victoria had not seemed entirely comfortable with one another that afternoon although both had been civil enough. Their mild clash at the ball had cast a longer shadow than Annabelle had expected.
“I suppose that in my father’s absence, I feel that I am acting in his stead in hosting you all here,” Stephen said slowly after gathering his thoughts. “I cannot therefore do anything that would not befit his dignity. I do like some sports very much. Mountaineering and climbing, for example, although family circumstances have precluded that in recent years. I swim in the lake every morning I am here.”
The rest of the party was quiet for a moment, all slightly abashed at this reminder that Colborne House was more normally host to physicians and nurses than picnickers and merry-makers. Annabelle felt sorry for her brother, sensing again that he was in some ways as much a prisoner of conventions as she was, or even perhaps more.
Unsure what to say, she went over and patted his arm, hoping that someone else would step in and change the subject. Despite his pride and stiffness, Stephen had always been good to her and Annabelle loved him dearly.
“Tell us more about the ancient greeks, Victoria,” Frederick spoke up with a grin, not failing Annabelle’s hopes. “Didn’t their young women take part in sports and racing too?”
“Among the Spartans, certainly,” Victoria replied. “Their young women ran, rode, threw javelins and even wrestled. They had their own competitions and some even competed with the young men.”
“That does not sound altogether safe or sensible to me,” commented Stephen. “I would certainly not like to think of Annabelle exerting herself in that way. She might be badly hurt. Surely women are better suited to gentler exercises, like walking and dancing.”
“I do like to ride nowadays,” Annabelle pointed out to her brother. “Frederick took me out with him at Heartwick Hall and sometimes we even galloped.”
She paused when she perceived the slight frown forming on Stephen’s face at this mention of her time with Frederick. It was as well not to aggravate him or to plant any further questions in his mind.
“Although do I concede I am too small for any other athletic event, even only with other women,” she added.
“Never mind. If there are any further races, I shall run on your behalf, Annabelle,” Frederick joked, without knowing how his words made her heart flutter. “If you need a champion, I will wear your colors.”
Oswald Quince, meanwhile, laughed and clapped his hands.
“That sounds like a capital idea to me, Miss Crawford. You should race with our two real athletes here while I drink lemonade with Lord Emberly and Lady Annabelle.”
“I am in more than half in mind to do just that,” declared Victoria, returning from the picnic table and gazing down the garden. “I am close to the gentlemen in height and I do keep myself physically fit. In fact, yes, I shall run, if any of you gentlemen would be willing to race again.”
Kicking off her shoes with a determined expression on her face and a challenge in her eyes, Victoria glanced briefly to Stephen as though daring him to make any further remark. Then, she sat down on the ground with her back to the group and peeled off her stockings, tossing them after her shoes, to Annabelle’s mingled shock and admiration.
Annabelle heard her brother inhale sharply as Victoria strode to the starting line barefoot and then looked over to Frederick and Jacob Rawlings with a raised chin, summoning them to the second race.
“Surely not,” Stephen said, something like genuine concern in his voice. “This does not seem quite right to me, Miss Crawford.”
“True, these two are tired from their first race while I am fresh. However, I am also a woman rather than a man, so I shall assume that their immediate handicap merely levels the playing field. Are you ready with that watch again, Lady Meredith?”
“I am, Miss Crawford,” said the other woman, her lively hazel ideas dancing as merrily as her brother’s.
“What would your brother say, Miss Crawford?” Stephen put to her, his expression still incredulous and somewhat flustered.
“‘Run faster, Victoria! That’s what your legs are for!’, I expect. That’s the kind of thing he used to say when I was running about with other children at home,” Victoria answered with a laugh, much to Stephen’s consternation.
“On your mark, get set, go!” shouted Lady Meredith again and the three figures set off across the lawn, Victoria’s white skirts flying at the back while she caught them in one hand at the front.
This time Jacob Rawlings tripped as he turned on his heel for the return lap and then rolled on the floor laughing at his own misfortune. Frederick and Victoria, however were running abreast of one another, legs racing and arms pumping.
Annabelle could see that Stephen’s eyes were fixed in dismay on the indecent exposure of Victoria Crawford’s shapely and powerful legs. Her own eyes, however, were all for Frederick, the sight of his exertion and physical capability warming and accelerating the blood in her veins as much as his.
Once again the result was a draw, with both Frederick and Victoria collapsing happily onto the grass at the path boundary.
“You may take that one, Victoria. I was running for Annabelle after all, so she is the one to share your victory,” Frederick pronounced, panting heavily. “What do you think of that Stephen? Victory to the ladies!”
