Chapter Seven #2
As it was even colder in the house than usual, Henrietta had dressed her in her flannel underdress and a long-sleeved yellow velvet dress. That velvet was a bit heavier weight than her lighter velvets and would go some way into keeping out the frigid air.
The second gong had been rung and she hurried down the stairs to the drawing room.
Her papa was questioning Lord Burkhart about whether it was usual to go about riding in a winter storm in Yorkshire.
He was assuring the viscount it was not.
Her dear father would be like a caged tiger on the morrow.
He delighted in going out on the estate with Mr. Tidewater and Henry, but it would surely be impossible.
Mr. Lelander came straight to her side, which was very encouraging.
“I hope you have not found that you strained anything from your near fall on the ice, Miss Poppy. These things can sometimes take a few hours to make themselves known.”
“I have not, Mr. Lelander. I believe you caught me just in time.”
“I was happy to be on hand at the critical moment.”
“It might have been a terrible fall.”
“That is what I think. Ice, it can be deadly.”
“Ice really is known for its danger, is it not?”
“Ice, a terrible thing.”
Mrs. Dallway approached and Poppy said, “Have you met our friend, Mrs. Dallway?”
“Indeed, I have had the pleasure,” Mr. Lelander said.
Mrs. Dallway said, “I already knew Burkhart from York, but Mr. Lelander is from Lancashire so…”
That statement hung in the air and Poppy hoped they were not on the verge of discussing the Roses War again.
Very suddenly, they heard a banging on the front doors and a shout of “Hello!”
Poppy hurried to the windows with Mr. Lelander on her heels. She peered out. Under the glow of the light coming from the windows, she saw a lone gentleman and his horse on the snowy drive. She did not recognize him.
“Who is it?” Mr. Lelander asked.
“I have not the faintest idea,” Poppy said. “He is a stranger to the neighborhood. At least, I believe so. I wonder if he’s been caught in the storm. His horse carries panniers so he must be on some sort of journey.”
“I think it very likely.”
Mr. Smuckers, the viscount, and Lord Smythesdon had hurried out to the great hall to discover who was banging after sunset and in this sort of weather. Everyone else in the drawing room had stopped talking and all eyes were on the doors.
Poppy could hear muffled talking but could not make out what was being said. After several minutes, the viscount and Lord Smythesdon returned.
“We’ve acquired a traveler,” the viscount said. “The man is positively mad. He left the safety of an inn, somehow imagining he could make it to Oxford. He’s been struggling through drifts for hours.”
“Smuckers is showing him up to a room while Johnny brings up his panniers and helps him change to dry clothes,” Lord Smythesdon said.
“I told him, he’s welcome to stay,” the viscount said, “but we won’t hold dinner for him. I cannot afford to have Mr. Moreau stage a walk off, especially not in this weather. We’d never find him in the dark.”
Mrs. Dallway snorted next to Poppy. She was perennially amused by their cook’s threats to set off down the drive and never return. He’d only done it a few times and not in years, but the threat hung over the house nevertheless.
“Mr. Smuckers is setting a place for the fellow at table and he will join us when he is prepared to,” Lord Smythesdon said.
“Who is he, though?” Poppy asked.
“Louis Montagu, Baron Montachet, hailing from Gloucestershire,” Lord Smythesdon said. “Seems a very debonair and devil-may-care sort of fellow. The first thing he said was that he’d got himself into a bit of a fix.”
Poppy noticed Mr. Lelander stiffen. She did not think it likely that he would know the baron and wondered if he were discomfited at another gentleman turning up.
She would like it very much if he did not like it.
There would be no real reason for it that she could see.
She could not imagine a gentleman finer than Mr. Lelander. Nevertheless, she would like it.
The third gong rang and Mr. Lelander held out his arm.
They took their usual places and Poppy noticed that an extra chair and place setting had been arranged on her other side. She also noticed Mr. Lelander looking askance at it. It was rather lovely that he did so.
“Well, now,” the viscount said, holding up his glass, “we are all safe and sound in the house and it storms out of doors and we’ve managed to acquire an extra person too.
I hope nobody else is wandering round out there.
One stranger and two houseguests is quite enough for my blood.
” The viscount gave a wistful sigh. “I suppose we won’t get up to much on the morrow. ”
“Perhaps, my love,” the viscountess said, “you have earned a day of rest.”
“I don’t like it. That’s why I never do it.”
“Perhaps Henry will appreciate it, though,” Maribelle said.
“Hah!” the viscount said. “Henry can lie around like nobody I know.”
