Page 4 of Tempted (Heart to Heart Collection #2)
Chapter 4
Derbyshire, England July 1900
G reat Scott!
Elizabeth swallowed and put a trembling hand to the window. How did one form an oath in British? For if anything could be found to inspire such an impolite ejaculation, the sight before her was surely it.
“Good heavens!” Jane breathed, and Elizabeth could see her sister counting the windows on the front of the house. “Are you sure this is not part of some tour? This cannot be the house we are to stay in.”
“The main house was originally built by the Earl of Sanbury in the time of Oliver Cromwell, upon the site of the ruins of the first house which was dated as far back as the reign of Mary I. The western wing, which you see there, was added during the reign of James II by the first Darcy to call Pemberley his seat, a Mr Edward Merewether Darcy. The entire house was updated with running water two decades ago and, most recently, with electricity by the present Mr Darcy.”
Jane and Elizabeth both turned to stare at their cousin.
“When did you become such an expert on English houses?” Jane demanded.
“I have always been fascinated by English history,” Billy huffed defensively.
“It’s true. I have caught you reading books on the peerage often enough when you were supposed to be working,” Elizabeth agreed.
Billy ignored Elizabeth’s slight, more intent upon the imposing edifice before them. “Mr Darcy may be modest, but he is proud enough of his homes that all in his employ are well schooled. It was quite easy to induce the maid to tell me all she knew about the Darcys’ house in Derbyshire.”
“Did she tell you anything of our hostess, the esteemed and regal Miss Darcy?” Elizabeth shivered. Richard had described Georgiana Darcy as a sweet and adventurous young woman, but then, he had praised his other cousin just as highly. Mr Darcy’s formality had taken her aback. Perhaps it was only the way they all were, but she had not been prepared for it after Richard’s ease and warmth. And now she was to live in the same house as a properly brought up English girl.
From an extraordinarily wealthy family.
In a house at least three times as old as her own home country.
How boring.
“She only declared that Miss Darcy was as kind and beautiful as her mother, Lady Anne, née Fitzwilliam.”
Well, that was something. Perhaps some of Richard’s affability was a family trait.
“M rs Fitzwilliam, Miss Bennet, and—” the lady blinked slowly—“Mr Collins. I am pleased to make your acquaintance.”
Elizabeth felt her teeth baring in an uncomfortable, forced grin. If the lady was “pleased” to meet her, she hoped never to see her “ dis pleased.” Or perhaps she was one of those people whose faces never altered with genuine emotion, which would make her all the more forbidding than she appeared already.
Elizabeth stumbled her way through what she supposed was a proper greeting, then tried not to look like a simpleton when their hostess led them into the house. She failed utterly.
Miss Darcy had proceeded her stately way into some grand hall and then paused. She turned, her shoulders drawn back, and her chin set high and aloof. “You will wish to refresh yourselves after your journey. I have ordered tea for your rooms, and dinner will be served at half-past seven. Margaret will see that you have everything you need.” With that, she gestured to the maid and left them.
Elizabeth bit back a sigh and rolled her eyes towards Jane. At the very least, Margaret had travelled from London with them. She had refused to ride in their carriage—had even seemed offended that Elizabeth would ask her to, but she was one somewhat familiar face in a sea of strangers. She was inviting them to follow her now, and with little alternative, they did.
G eorgiana Darcy appeared upon first glance to be an unusually tall girl, but Elizabeth discovered at dinner that it was merely an illusion—the effect of her willowy form and the graceful way she moved. In fact, when Elizabeth stood beside her, their shoulders appeared almost the same height, but Miss Darcy possessed an air, a certain poise, that had probably been bred into her by centuries of nobility and cultivated by the most expensive finishing school in the country. That must have been where she learned her hostessing skills as well, because every inflexion and every movement was calculated to be inoffensive and proper. It was as if every nuance of her conversation and each element of the meal followed a prescribed script—one Elizabeth had not read.