“Are you quite well, Miss Crawford?” said Stephen anxiously, coming to Victoria’s side and extending an arm to help her up from the grass. “I cannot believe that was healthy for you…”
At these words, Victoria sprang crossly to her feet without any assistance.
“Of course I am well,” she said tersely. “I am no more out of breath than Frederick. We were simply having fun, Lord Emberly. I exert myself more than that on a gentle stroll through the woods at Walden Towers. In fact, I feel rather in need of such a stroll now. Do excuse me.”
Without even pausing to collect her shoes and socks, Victoria stomped away down the garden, leaving Stephen standing there and looking after her with bafflement.
“Did I speak out of turn, Annabelle?” he asked her and she could only shrug.
“You might have complimented Victoria’s running,” she suggested. “That might have been bette received.”
“Complimented her running?” he repeated, even more confused at the idea of complimenting a woman on such a strange thing. “But why? And now Miss Crawford has gone off without her shoes and stockings and will take a chill and sicken. I must go after her. Do excuse me.”
Picking up Victoria’s discarded items of clothing, Stephen hurried away in the direction she had taken. Meanwhile, Jacob Rawlings had returned to the group, still laughing.
“Just as well that I did not offer to be your champion, is it not, Lady Meredith?” the soldier said. “You would have lost miserably."
“You and Oswald are always my champions, dear Jacob,” smiled Oswald’s sister, holding out her hands to both her brother and his friend. “Now, while that little drama with the shoes is playing out, why don’t the three of us take a walk around that maze, if Lady Annabelle is agreeable. Jacob returns to his regiment soon and there are things we wanted to talk about before then.”
“Of course, do go,” Annabelle encouraged them. “It is not a very big maze and I doubt you can get very lost. If you’re not back by the time we start eating, I’ll send Stephen to find you.”
As the other three guests walked away into the hedges, Frederick rolled across to where Annabelle was now sitting on the grass and looked up at her with a smile on his presently pink and always handsome face. For the first time that afternoon, they were alone.
“I should thank you for my victory, I suppose,” she said softly, responding automatically to his smile with one of her own.
“A kiss is the traditional means of reward in such circumstances,” he told her with mock seriousness and then sat up to swiftly to steal a kiss from her startled lips.
Annabelle made a sound of flustered pleasure, eager for Frederick’s touch but terrified of discovery in this environment.
“Stephen could reappear at any minute,” she reminded them both. “Imagine what he would say if he saw that.”
“But it was such a small, quick kiss, wasn't it?” Frederick teased her. “I could easily claim I was only helping wipe a piece of dust from your eye or chasing away an insect.”
“As if Stephen would believe that! He now thinks you are a true libertine, Frederick.”
“And yet still he has gone chasing a barefoot Victoria Crawford across Colborne House gardens and left me here alone to have my wicked way with you.”
“It does not seem so very wicked to me,” Annabelle said. “Whatever Stephen might think, or anyone else.”
“No,” Frederick agreed, touching her hand but pulling back quickly. “I am determined not to be wicked at all with you, Annabelle. It is only that you are so very kissable that it’s hard to deny myself at least that much. Speaking of kisses, have you kissed Oswald Quince yet?”
“No!” said Annabelle, the question feeling unnatural and disturbing as well as unexpected. “I have not. There has never been any question of it. I don’t want to think about that at all, Frederick. It is too strange.”
“Don’t you think you should kiss him if you intend to marry him?” Frederick suggested. “Imagine being married to a man you never wanted to kiss.”
“Don’t,” Annabelle murmured, tears coming into her eyes from nowhere. “I’ve already said I don’t want to think about it.”
“But Lord Darrington has shown great interest in you, hasn’t he? You danced together three times at the Orville ball and seemed very happy in his company. He will want to kiss you eventually, you know.”
“Maybe he dances with me only for fun, or out of politeness because he knows that I am shy. We both like to gossip, I suppose, and there is that too. Oswald is a kind man, but I have no reason to think he wants to kiss me.”
“You’re beautiful, Annabelle, but how easily you seem to forget it. You should have more confidence in your effect on men. Just look at what you do to me. How could Oswald Quince not want to kiss you? Or Jacob Rawlings, come to that.”
Annabelle blushed and met Frederick’s eyes seeing only sincerity and desire in their gaze. It was not an expression she had ever seen in Lord Darrington’s eyes, or those of Captain Rawlings, and she genuinely did not think that she wanted to.
“Oswald shows no sign of wishing to kiss me, but we did talk about marriage,” she conceded.
