Not Quite a Lady (The Dressmakers 4)

One of the stablemen hovering in the doorway, avidly taking in the dispute, looked round at Darius’s approach. He left the door and hastened to attend to the visitor.

Darius dismounted, gave over his horse, and was about to ask for news when a familiar female voice pierced the snarling and snapping of the males: “No, it must be cleansed with warm water! Give me that cloth, Jenkins. No, Fewkes, do not interrupt. Wait. I need to think.”

Darius went to the stable door.

Her back to him, Lady Charlotte stood two stalls away, murmuring to the horse whose shoulder she was gently washing.

Relief surged through him, as powerful as a blow. His knees buckled. He set his hand on the doorframe and pretended to lean there casually. Not that anyone heeded him.

The two men inside were too busy arguing, chests out, chins jutting. Their attire told Darius their positions. The older and larger fellow with the red hair and vinous red nose must be the coachman. The smaller, wiry man must be the head groom.

“Listen to him and that mare’ll be the worse for it, your ladyship,” said the coachman. “With a wound like that, the natural spirits is oozing out and taking down the heat. You wash it, and you takes the heat down more again. It’s the black ointment what you want, to fire her spirits.”

“An ointment on a scrape like that?” the groom said scornfully. “She’ll take a fever for sure. It wants a poultice first, lest you want to kill the creetur.”

“I worked for his lordship boy and man, and never kilt no horse—”

“They died all by themselves, did they?”

“Your ladyship—”

“Her ladyship knows a poultice is the proper—”

“You’ll bring that mare down and no coming back!” the coachman roared. He took a step closer to the groom and swelled his chest. His face grew redder still. It was a threatening display, but the groom wouldn’t back down.

“Why not bleed her as well, then?” the coachman demanded. “Why not draw off what little spirits is left in her? This is what comes of some people not knowing their place. I been looking after the horses here, boy and man, since you was a girl, your ladyship. This mare belongs to the coach house to be tended to.”

“If her ladyship liked your way of tending cattle, she wouldn’t’ve brought her to me, now, would she?”

“Enough!” Lady Charlotte snapped. “What is wrong with you? Belinda had a fright, and she is hurt—and now you are shouting and upsetting her. You ought to know better, the pair of you.”

Darius straightened away from the doorframe. “Ahem,” he said.

The two masculine heads swiveled toward him. Lady Charlotte turned sharply round and stood, sopping rag in hand, staring at Darius as though he’d sprung up direct from Beelzebub’s hot parlor.

In the process, she dribbled water—or whatever solution she was using—over the front of her dress. Though now fully buttoned, the dress looked more thoroughly disreputable, having acquired a good deal of dirt and several grease stains since last he’d seen it.

Darius walked farther inside, inhaling the familiar aromas of horseflesh mingled with manure and hay. The stalls were airy, well designed, and neatly organized. His stable was a much smaller affair, not a fraction so grand as this, with its screens of Ionic columns dividing the stalls. Small as his was, though, he’d want a good while to bring it to this pitch of cleanliness and order.

He took in his surroundings with a glance. Most of his attention, though, was upon the lady. She did not seem to be broken. Nor had she oozed away any spirits, by the sounds of it.

“Mr. Carsington,” she said.

“I heard you had an accident,” he said. “I saw your dogcart at the side of the road, and the broken wheel. I was…concerned.”

Panicked was more like it. He never panicked. Ever. About anything. Even when his father summoned him to the Inquisition Chamber.

A state of panic was a state of total irrationality.

What the devil was the matter with him?

“The wheel stuck in a rut and the cart tipped,” she said tightly. “It was no great matter, but Belinda took fright and jumped, and the shaft caught her in the shoulder.”

“But you are unharmed,” he said. “And Lady Lithby?”

“Oh, we are well,” she said impatiently. “She and I have taken worse tumbles. Colonel Morrell came along and helped us.”

Darius did not snarl at the mention of the colonel. Animals snarled at enemies and rivals. He was not an animal but a rational being who had no logical reason to view Morrell as either enemy or rival.

Yet while Darius stood listening calmly, he was unhappily aware of a primitive, possessive part of him pacing restlessly in a shadowy corner of his being.

