Unbefitting a Lady. Bronwyn Scott

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ footfall at the door caused him to straighten. He had company. He half expected it to be Phaedra. ‘So, you’re the one who has come to replace me.’ The voice was thick with the broad sounds of Derbyshire, the sounds of a man who’d grown up here all his life and wandered very little, a man who would see assistance as an intrusion.

      ‘Not to replace you, to help you. For a while,’ Bram said in friendly tones. He strode forward, his hand outstretched. ‘You must be Anderson.’ The man looked sixty at least, with a shock of white hair and weathered face. But he was sturdy in build with the stocky frame of a Yorkshire man.

      He shifted his cane to his left side and shook hands. ‘Tom Anderson I am.’

      ‘I’m Bram Basingstoke. Have a seat. I’d like to talk to you about the horses.’ Bram belatedly glanced around the tiny room to realise the only place to sit was the bed.

      ‘Why don’t you come down to my rooms once you’re settled. We’ll talk more comfortably there.’

      ‘I’m ready now. I didn’t have much to unpack.’ Bram gestured towards the door. ‘I am hoping you can recommend a place in the village I can get work clothes,’ he said as they made the short trip towards Anderson’s rooms on the first floor.

      Anderson waved his cane. ‘Don’t bother. I’ve got a trunk of shirts and trousers left over from the last fellow who was here. He was tall like you, they should fit well enough.’

      Anderson’s rooms were slightly larger as befitted his status as the stable manager, and furnished comfortably with well-worn pieces. A fire was going in the hearth, a definite improvement over Bram’s cold chamber.

      ‘The last fellow?’ Bram enquired, taking a seat near the fire.

      Anderson chuckled. ‘You don’t think you’re the first man Lord Giles has hired to help out, do you?’ He pulled out a jug of whisky and poured two pewter cups.

      ‘I hadn’t thought either way on it,’ Bram said honestly. He’d been too busy thinking about Phaedra and the colt to contemplate the nuances of his position.

      ‘You’re about the fourth in as many months.’ Anderson passed him a cup. ‘Winter hasn’t been kind to this old man. I’ve been down with one thing or another since November and now my hip is giving me trouble. I can’t work the horses with a bad hip.’ Anderson paused and raised his cup in a toast. ‘Here’s hoping you’ll last longer than the rest.’

      Bram studied Anderson over the rim of his cup. Bram could see the age around Anderson’s eyes, his face tanned and wrinkled from a life lived outdoors. Anderson reminded him of the old groom at his family home. His father still hadn’t found a way to pension him off without hurting his pride. ‘The stables are well-kept and the quarters are decent. What drove them off?’

      It was Anderson’s turn to eye him over a swallow of whiskey. ‘It wasn’t a “what”. It was a “who”. Some men don’t like taking orders from a lady.’

      Ah. Phaedra Montague. He should have guessed. She’d been far from pleased with her brother’s announcement at the fair. ‘She makes life difficult?’ Bram asked. Did she plant frogs in their beds? He couldn’t envisage her stooping to such juvenile levels.

      Anderson wiped his mouth with his hand. ‘Nah. She doesn’t do it on purpose. It’s not her fault she knows more about horses than they do. She doesn’t mean to drive them away.’

      The first thing that struck Bram was that he doubted it. She probably did hope they would move along. She had not hidden her disapproval at the horse fair. The second was that she had the old groom wrapped around her finger. He was clearly defending her.

      ‘She’s that good?’ Bram took another swallow, trying to cultivate an attitude of nonchalance while he probed for information. It was always best to know one’s quarry before one began the hunt.

      ‘She’s that good. Lord Giles is a bruising rider but she holds equal to him. It’s not just the riding though. It’s everything else. It’s like she can look in their souls, that she can reach them on a level no one else can.’ Anderson poured himself a second drink. ‘I’ll tell you something crazy if you want to hear it and if it won’t send you packing.’

      Bram was all ears. This part of the country was known for its superstitions and ghost tales and Anderson had the makings of a fine storyteller.

      ‘Two years ago last June we had a white stallion named Troubadour. He belonged to her brother Edward. Edward was off fighting Napoleon but Troubadour had been left home. One night around the fourteenth, he started acting all crazy-like in his stall, kicking, stomping. He wouldn’t eat. No one could get near him except Miss Phaedra. She sat with him for hours getting him to calm down. Mind you, there was no one here. All four of the boys were at war. It was just Lady Phaedra and Lady Kate and the duke, of course. When Lady Kate came out to see her, Lady Phaedra was crying something fierce. She told Lady Kate Troubadour was dying and that she feared young Lord Edward was dead. Before sunrise, Troubadour lay down in his stall and refused to get up. A month later, word reached us that Lord Edward had fallen at Waterloo, the very night Troubadour died.’ Anderson tapped his head with his finger. ‘She knows them, knows what’s in their heads.’

      Bram nodded. He’d heard stories about horses that could sense their masters’ distress. He’d never heard of anything quite as drastic as Anderson’s tale. So, Lady Phaedra talked to horses and read their minds. Well, he’d see about that for himself, but it was clear Tom Anderson believed it in full.

      They passed a companionable evening discussing the horses and their workout needs. There was the spirited mare the eldest daughter, Kate, had left behind when she’d gone to America not long ago. There were the general horses kept for guests, not that there’d been many guests outside of family in recent months. There was Giles Montague’s black beast of a stallion, Genghis, nearly as dark as Warbourne. And there was the elegant chestnut thoroughbred, Merlin, Lord Jamie’s horse.

      ‘Lord Jamie?’ He quirked his eyebrow in question. Yet another younger brother, perhaps? How big was this family? Bram was beginning to wonder.

      ‘Lord Jamie is the eldest. But he went to war too, and didn’t come home. Only Lord Giles and Lord Harry returned.’ Anderson shook his head. ‘It’s been a bad business all around for the family. Lord Giles wanted to be a career military man. He never wanted to be the heir, never was jealous of Lord Jamie. But it wasn’t to be.’

      ‘He died too?’ Bram asked quietly. He knew several families in London who’d lost loved ones thanks to Napoleon. Families both rich and poor alike had lost sons.

      Anderson shrugged, a light twinkling in his old blue eyes. ‘Don’t know. That’s a whole other kettle of fish brewing up at the house these days. Lord Giles is pretty closemouthed about it, as he should be. But there was no body ever recovered and then last fall this woman shows up with a little ‘un just about the right age claiming she’s Lord Jamie’s wife. She’s living at the Dower House. The family is trying to do right by her, although the whole thing seems off to me.’

      ‘Why?’

      Anderson jerked his head the general direction of the horse stalls. ‘Merlin’s still alive. He and Lord Jamie were as close as a horse and human can be, just like Edward and Troubadour,’ Tom Anderson answered matter-of-factly, as if everyone bought into folklore without question.

      Bram refrained from comment. He supposed stranger things had happened. When СКАЧАТЬ