The Passion of an Angel

CHAPTER FOUR

Ah! happy years!

Once more who would not be a boy?

George Noel Gordon,

Lord Byron

PRUDENCE HEARD THE KNOCK on her door, but ignored it, as she had a half hour earlier; just as she was prepared to ignore it for the remainder of the day.

How could anyone ask her to rise when she was so bloody comfortable? She could not recall ever feeling so clean, or lying against sheets so soft and sweet smelling. How long had it been since she had listened to a gentle rain hitting the windowpane without worrying that the roof might this time cave in on her? At least not since she had been a very young girl.

There was a small fire still burning in the grate across the room, her appetite was still comfortably soothed by the roast beef and pudding she had downed last night when first they had arrived at the inn, and if she felt a niggling urge to avail herself of the chamber pot, well, that could wait as well.

Giving out a soft, satisfied moan, she turned her face more firmly into the pillows and settled down for at least another hour’s sleep, a small smile curving her lips as her naked body sank deeper into the soft mattress….

“Rise and shine, slugabed! The sun’s shining, the air smells fresh as last night’s rain, and I’m in the mood for a picnic. It’s either that or I’ll have to hide out in the common room, away from Rexford’s incessant groaning now that I’ve told him we don’t travel again until tomorrow.”

Prudence sat bolt upright in the bed, clutching the sheets to her breasts, her eyes wide, her ears ringing from the slam of the door against the wall inside her room. “Daventry!” she exclaimed, pushing her badly tangled hair from her eyes and glaring impotently at the idiot who dared barge in on her just as if he were her brother Henry, come to tease her into a morning of adventure. “Are you daft, man? Go away!”

Banning turned around—not before taking just a smidgen more than a cursory peek at her bare back and shoulders, she noticed—and said, a chuckle evident in his voice, “Sleep in the buff, do you? Is this a natural inclination, or wouldn’t Shadwell spring for night rails, either? I suppose I should be grateful you have boots.”

“You’re a pig, Daventry,” Prudence spat out, tugging at the bedspread, pulling its length up and over the sheets in order to drape it around her shoulders. “And consider yourself fortunate I didn’t sleep with my pistol under my pillow, or you’d be spilling your claret all over the carpet now rather than making jokes at my expense.” And then her anger flew away as she leaned forward slightly, asking, “Did you say something about a picnic?”

Still with his back to her, he nodded, saying, “As long as we’re forced to make our progress to London in stages, taking time to find you some proper clothes and allowing Lightning to gather strength, I thought it might be amusing to indulge in a small round of local sight-seeing. I haven’t picnicked since I was little more than a boy, but for some reason I awoke this morning with the nearly irresistible urge to indulge in some simple, bucolic pleasures. However, if you’d rather play the layabout…”

“Give me ten minutes!” Prudence exclaimed, her feet already touching the floor as, the bedspread still around her, she lunged for her breeches. “I’ll meet you downstairs, and we can be off.”

“Agreed,” Banning said, heading for the door. “Only remember to tie back your hair and wear that atrocious straw hat you insisted upon bringing with you, or otherwise we’ll be forced to drag Miss Prentice along as chaperone, a prospect that leaves me unmoved. Dressed as a boy, you and I can tramp the countryside quite unencumbered, perhaps even dabble our bare feet in some cool stream while we lie on our backs and search out faces in the clouds. There will be time enough tomorrow to begin your metamorphosis.”

“There are moments I really could like that man,” Prudence told herself as she searched in her small valise for fresh underclothes. “Of course, he is still arrogant and overbearing, deucedly bossy, and takes this guardian business entirely too seriously,” she added, remembering that he had all but broken into her bedchamber. “Oh well, Angel. Think of it this way. It won’t be for all that long, and he has promised to buy you some gowns.”

“ACCORDING TO THE guidebook, and I dare to quote,” Banning told Prudence in a comically pompous tone some two hours later as she perched on a low pile of rubble, contemplating the ruin before her, “‘Cowdray House was erected in approximately 1530 by the Earl of Southampton.’”

“The earl wasn’t much of a housekeeper, was he?” Prudence asked facetiously as she pulled a length of sweet grass from between her teeth, looking up at the roofless structure, half its walls tumbled down, its windowpanes gone, the stone turrets that remained blackened and thick with moss.

They had already visited a stream and wriggled their toes in the water, had discovered a chariot and two white horses in a cloud formation, and she was feeling very much in charity with the world, and with the man who stood close by, reading to her from the guidebook he’d purchased at the inn. “Makes MacAfee Farm, although worlds smaller, seem almost comfortable.”