“I trust you found London to your liking, Miss Bennet?” Miss Darcy enquired as the footmen carried away the soup course.
“Very much so,” Jane answered demurely. “I was surprised at how large it was, and it was a pleasure to watch all the people.”
Elizabeth narrowed her eyes at her sister. It seemed their hostess was already having her influence over Jane, for her sister had been pleased throughout the meal to respond in trivialities.
“And you, Mrs Fitzwilliam?”
“Oh, it was remarkable! One afternoon we toured a bookstore called Hatchard’s. Have you ever heard of it?”
Miss Darcy blinked slowly again—a mannerism Elizabeth had come to think of as condescension restrained by odiously good manners. “I have.”
“Indeed!” Billy interjected. “Why, the historical section alone could account for an entire room. I think I should have never come out if Cousin Elizabeth had not insisted.”
Miss Darcy smiled tightly and dipped her head. “Miss Bennet, what do you think of the trams? I presume you have nothing of the kind in Wyoming.”
“No, we had seen nothing so splendid,” Jane agreed.
“That is not entirely true, for we saw them in New York before we sailed,” Elizabeth objected.
Jane smiled, glanced briefly at Elizabeth with widened eyes, and then turned back to her hostess. “Ahem. Riding in Mr Darcy’s motorcar was a novel experience for us.“
Miss Darcy inclined her head. “My brother purchased them only last year. I say ‘them,’ because he has another here at the estate. However, he uses this one but seldom.”
Elizabeth’s eyes widened as she spooned up a bit more soup. Two motorcars! And one not even driven often!
“…magnificent!” Billy was declaring. “That we should live in such a time!”
Miss Darcy acknowledged whatever Billy had been saying with a demure smile, then turned her attention to the butler to ask after the next course.
Elizabeth frowned and said no more through the rest of the meal.
“J ane, what happened to you?”
Jane gathered the folds of her robe and slipped onto the divan beside Elizabeth. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, you had hardly an original idea or opinion of your own! You were as dull and boring as Miss Darcy.”
“Oh, Lizzy, do not call her dull. The poor girl is frightened out of her wits trying to entertain us.”
“Frightened! ‘Poor girl’? Jane, you are too good to pronounce her the snob she is, but I am not. She has not a single thought in her head that her family and her finishing school have not put there.”
“Lizzy, do not be so harsh on her. After all, she has shown us every consideration. She is so young to be managing a household.”
“How old is she? Have you heard?”
“She told me herself that she has just turned seventeen.”
“Really?” Elizabeth tipped her head. “She looks older. I mean, not that she appears aged, but she is so… poised. How does one go about achieving that air of sophistication?”
“I expect that is all she has ever known. Remember, she was not born to harvesting hay and branding calves, as we were.”
“Oh! I hear it in your voice, you are thinking meanly of our own heritage now. Do no such thing, Jane Bennet, for ours is a proud history. I should like to see one of these fashionable Darcys sitting up all night with a sick animal, all covered in muck and cold and praying they both see the dawn. And what of staring at a half-empty cellar in the dead of winter, wondering if it will last a family of seven through to the next harvest? I would not trade our sort of courage for all the social graces in England.”
Jane squeezed her hand. “ Your sort of courage, you mean. You are the brave one. I am—” she shrugged, then offered a weepy smile—“just Jane. The one everyone speaks well of, but no one has any use for.”
Elizabeth tugged her sister close. “I do. I need you, dear Jane, if I am ever to come through this.”
Wyoming, United States April 1900
C olonel Fitzwilliam surveyed the motley herd assembled before him. Three hundred horses crowded the groaning corrals, most of them with humbled heads cast low, placidly lashing their tails against the biting flies. “ These are your best?” he asked incredulously. “They are not even fit to drag the wounded off the field!”
The top hand in charge had introduced himself as Jake Bryson—a rather tallish sort of bloke, whose shirt and hat brim were stained with sweat and grime. Bryson leaned against a hitching post, shrugging his avowal that these were, indeed, his best animals, and spat a vile stream upon the ground.
