The Honorable Nobody (Heroines on Horseback Book 2) Read online

  But there might have been the trace of a pout in his tone, because Sutton’s glittering smile widened to a feral grin. Peregrin managed not to shrink backwards from the terrible promise in that grin, but only just.

  “Very nice to have my company,” Sutton parroted in a sing-song voice, bringing on all the school-room japes. “You’ve been a little too comfortable, Peregrin, my lad. It’s time to give you a little run for your money. I want to see if you’ve turned out better than you let on back at school.”

  Now Peregrin was simply confused. “Look,” he said, laying his cards face-down on the table behind him. “Maybe you had better just come out and say what it is on your mind. Because I really don’t know what you want with me.”

  “The same thing I’ve always wanted,” Sutton ground out, his smile gone. “To remind you of your place. Jeremy always said you thought a bit too much of yourself, parading around his house like you had some right to the place. You were nothing but a charity case. You belonged at the work-house. And now I’d say you’ve over-reached pretty far this time, Peregrin.”

  Peregrin squared his jaw. “You haven’t changed a bit, Frederick Sutton. A bully at Eton and a bully in White’s. Why don’t you go back to Ramshead and lord over it with Jeremy the way you did when we were boys? He’s just as poisonous a little boy as you are.”

  Sutton’s face grew positively murderous and Peregrin caught his breath, wondering, nay, certain, he’d gone too far, but though Sutton’s great fists were clenched he didn’t take the swing Peregrin was expecting. Instead he stood up abruptly, nearly knocking over the fine hand-carved chair he’d been abusing in the process. Peregrin leaned back quickly, as if from a blow, and more than a few aristocratic eyebrows were lifted as heads swiveled to investigate the commotion. A burly footman, who looked quite capable of tossing an ox out of the room, crossed his arms over his chest and waited to see if he had to escort an intoxicated gentleman out of the club. It was terribly early for such doings, someone whispered to a friend.

  But Lord Sutton didn’t take any swings or knock over any tables. He just ground his teeth, working his great jaw, and glared down at Peregrin. “I thought you’d at least be humble,” he ground out. “I even thought you’d be gracious, considering your status. But you’ve forgotten yourself this time, Peregrin Fawkes. I suppose it’s because you’re that obsessed with the countess, that you can’t bear the thought of anyone coming between the two of you. I wonder how you manage it with her husband always within a step or two. I really do, Fawkes. You may be sure I’ll be watching you to find out your tricks.” And with a final grind of his molars, Sutton turned on his heel and stomped out of the room in his elegant boots, while Peregrin was left to pick up his cards from face-down on the table and try to ignore the eager stares of the other club denizens.

  But he barely got through the hand before he was asking for his coat and making for the door. It was going to be an early night for him; he could face no one else until he had spoken to Grainne and made certain that the gossip had not made it back to her. If he was going to get kicked out of Tivington, it would not be in front of Sutton’s laughing face.

  ***

  Grainne was in the stables, of course, going through her saddlery and deciding what pieces she wanted to send back to Tivington, instead of inside sipping sherry or reading a book of poetry or whatever it was normal ladies did after supper. She looked up and smiled when Peregrin came in, her face lighting up in a way that did his heart good. At least she still wanted him around. “Oh, Perry! Just the fellow I want to see. Do you think that we ought to take the town harness with us? It’s too good to use in the country but I thought at least this way it could be cleaned and oiled once a month or so, to keep it from getting dried out. But it takes such a lot of room and I fear we will have to hire another baggage wagon if I go on taking things home with me.”

  “You could put it on Sutton’s coach, I’m sure he would not mind,” Peregrin said testily.

  Grainne put down the leather in her lap and gazed at him with round eyes. “Why, Peregrin, whatever are you upset about?”

  “Frederick Sutton? He says he accepted your invitation to join us in the country.”