“He freed Belinda from the harness and pushed the cart out of the way,” Lady Charlotte went on. “But Belinda has a nasty gouge—”

“And if you please, sir,” the coachman broke in, “the mare belongs in my care, only her ladyship being in a taking—”

“What, you’ll say my lady’s out of her senses, will you?” the groom said, chin jutting out as he took a step toward the coachman. “She’s got better sense than you.”

“Jenkins, I will not have an altercation,” Lady Charlotte said firmly.

The groom backed away, but he wouldn’t be quelled. “Black ointment, in a case like this,” he grumbled. He looked at Darius. “I ask you, sir—”

“Since you do ask, I should recommend that you first apply a poultice,” Darius said briskly. “Fine bran mixed with boiling water and linseed paste.”

Jenkins threw a triumphant look at the coachman. The latter’s flush darkened to maroon. “Your ladyship, meaning no disrespect to the gentleman, but we always uses the black ointment,” he said.

“We shall use the poultice the gentleman recommends,” said Lady Charlotte, returning her attention to the mare. “You may not be aware, Fewkes, that this is the famous Mr. Carsington who wrote the treatise on pigs. We all know how Lord Lithby feels about that pamphlet. Whatever Mr. Carsington says regarding livestock must be considered holy writ.”

Fewkes muttered something. He bestowed one murderous glower upon Jenkins, then stalked out.

“Maybe the gentleman will be so good as to explain to her ladyship how it’s safe enough to let me tend the mare,” Jenkins said, “now as matters is settled and old Quack-’em and Burn-’em won’t be putting his fat, warty hams on her?” His affectionate glance at his mistress stripped any hint of disrespect from the speech.

Darius deduced that Jenkins, too, had known Lady Charlotte since she was a girl.

She thrust the rag into the groom’s hand. “In future, kindly carry on your disputes outside of the stables in a place where others cannot hear you instead of upsetting the horses and setting a bad example for the other staff.”

Jenkins apologized, and she walked out, spine stiff.

Darius followed her. “A troublesome coachman, I gather,” he said.

She turned into a graveled path. “I don’t know what’s got into Fewkes,” she said.

“Drink, I should say, judging by the condition of his skin as well as his behavior,” Darius said.

“He never used to drink,” she said. “Or not so much as to seem so…dangerous. I have never known him to be so belligerent as he was today. But then, I never have to deal with him directly. If my father had been here—but he wasn’t—and I am merely the young lady of the family, qualified only to judge fashion and fripperies.”

“That is no excuse for bullying,” Darius said.

“I was not firm enough,” she said, “because I did not know what to do. One ought to defer to Fewkes, as the superior in rank, but one could not, because he was…”

“Wrong,” Darius said. “And filthy drunk in the bargain. My father would never tolerate that sort of behavior. Fewkes would find himself tossed out on his arse before he could say ‘black ointment.’”

“You’re right. I had better tell Papa.” She paused

briefly before adding, “I must thank you for intervening.”

“Ah, well, I was glad to learn my word is holy writ for somebody,” Darius said.

She gave him a sharp glance.

He wished the words back, but it was too late. “Your stablemen don’t take you seriously,” he said. “My father doesn’t take me seriously. Or my work, rather. Mere scribblings, in his view.” He recalled the way his father had waved his hand, dismissing years of laborious investigation and careful experiments, disregarding the care taken to render the fruits of these labors into simple, lucid prose, so that any farmer who could read could benefit, not only men like Lord Lithby.

Though Darius had borne it stoically at the time, the recollection made his face burn.

He knew she saw his color change, betraying him.

His fault. He’d let himself become agitated. This was what happened when one’s feelings were allowed to overcome one’s reason.

During the ensuing long silence, he told himself it was illogical to feel embarrassed, since neither her opinion nor his father’s signified, in the great scheme of things.

Then she said, “Perhaps your father makes no great matter of it because it is no more than he expects of you.”

Darius gave a short laugh. “He expects nothing. He’s certain I can do nothing right.”

“No, he expects great things of you,” she said.

He regarded her perfect profile. He saw no doubt there at all. “What a sentimental imagination you have,” he said.

“I am not in your family,” she said. “I view it from outside. I am well acquainted with Lord Hargate. I am an objective observer, as you cannot be.”

The something again clicked in his mind, and he realized what it was. He’d found a clue. He put it away for later study. “And what do you observe?” he said.