“Oh,” Frederick said lightly, turning onto his back with an arm behind his head and looking up to the sky rather than at Annabelle, as though he were thinking deeply. “Marriage before kissing. How very proper. Stephen would be delighted with such a brother-in-law, I think.”
“It was not even that kind of conversation, Frederick. There is no need to say anything to Stephen at all. Oswald only asked me what I thought about marriage, and what was important to me in a husband. It does not mean that he is thinking of actually marrying me. I dare say that men ask women these questions all the time.”
“They do not,” Frederick said crisply, his eyes still fixed on the few clouds floating across the perfect blue of the summer sky. “I have never asked a woman what she sought in a husband, Annabelle, because I have never sought to become a husband. If Lord Darrington has asked you such a question, then marriage is certainly on his mind.”
This thought sent Annabelle into a flurry of panic even though she liked Oswald Quince very much and had indeed embarked on a plan to find a husband this season.
“Then what should I do, Frederick?” she asked. “Are you certain in your interpretation of Oswald’s behavior?”
The golden-haired man on the grass only took a deep breath and continued to stare up at the sky.
“They’re all good signs,” he said vaguely.
Annabelle wished she could throw herself down on the grass beside Frederick, close her own eyes and rest her head on his chest. From their illicit embraces at Heartwick Hall, she knew how powerfully and comfortingly his heart beat and how the scent of his skin both soothed and excited her.
In Frederick’s arms, society and all its conventions paled into insignificance, leaving only heat, pleasure and longing. Here and now, however, such wishes were pointless.
“Annabelle! Can you please tell your brother to let me be?” rang out Victoria Crawford’s exasperated voice as the woman herself returned to view from beyond the hedges near the fountains. “I cannot seem to convince Lord Emberly that it is perfectly healthy and normal to walk barefoot outdoors on a summer’s day? He is still pursuing me now.”
“Keep running, Victoria! That’s my advice,” Frederick laughed, sitting up and grinning with his usual easy charm. “He’ll never catch you, if you don’t want him to.”
“Why must he underestimate women so much?” Victoria fumed, coming to sit down on the grass beside Annabelle and Frederick without noticing Annabelle’s short, sad sigh and fleeting glance at the Duke of Heartwick. “It is infuriating!”
“Beyond Annabelle and the Duchess of Colborne, his mother, I do not believe that Stephen has great experience of the society of women,” Frederick observed, his expression teasing. “Perhaps more of your company is what he needs to set him right, Victoria. Or other more patient women, if you can make the necessary introductions?”
“It is possible for a man to have too much experience of women’s society,” Victoria responded tartly to Frederick’s suggestion.
“ Touché !” he laughed, unoffended. “Although I do not feel it has done me any harm.”
“I’m sure that the society of the right women is good for men,” Annabelle said, seeking a happy medium between her friends. “But I will speak to Stephen. I’m sure he means well but he does interfere so sometimes.”
As they spoke, Lord Emberly himself reappeared on one path while the Quince siblings and Captain Rawlings popped up again on another, smiling and talking happily together.
“Miss Crawford! There you are,” Stephen called out. “I feared you might have taken the wrong path and become lost on our neighbor’s land.”
“God save me!” Victoria muttered. “How do you stand it, Annabelle?”
Annabelle scrambled to her feet and extracted her friend’s shoes and stockings from her brother’s hands.
“I’m very hungry, Stephen. Aren’t you?” she asked.
“How did you find the maze?” Frederick added, directing a question to Oswald Quince and his companions while deftly heading off Stephen’s move towards Victoria by putting an arm around his friend’s shoulder and steering him to the picnic table.
Frederick always seemed to know what to do in any social situation, Annabelle sighed to herself, glad that he was there today for that reason as well as her own pleasure in his company.
“We enjoyed the maze very much,” Lord Darrington confirmed. “As you said, the puzzle to be solved turned out to be not so large at all.”
The three of them shared knowing glances with one another and smiled as though they had been sharing some private joke out there. Perhaps they had. The trio seemed very close and Annabelle thought for a moment that it would be a shame for any of them to marry and ruin their natural symmetry.
“Indeed? Which puzzle was that?” Frederick asked Oswald Quince frankly but with a slight edge to his voice that surprised Annabelle.
The latter only shook his head and laughed.
“Oh, never mind puzzles today. We have sunshine, plentiful food and good company. Tomorrow we may have none of these.”
“Hear, hear,” said Stephen. “Let us be thankful for our health, prosperity and happiness while we can.”
Taking up glasses of lemonade, they all raised a toast in the sunlight. Despite the gloriousness of the June day, the fun of their earlier games, and the smile on Frederick’s lips, Annabelle could see nothing of real joy in his eyes.