“Hush, Angel.” Banning scolded in his best imitation of a schoolmaster. “This is vastly educational and adds a modicum of moral tone to our outing. Let’s see, where was I? Oh yes, with the Earl of Southampton. Oh dear. It seems he left the picture in time for one Lord Montagu to take up residence. Lord Montagu? Isn’t he the fellow who drowned somewhere in Germany? Yes, yes, here it is. Montagu drowned only a week after Chowdray House mysteriously burned down in 1793. And all because of an ancient curse.”

“Rotten run of luck, I’d say,” Prudence put in, for she was not one to believe in curses, ancient or otherwise. “Go on, please. Are there ghosties and ghoulies here as well? Should I be making signs against the evil eye, or can we just spread out that blanket now and have our picnic? My belly’s thinking my throat’s been sliced.”

“Gowns, shoes, discovering a lotion that will remove the stain of manure from your fingernails, some ribbons for your hair—and intense lessons in speech and deportment,” Banning said pleasantly, sitting down beside her. “Freddie will certainly be able to keep herself busy. I can’t decide if I am the best or worst of brothers to have discovered for her such a challenging project.”

“Oh stubble it, Daventry,” Prudence groused good-humoredly, then hopped down from her perch, as the marquess was suddenly entirely too close for her comfort. Why couldn’t she keep thinking of him as her guardian, instead of seeing him as a man? “Tell me more about the curse while I unpack the basket.”

She kept her back to him while she worked, painfully aware of his proximity, and the fact that the two of them were distinctly isolated here among the ruins.

What was the matter with her? She couldn’t care less about the man, who was older than God, even if his face gave the lie to his silvered hair. Perhaps he dyed it? No. That was a ridiculous notion. Who would purposely dye more than half their hair a bright, glistening white, leaving the back of it still deeply black, with only a few silver threads layering the top of it, like sweet cream icing dribbling down over the sides of a dark plum pudding?

And would he stop staring at her? She could feel his eyes boring into her back, so that she deliberately sat down on her haunches, aware for the first time that her breeches fit her nearly like a second skin.

“Daventry?” she prompted when the only sound she could hear was the buzzing of some nearby bees. “If you’re still reading, your lips have stopped moving. You were going to tell me more about the curse.”

“Hum? Oh! Oh yes. The curse. Well, it says here that the curse was put upon the family by a monk.”

Prudence swiveled around to look up at him, her hands deep in the basket as she went about unearthing the roasted chicken the marquess had promised her she would find there. “That doesn’t seem very Christian.”

“Neither does Henry VIII’s edict dissolving the monasteries, but that’s what it says here. It seems the monk, who was driven out of Battle Abbey, was ejected quite personally by the first owner of Cowdray House. Obviously the monk wasn’t about to simply forgive the man and turn the other cheek. It took a few centuries, but the curse finally worked.”

“Well, I think that’s stupid,” Prudence declared, un-daintily but effectively ripping the legs off the roasted chicken and placing one on each of the two plates she had spread on the blanket. “More than two hundred years passed between the laying on of the curse and the destruction of this place. That would be the same as blaming the discovery of the American continent for the war that eventually severed the colonists’ ties with England.”

“Logic, from an infant. Angel, I am impressed.” Daventry came to join her on the blanket, kneeling beside her—too close beside her, for she could once again smell the cologne he wore, its scent tickling her nose and doing something extraordinarily strange to her insides.

“Have a chicken leg,” she ordered, picking up his plate and nearly jamming it against his nose. Damn her short-sighted brother! Didn’t he know he’d picked her a rutting old man for a guardian? And how could he have forgotten that she was no longer a child, but a woman, a woman who had seen precious little of handsome, charming men? Why couldn’t her brother have given her over to Wellington or some sympathetic peeress? But no. He had to pick the Marquess of Daventry. A worldly, witty, at times bitingly sarcastic, yards too self-assured man with entirely too-intriguing green eyes and a boyish smile that turned her knees to water…

First he shows up almost nine months too late to be of any help at all, and now he makes noises like he can barely abide me half the time, while he is not only being nice to me but is also near to drooling over me the other half of the time. Let him buy me gowns? Oh yes. But first I want a night rail—one that covers my toes and buttons all the way to my ears!

“Shall I continue to read as we eat?” Banning asked, removing himself and his plate to the far side of the blanket, his expression telling her that he was questioning why he had knelt down beside her in the first place. “I could tell you about the sadly mutilated carving of the arms of King Henry—who actually visited on this spot in 1538—that is still visible above the entrance arch of the hall porch. Or perhaps we could do as is advised on this page, and stroll down to Benbow Pond after our meal—there, to the east, along that footpath—and indulge in partaking of the delightful views visible across the valley of the Rother.”

“I’d rother not, thank you,” Prudence told him cheekily, pleased to see that he, too, was disconcerted by the events of the past few minutes—if she wasn’t totally overreacting to what she believed to be his very unguardian-like behavior. “I’d much prefer to sit here and listen to you tell me how long it will be before we reach London. Lightning is in no danger now that your man has found a mare to feed him, so I figure on three or four days and nights on the road, as the poor little thing still can’t be confined to the wagon for too many hours a day.”