  Grainne shrugged. “Well, how does that upset you? Tivington has enough room for twenty house-guests. I do not know Sutton well, but he seems nice enough; William likes him and, I thought, you did too. I cannot see why he would be objectionable as a guest. He was talking about getting out the city as soon as possible — he has been so long away, you see, and he is finding it difficult to adjust — so I urged him to join us, as William had suggested to him.” She paused. “I had no idea you were at odds with him. Will it make being in Tivington so objectionable to you?”

  Peregrin shrugged in answer. He was not about to explain to her how Sutton had considered him a leech on the back of his cousin Jeremy. Perhaps he was making too much out of all this. Grainne did not suspect him of having any improper notions about her; she would not be susceptible to any malicious gossip Sutton might try to feed her. He picked up a crupper and added it to her pile of harness to pack in the tack trunks. “It is nothing to me; I am going to be training horses. I will not have time to entertain. It will be on you and William to keep your guest happy.”

  “Why would it ever be on you?” she asked slowly. “You are a house-guest yourself. You are not doing the entertaining in my house.”

  Peregrin didn’t say anything.

  For a few moments they worked in silence, pulling apart the town harness and laying the leather straps carefully in one of the big empty tack trunks, smoothing each one flat so the straps would not get tangled and messy in the trip back to the country. Peregrin found it soothing, as he did all barn work; he supposed that Sutton and Jeremy would have laughed at him doing the chores of a groom at eleven o’clock at night while all London was out carousing and enjoying the pleasures of the Season, but that was fine with him. This was what made him happy, and Grainne, at least, understood — it was what made her happy, too.

  Grainne finally spoke in a soft tone. “Have you had many dealings with Lord Sutton?”

  He paused and looked at her until she met his eyes with a questioning gaze. She pursed her lips before she went on. “I am only trying to understand your aversion to him. I scarcely know the man.”

  Peregrin nodded. “He was my neighbor when I was a child.”

  “At Ramshead.”

  “My uncle and cousin’s house, yes.”

  “He lived nearby?”

  “A neighboring estate.” Peregrin took a deep breath, remembering. “When I first arrived at Ramshead he was there. He and Jeremy were playing… there was a little pool behind the house. There were ducks, they were throwing rocks at the ducks. The housekeeper told me to run along and play with them. I’d only just got out of the wagon… a footman took my trunk… I wanted to follow him, the trunk had my toys in it, and they were all I had left in the world.” He wet his lips, hating the pounding in his chest, hating the feeling that had never left him, the abandonment, a boy adrift in the world, parents dead, fortune gone, home lost.

  “Peregrin,” Grainne whispered, coming closer. She laid her fingers on his cheek and he felt a stirring that was illegal, that was a sin. His friend’s wife. He stepped back; her hand fell away; her face was shocked.

  “Forgive me,” he said hoarsely. “It was nothing. He threw a rock at me, and then Jeremy did too. That’s all. Some boys, throwing rocks.” But he was already making for the door, his heart still thundering in his ears, his cheeks hot with embarrassment and disappointment in himself. He shut the tack room door behind him as gently as he could, and all the way back to the house he was alone, the footmen in the garden with their lanterns silent and unobtrusive, while Grainne remained with her leather and her riches of horses, the horses her husband had bought her.

  If there was one thing Peregrin would not be able to do for a woman he loved, it was buy her horses. And the knowledge was suddenly, keenly painful.
r />   He closed his fingers into a fist and shook his head at himself. But he couldn’t deny it — he wanted to see Miss Dean again.

  Miss Dean was a complication, to be sure, but with Sutton breathing down his neck, ready to push him in front of a speeding coach, ready to ruin his friendship with William anyway he could, at least a pursuit of her would put the gossip to rest. He could court her openly at Tivington, and then Sutton could whisper whatever damn lies he wanted to in William’s ears; William would laugh at him.