Before Henry could dispute the charge, Maribelle said, “He will be very well employed. He can help me untangle that big basket of yarn we are all always meaning to get to. We always say we will and then we never do. I am determined on it; we tackle it in the morning.”
Poor Henry did not look very enthusiastic about that plan.
Poppy did not blame him. That wicker basket was a catchall of tangled skeins and balls of yarn, lengths of thread, and anything else nobody knew what to do with, all in a tangle.
The worst part was, there were embroidery needles mixed in too and one could never identify where they were until one was poked in the finger.
It was like blindly sticking one’s hand in a foxhole and wondering if one would get bit.
The mysterious gentleman entered the dining room just as the first course was being laid. He was tall and muscular with dark brown hair and had deep set eyes and a very aquiline nose.
“Viscount,” he said, “I must thank you for your hospitality in my hour of need.”
The viscount waved him off. “You would not need anything at all if you’d stayed snug at an inn like a rational person.”
The gentleman nodded with what seemed like good humor. “I did set out with a certain amount of joie de vivre that was perhaps, upon reflection, unwarranted.” He turned to the viscountess. “Lady Mulholland, I presume? Louis Montagu, Baron Montachet.”
“You are very welcome, Lord Montachet,” the viscountess said. “Jimmy, do show the gentleman to his place.”
Lord Montachet took his place next to Poppy.
The viscountess then went on to make the introductions round the table.
As were most people, the baron was surprised to encounter twins, though he instantly spotted that their beauty marks were on opposite sides and that would be the surest way to distinguish between them.
The viscount said, “I suppose you are not to feel too very bad about your lack of judgement regarding this weather, Baron. One of my own daughters did the very same.”
The baron turned to Poppy with an inquiring look.
“Oh no, that was my sister Pansy. I kept myself to the garden.”
“Very sensible,” the baron said.
“Though she did almost fall,” Mr. Lelander said, leaning forward. “On ice.”
“That is true,” Poppy said. “Mr. Lelander caught me just in time.”
“Very fast reflexes, I’m sure. And you, Miss Pansy,” the baron said, “you braved the weather on this terrible day?”
“I did,” Pansy said, “though like you, I underestimated how it was to be. Lord Burkhart had a terrible time getting us home. His efforts were quite heroic.”
“Ah! We have a hero at table,” the baron said, raising his glass in Lord Burkhart’s direction.
“I was there also,” Lord Smythesdon said. “And also suffered.”
“Now we have two heroes!” the baron said.
“And also,” Poppy said, “Mr. Lelander saved me from a terrible fall. On ice.”
“Three heroes!” the baron exclaimed. “Viscount, you are surrounded by heroes.”
The viscount looked rather surprised to hear it.
“Yorkists always persevere,” Lord Burkhart said, staring at Mr. Lelander.
“Not according to results,” Mr. Lelander said. “That must go to a Lancastrian.”
Poppy sighed and she could see Pansy felt the same. They were back to the Roses War.
“Yorkists and Lancastrians. I sense a disagreement that goes back into the annals of time,” the baron said.
“It is simply a matter of rights,” Lord Burkhart said, “and that cannot ever be ignored or forgotten regardless of the time passed.”
For some reason, this caused the baron to laugh uncontrollably. “Rights, what a notion.”
Mr. Lelander leaned forward and talked around Poppy. “Do you question the rights of the Lancastrians to rule?”
The baron dabbed his mouth with a napkin.
“I do not need to question their right, neither the white rose nor the red had the right to rule. I am descended from the House of Normandy and as far as we are concerned, the Plantagenets were upstarts. Without the White Ship Disaster, that family would have been irrelevant.”
“The Anarchy period,” the viscount said, nodding thoughtfully.
“Once again, my people did not much care. Matilda or Stephen of Blois, it was all the same to us. We still have records of the devastation in our farming at that time. Good luck getting a harvest in while men are killing each other on your fields!”
Poppy and Pansy stared at one another. How was it possible that there was to be a third argument over the throne of England centuries ago? Why did anybody care?
Mr. Lelander sat back in his chair, looking exceedingly discomfited.
Lord Burkhart did not seem any more amused.
The baron appeared supremely satisfied with the conversation. He said, “I find this rather invigorating. I haven’t had the opportunity to mention the House of Normandy in ages. Nobody talks about it anymore.”
“Perhaps with good reason?” Lord Hemmings said.
“Except my grandfather,” the baron said, as if Lord Hemmings had made no comment at all. “He can be a little bitter about it and is convinced the White Ship was sabotaged.”