“That’s about right, three days and two nights. We’ll pass the nights in Milford and Epsom, and arrive at Freddie’s by nightfall of the third day. It will be a slow progress, but we’ll get there eventually.”

“Each mile that takes me farther from MacAfee Farm is cause for rejoicing. Goodness, I’m thirsty!” She was feeling slightly more in control of herself now that the marquess was not so close, but watching him eat, delighting in gnawing at the chicken leg as if he were a schoolboy on holiday, was not making her attempts at general conversation easier.

Banning set down the chicken leg, wiped his greasy fingers on a linen serviette, and reached inside the basket for the bottle of wine she had seen there, nestled beside a small jug of lemonade she supposed he expected her to drink. She watched him struggle to uncork the bottle, then she quickly held out both glasses, daring him to deny her what he was taking for himself.

“You are too young for anything save watered wine,” he said, holding the bottle upright. “Or are you now going to tell me that Shadwell refused to clothe you yet kept you in strong spirits?”

“I drank what was to hand,” Prudence told him, feeling herself growing angry, and thankful for the feeling because it seemed easier to deal with the marquess from the position of adversary. “Ale, wine, port, brandy, even gin. Although I heartily dislike port, and too much ale makes my teeth numb and my nose itch. Still and all, plenty were the times it was safer than the water from the well. Come on, Daventry, pour me a glass. I won’t disgrace you by falling into my cups so that you have to fling me over your shoulder like a sack and haul me back to the inn. Besides, you’ve already broken one rule of guardianship by bringing me out here without a chaperone. What’s a little wine after that?”

Banning tipped his head to one side, his green eyes twinkling in a way that made her wonder if, perhaps, somewhere deep inside himself, he was as young as she. “Very well, Angel, if you promise to breathe most heavily directly in Miss Prentice’s face once we get back to the inn. I believe I’d rather enjoy watching her blanch.”

Prudence held out the glasses again, stubbornly keeping them there until he’d filled both of them to the brim. “Blanch, is it?” she said, giggling. “And how do you suppose we could tell? She’s already as sickly white as the underbelly of a fish. How does your sister abide such a dedicated pain in the rump? I’d had tossed the woman out dog’s years ago if she were mine.”

“You’d have to know my sister to understand. If there ever was a woman who should be called ‘angel,’ it’s Freddie. Rodney, Freddie’s late husband, had employed Miss Prentice as housekeeper before the wedding, and when Rodney died Miss Prentice saw the chance to move herself up a notch, to become Freddie’s companion. She doesn’t like the woman, and never did, but if Rodney chose her, then Freddie doesn’t believe she can get rid of her. My sister is sweet and loving and gentle—but if she were to develop a bit of a backbone, I wouldn’t complain.”

Prudence took a deep, satisfying sip of the still cool wine. “Put some starch in her spine? I’ll take care of it,” she said in all sincerity, believing she should offer something in return for her rescue from Shadwell. “It’s the least I can do, seeing as how your sister offered to take me in. And,” she added, feeling daring, “in return, you can take me to St. Bartholomew’s Fair. My brother says—said it’s magnificent, and would suit me to a cow’s thumb.”

“If you like crowds, the smell of unwashed flesh, gaudy trinkets, fakers, pickpockets, and rancid kidney pies, I suppose it is magnificent,” Banning said before sinking his white teeth into the glistening red flesh of an apple he’d pulled from the basket. “However,” he continued moments later, speaking around a mouthful of the fruit, “as your time is going to be filled with dancing lessons, fittings, morning visits, and the like, I believe we shall both simply have to forgo partaking of this particular delight. As your guardian, although I will not be in your company more than I have to be once I deliver you into Freddie’s hands, I cannot approve. Sorry.”

And with that single statement, Prudence felt all her enjoyment of the morning disappear.

“No, you’re not in the least bit sorry, so don’t lie to me! Leave it to a man to ruin everything—as men always do! Just when you start feeling comfortable, they take themselves off!” Prudence shot back at him, scrambling to her feet and giving the picnic basket a quick kick. She tossed off the remainder of her wine, just daring him to say something cutting about her manners, and ordered him to repack the basket, as she was anxious to get back to see if Lightning was faring well under the coachman’s care.

She had taken no more than three steps when she felt Daventry’s hands come down on her shoulders, halting her where she stood. “Let me go, my lord, before I do you an injury,” she warned, unshed tears stinging her eyes because she had begun to like him, just a little bit, and now he had gone and turned their picnic into yet another disappointment. Couldn’t wait to be shed of her, could he? Well, she was just as eager to see him walk out of her life!

