XI #3
Rory glanced at her suspiciously, and Nell returned the look steadily.
The younger girl hunched one pretty shoulder and twisted her lips into a slight pout.
“Oh, very well, it is not a chance meeting, as I expect you know well enough. I asked him to meet us here.” She looked directly at Nell, as if she was gathering courage.
Then her chin came up, and she licked her lips and plunged to the heart of the matter.
“I wanted to see him quite desperately, Aunt Nell. Please try to understand. He was so angry with me last night because of that stupid business on the esplanade. I told him myself, thinking to amuse him. Only”—she paused, drawing a ragged breath—“only he didn’t find it amusing at all.
He said I had behaved dreadfully and not at all as he should have expected me to behave.
Also, he said he had thought I had better sense.
And, oh, Aunt Nell, I do, and I mean to tell him so and also to tell him that I apologized to everyone, so he won’t be angry with me anymore. ”
“But why should it matter that he might be vexed? That young man is nothing to you, and you didn’t care a rap for the fact that Huntley was displeased.
” Watching her niece closely, Nell realized that the thought as she had expressed it hadn’t struck Rory before.
She seemed taken aback, but she brushed the words aside impatiently.
“I don’t know why it should matter. I only know that it does matter.
It matters a great deal that he should think well of me.
Please, Aunt Nell, when he gets here, could you possibly be so obliging as to fall a bit behind so that I may speak to him properly?
Surely it will not be so dreadful if you keep us in sight. ”
Nell’s first inclination was to deny the request, but she thought better of it.
After all, the major’s influence so far had been only beneficial, and at least he would not step beyond the line of what was pleasing.
She could even hope that he might succeed in deterring Rory from future outrageous behavior.
She watched as, taking her reluctant nod for encouragement, Rory spurred the mare and sped to meet him.
He turned his mount when she reached him, and Nell was thus left nearly a quarter mile behind.
It did not worry her particularly, because it was fairly open country, and she did not fear losing sight of them.
Upon hearing a halloo a few moments later, she turned in her saddle and saw a horseman approaching at speed.
She had no difficulty whatsoever in recognizing the broad-shouldered, loose-limbed gentleman atop the large roan-colored stallion moving with such liquid speed through gorse and over small shrubs as if he were on the prince’s own grassy racetrack.
Reining in, she half-turned her mount and waited for him to draw even with her.
A sudden thrill of pleasure shot through her, speedily replaced by dismay as she glanced back over her shoulder to discover that the major and Rory had disappeared over a small rise.
As she looked back again, Huntley waved, and she marveled at how he seemed to be part of his mount.
Like a centaur, she thought, watching him draw closer.
The stallion was still moving at great speed, and she could hear his hooves pounding the hard ground.
By all rights, she ought to have been terrified at the possibility of being ridden down, but the thought never so much as occurred to her, and she seemed to sense the very moment when he would draw rein, the very moment when the stallion would come to a plunging halt only feet from her.
Both grooms, having drawn up a short distance behind her, sat their horses, gaping.
“What a magnificent animal!” Nell breathed. “He is truly splendid, Philip.”
“Never mind that,” Huntley snapped. “What the devil are you doing out here alone?”
She looked at him then. She had been so intent upon his beautiful horse that she had not realized he was angry until he spoke.
But if she was to go by the look of him, he was very angry, indeed.
Nell drew in a long breath, watching him much as if by doing so she hoped to calm his temper as well as her nerves.
“I am not precisely alone, my lord.”
“I can see that, girl. I’m not a ninny. But I am not referring to two sapskull grooms who would be of little use to you if you were to encounter ruffians of either the military or civilian variety. However, I was informed that Aurora would be with you.”
“Who …” Then she remembered Kit, and realized he had probably mentioned that Rory had been dressed for riding.
In that case, of course Huntley’s anger was nothing more than annoyance that she had seemed to misplace Rory again.
The notion restored her normal presence of mind, and hoping to divert his attention until they should at least come in sight of the other couple, she glanced at him quizzically.
“I do hope you have not seen fit to murder my brother, sir.”
A reluctant smile lit his eyes then, and he relaxed in his saddle as he drew the huge stallion in closer.
“I didn’t. I like him. But I did get a round tale and gave him some good advice, so I daresay Aurora will find it a bit more difficult to get ’round him next time.
” The smile touched his lips. “This little tangent will not answer, you know. Where is she? Don’t tell me she has been naughty enough to give you the slip. ”
“No, but I fear you will not like what I have done, and so I did not like to tell you straight away.”
“Thought you weren’t afraid of me.”
“Don’t be nonsensical. ’Twas merely that I didn’t wish to incur your censure, and I do fear that by allowing Rory to speak privately with Major Talcott, I may have done just that.” He said nothing, and she stared at him fixedly. “Well, you might say something,” she said at last. “Are you vexed?”
“No, Nell, merely surprised. That Talcott fellow seems mighty stubborn, doesn’t he?”
She nodded, but then her conscience pricked her.
“It was not his notion to meet us here, Philip. I am afraid Rory sent him a message. In fact, I think she had it in mind originally to come here in search of him. I scotched that by insisting that she must not ride anywhere alone. But though I realized she was up to mischief, it truly never occurred to me that she might arrange an assignation or that he would come to meet her if she did.”
“You underestimated them both, it seems.” But he smiled down at her, and she knew he was not angry.
She smiled back. The two grooms had dropped back some distance, and Rory and the major were still beyond their range of sight, so she felt quite alone with him again and conscious of that odd feeling of shyness.
“I am glad you are not angry, Huntley,” she said at last, rather briskly.
“Rory wanted to tell him she was sorry about her behavior yesterday. It seems she told him the whole last night, expecting him to be amused by the tale. He was not, and that is why she was so subdued on the way home and so apologetic later.”
Huntley was silent long enough to make her fear that she had annoyed him after all, but when she looked up at him, she saw that he was only deep in thought.
It seemed a long time before he turned his gaze toward her, and there was a look in his eyes that she could not decipher when he did.
It was gone seconds later, replaced by a rueful gleam.
“It appears likely that I shall have to have another talk with that young man before we are any of us much older,” he said. But for once his tone was not grim. Indeed, Nell thought he sounded much as if he regarded the prospect as a gloomy one.