  It would be hard on Miss Dean, though, when he couldn’t marry her. It wasn’t an ideal situation. Indeed, what he needed was a love affair with another woman. Anyone not Grainne would be enough. But Miss Dean was not a candidate for a love affair. She was a young lady looking for a husband, and not a poor one like himself, either. An engagement would be out of the question, even if his attraction to her were to grow strong enough to warrant a proposal. Grainne had already warned him, after they had left the Dean’s house that afternoon, that the girl’s mother was quite set upon money and title above all else. Grainne, to be sure, had seemed rather delighted with the prospect of pushing Peregrin and Miss Dean together. Peregrin wasn’t quite sure what she was thinking…

  …Unless…

  He paused outside the kitchen door, thinking for a moment, and then shook his head slowly. What if Grainne suspected the rumors about his affections were true, and she herself was pushing him towards the Dean girl in an effort to distract him?

  No, no, that couldn’t be. Grainne didn’t look at him with any suspicion or worry. She looked at him as she always had, as a good friend. No whispers of some lecherous attachment had made it to her ears. Not yet.

  But what if it did? If Miss Dean did not come to Tivington, so that he could pursue his doomed courtship of her, what would stop Sutton from finding fault in every friendly gesture between Peregrin and Grainne? And from influencing William to see the same?

  Peregrin was suddenly frightened — really, truly frightened. He had the impression that he was in danger of being cut loose, set upon the seas to drift away from the safe harbor of the Archwood’s home and affection, and he did not know what he would do without them. He had no home, hardly any money… where would he go, and who could offer him anything at all like the happiness and comfort as his dearest friend and his dearest friend’s wife? Things were starting to look very bleak indeed. And just when he’d been so excited about the new horse… Sutton’s timing was impeccable, it must be admitted.

  He wondered idly if Jeremy was involved somehow, if there was a deeper plot against him, orchestrated by his unaffectionate cousin. But it seemed unlikely; Jeremy was too lazy to bother himself with any sort of scheme to discredit his penniless relation. It was easier to laugh at the letters Sutton would write him, no doubt, than to mastermind some scheme.

  He kicked moodily at a loose cobble in the yard, leaving a scuff on his boot that would send Lewis into the vapors. He’d lose Lewis, into the bargain, if the Archwoods were convinced he had overstayed his welcome in their home. No home, no valet. But it was not the wealth, however pleasant living like a lord had been, that worried Peregrin.

  They were his family.

  Oh, certainly, his chaste infatuation with Grainne was not the sort of thing a family man ought to do. But he wasn’t exactly planning on sweeping her away and running off to the Continent with her. It was a chivalric love: she was his ideal woman, that was all: a goddess standing upon an ivory pedestal, the measure of what all other women might be and never were.

  Or something like that. Miss Dean’s gilt locks had been on his mind far more than Grainne’s dark curls ever had been. It was the riding and the free-spirited joy Grainne took in life that he loved; he wondered if Miss Dean was capable of such wildness, if he gave her leave to abandon her prim and proper upbringing.

  He thought he’d like to give it a go.

  Head fully occupied now thinking of Miss Dean’s rosebud lips curled up with laughter, Peregrin absently went into the house through the kitchen door.

  The kitchens were hot and steamy; he passed through their equatorial midst without stopping to steal a bun or wink his way into an apple tart, although the buxom young thing rolling out the dough on the massive wooden table that dominated the room would not have minded his attention. He ignored her come-hither glances and her eventual chagrin, crossing the room just as a shortcut. William would not have done it; even Grainne would probably not do it, but Peregrin, having spent a lifetime as a poor relation, was no stranger to the doings below-stairs. It was just as well, he thought, rattling up the service stairs, to keep comfortable with these things. He never knew when his life of privilege might come to an end.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Carriage driving was not Lydia’s favorite pursuit.

  For one thing, she disliked sitting up in a curricle, pressed close to a gentleman’s bulk and heat. It all seemed very indelicate, and any protection from said gentleman that was granted her by Mary’s presence as chaperone seemed to be in name only. Really, Lydia thought peevishly, trying to wriggle closer to her maid for the umpteenth time on this tedious drive, she was not at all a prudish miss, but there was something about going driving with a man that was altogether dangerous. A variety of somethings.

  For another thing, she disliked the horses. Just being close to them, watching their hindquarters churning along just in front of them. The little curricle did not seem like protection enough from the dangers of their slashing hooves. At least in a coach, or even in a barouche, they were not sitting right on top of all those dangers. There was a distance.