He released her, saying, “In any other young woman, I would consider that to be an idle threat. In your case, however—”

“Oh, cut line!” she shouted, rounding on him, just to have him plop her wide-brimmed straw hat down hard on her head, nearly to her eyes, keeping his hand on top of her skull and her body at arm’s length.

“Can’t take the chance of freckles popping up on that pert nose, now can we?” he said by way of explanation, although she knew he was only saying that because he needed an excuse to keep her at a distance, which was probably a good thing because she would otherwise have sharply lifted her knee into his groin, as her brother had taught her to do after that leering traveling tinker had dared to corner her behind the stables four years ago.

“Why’d you have to ruin things by treating me like your unwanted ward again, instead of continuing on as the friends we were this morning, tramping here from the inn with the picnic basket swinging between us?” she asked him, her emotions a sudden jumble she did not wish to examine. “You gave a little, allowing me some wine, not saying a word when I deliberately ripped the chicken with my fingers, and I gave a little, promising to be a help to your sister. And then you took it all back, reminding me that you are dealing with me only because you have to, because my brother asked you to and you could find no way to wriggle out of your promise.”

Banning turned back to begin repacking the picnic basket. “That’s it, no more wine for the infant,” he said as if to himself. “And to think I’d worried that I’d find some simpering milk-and-water puss when I traveled to MacAfee Farm. Ha! What I would give now for a simple-headed die-away miss, rather than this bundle of contradictions I am saddled with. One moment the hoyden, a born temptress the next—but beneath it all the ragamuffin with the temper of a prodded ox!”

“I did not tempt you to anything!” Prudence corrected him heatedly. “I did not invite you into my bedchamber, you lascivious ogler, nor did I ask you to take me on this picnic, sans chaperone. But I came along with you, believing we could cry friends, putting myself on my excruciatingly best behavior, hoping that you might begin to believe that Henry’s request had not made you the most put-upon, persecuted person on earth. Hah! Fat lot of hope in any of that, is there, Daventry? You’re nothing more than a rutting old dog—as if I’d have you!”

He stopped in the midst of repacking the basket, one hand on the lid as he looked her up and down dismissively. “You wouldn’t know what to do with me,” he said coldly, “just as I haven’t the foggiest notion of what to do with you. Which, my dear Miss MacAfee, is precisely where I do believe we should both leave the matter.”

CHAPTER FIVE

Every man, as the saying is,

can tame a shrew but he that hath her.

Robert Burton

“STAND STILL, MISS MACAFEE. And you are to remember that you are now a young lady and stop swearing at once, if you please.”

“The bloody hell I will, you prune-faced old biddy. You stick me with one more pin and I’ll have your liver on a skewer!”

Banning took a moment to smile as he stood peeking around the slightly ajar door, then entered the room without knocking, feeling it best to intervene before Prudence, looking hot and flustered in a morning gown definitely designed with a much different female in mind, made good on her threat.

“Learning to rub along together fairly well, are you Miss Prentice, Miss MacAfee?” he inquired brightly, unable to hold back a satisfied grin at the sight of his ward in a temper. “How above everything wonderful, truly. I’m convinced of it—you’ll be bosom chums by tomorrow night, when we arrive in Park Lane to meet with my sister. I think this little stop in Epsom was just the ticket, although I can’t say, Miss Prentice, that I’m overfond of our ‘angel’ in that particular shade of pink.”

“It’s downright ugly, isn’t it,” Prudence declared, almost seeming in charity with him for the first time in days as she spread her hands and glared down at the gown Miss Prentice was still trying without notable success to pin more snugly around her left wrist. “All my life, I’ve been dreaming of beautiful gowns, of cutting a dash in society with my stylish wardrobe—and this is what that paperskulled ninny brings me. Pink!”

Banning hid a rather nasty smile as he bent his head and pretended an interest in adjusting his shirt cuffs. He had found, much to his amazement—considering the fact that he believed himself a gentleman—that he truly enjoyed baiting the child.

“I was speaking of your complexion, Miss MacAfee,” he then explained, hoping his expression was sober and very guardian-like, “which has a tendency to go nearly puce with temper, an unfortunately too common occurrence, considering the fact that you fly into the boughs almost hourly. As for the gown Miss Prentice purchased for you on my orders, it is passable enough, I believe.”

“How amusing you are, Daventry,” Prudence retorted, pulling her wrist free of Miss Prentice’s grasping fingers. “I’ll wager you launch yourself into hysterics three or more times a day, just reflecting on your own comic brilliance. Now, if you’re not going to be of any help to me—go away. Find yourself a monkey and a tambourine, and go perform downstairs in the common room, where there are doubtless enough drunken farmers eager to giggle at your cutting wit. I want to get back into my breeches, and I intend to do so in the next ten seconds. That’s ten… nine…eight…”