  Lydia hadn’t yet sorted out what would happen if she was to be permitted to go to Tivington, and then expected to learn to ride. She didn’t really concern herself with it overly much; all that mattered was that she be allowed to be close to Peregrin Fawkes again. She had been daydreaming of him all morning, while sitting next to that oaf of a Lord Sutton. Why hadn’t Mr. Fawkes asked her to go driving? Too busy preparing for his withdrawal to the country, to be sure.

  But of course Sutton had asked, sitting upright on the divan the afternoon after his intimations of marriage at the Hastings’ soiree. And of course Lydia’s mama had said yes without so much as glancing in Lydia’s direction for a by-your-leave, or even a triumphant smirk, so she had not seen Lydia’s face crumple and then swiftly repair itself as she thought with dismay of spending an afternoon in such a worrisome fashion. And doubtless if she had seen the expression, it would only have meant an extra scolding for not taking any pains with Lord Sutton’s suit, with not cooperating or trying hard enough or any of the other things Lydia had not been doing which resulted in her immediate and certain spinsterhood. She was trying, Lydia had thought pettishly. She knew her duty, and she knew it would be easier to just marry Lord Sutton and be done with it.

  But she couldn’t quite give up her dream of love with Peregrin Fawkes so easily. No more than she could get the picture of his handsome face and charming smile out of her mind. Her pursuit of Lord Sutton could only be half-hearted, at best, as long as there was still a chance, however slim, that she might be allowed to go to Tivington and be constantly in his company.

  And then… marriage? She didn’t know. She daren’t think about it.

  She had sighed while Mary had curled her hair, thinking about it anyhow.

  “Why’yer sighin’, miss?” Mary had asked without sympathy, twirling a lock of hair into a braid. “Goin’ on a drive on such a fine day. And lucky for me. I’d have been sittin’ in a chair doing your mendin’, in case you’re curious. Better to count your blessings and be happy a gentleman wants to take you out, and be thoughtful for those of us who cannot choose how we spend our afternoons.”

  “Do you not like me anymore, Mary?” Lydia had asked instead of answering her. “You are always so mean to me these days. I cannot help that I do not want to go driving. Please do not make me feel bad, on top of all these worrisome things.”

  “I like ye just fi
ne,” Mary said stoutly. “Haven’t I allus? But you’re going to have to get yerself married soon, and this fella seems nice enough. Stop pussy-footin’ around and get the job over and done with. Then we can all get out of this house and we’ll all be that much happier. Everyone below-stairs is put out when your ma is put out, and she hasn’t been in a good temper in weeks.”

  “That’s true. I hadn’t thought about that.” And indeed, Lydia had never considered that it was her mother Mary was sick and tired of, not her. It was a cheering thought… Lydia herself was heartily tired of her mother, after all. “I shall do my best.”

  “I shoulda been the heiress,” Mary sighed, as she often did. “But I will admit, you are prettier than I am.” And she put down the hairbrush and went looking for an afternoon gown that would set off Lydia’s bright eyes and pale skin.

  “You look beautiful,” Lady Katherine said approvingly, looking Lydia over. The drawing room was filled with flowers, and the scent was cloying in Lydia’s nostrils, but Lady Katherine thought that the future earl would not be impressed with their family if they didn’t have a king’s hothouse worth of blooms decorating the elegant room. Lydia, on the other hand, was fairly certain that Lady Katherine’s excesses were going to scare him away. Already, her mother was rising and coming across the room to fiddle with the filmy chemise that rose over the bodice of her gown. “Mother!”

  “Just a little bit… come now, you need only be modest, you need not be a nun, Lydia. There! Let him see a bit of skin. You have gorgeous skin, you know.”

  “Well…” That was nice, an uncommon compliment. Lady Katherine had ceased paying her compliments when her callers had ceased calling. “Thank you. I suppose it’s fine.”

  “Of course it’s fine. And don’t worry if your hat isn’t pinned on too tightly dear, now just let me see—”

  “Mama!” And Lydia stepped away. “This is beneath you.”