Richard would not permit the man the satisfaction of seeing him grimace. Americans were revolting—or, at least, this specimen was—and they all seemed to delight in provoking some reaction from him.
“If it’s wounded men you’re thinking of, Colonel, I’ve got a handsome little stallion behind the smithy. Crushed Murph’s nose, he did, and poor old Blake’ll never walk straight again. But he’s a looker! Prettiest dappled grey I ever saw.” The hand chortled to himself, shifting the chaw about his gums and never seeming to blink as he stared back at Richard.
“My men have enough trouble with bullets without the bother of outlaw mounts. I require trained animals, ready to answer the call of the bugle. Are these mongrels even broken to ride?”
Bryson waved a hand to one of those who worked under him. “Jerry, Sam, Tom! Saddle up some horses. The colonel here wants to see ‘em go.”
What followed was, to Richard, the most painful display of braggadocio and ineptitude it had ever been his misfortune to witness. He was a cavalryman, trained almost from infancy in the ways of elegant horsemanship, and these blowhards hired to break in the remounts must have learned their skills from the back of a whiskey bottle. A rangy chestnut bucked his way across the pen, his rider making more effort to exhibit his prowess at staying aboard with style than to direct his mount. A second man chose a mouse-coloured little horse, who appeared docile enough, but for the fact that it seemed impossible to turn his head in either direction—assuming his rider even knew how to accomplish such a feat.
“Enough,” he muttered at last, when a scruffy bay propped his front legs and refused to move forward again. Rather than further subject himself—and the horse—to the rider’s mishandling, he drew Bryson away.
“Look here, Bryson, I am expected to send a lot back East within the fortnight. Can these brutes be ready, or not?”
Bryson narrowed his eyes and shifted the chaw around his mouth. “What’s a four-night?”
Richard sighed in exasperation. “Two weeks. How long has this bunch been in training already?”
The hand shrugged. “Four days or so. Five or six for some of the prettier ones.”
“And have you no better breakers than these? I have never seen a more useless set of men. Breaking a horse in properly requires some skill and finesse. Rough, ill-educated hands like these will spoil the creatures.”
Bryson grinned. “The barmaids don’t seem to mind.”
Richard set his teeth and glared at the man until he sobered. “My lodgings are in town. I brought four of my own men with me, and tomorrow morning we will return to set this bunch right. Your men will take instruction from mine, or I will teach them the spur and whip myself. Is that understood? I’ll have none of this drunken foolishness going forward.”
Bryson’s face hardened, and his lip curled as he turned to emit another stream onto the ground. He said nothing but stared in such a way that did not signal surrender.
“And what of their feet?” Richard continued. “I noticed that some have already been shod. I should like to take a closer look, to be certain these buffoons of yours shall not cripple anything.”
“My men don’t do the shoes,” Bryson snorted. “That’s Bennet. He’s out back, in the smithy.”
“Then I shall speak with him next.” Richard gave a jerk of his chin and walked away.
He found the man he sought bent over a hot forge, hammer in one hand and tongs in the other. Standing back, Richard watched in silence as the man beat the molten fire out of a bit of iron, then bent it to his will. He was not a large fellow, and he did not possess the hulking shoulders of most lifelong blacksmiths Richard had seen, but his movements all appeared competent.
A shoe took shape from the iron bar, and Bennet turned for a peg to punch the nail holes into the soft metal. He stopped, eying Richard with a lifted brow. “Good afternoon, Colonel.” He then bent back to his work while it was still hot, just as any smith Richard had ever known might have done. “You must be Marcus’s replacement. I hope, sir, that you know something of horseflesh. Your predecessor did not.”
“And I was hoping to find the same, for your Mr Bryson is an imbecile.”
“I would speak more cautiously, if I were you.” Bennet plunged the cooling shoe back into the forge and withdrew a red-hot spike. He turned, pointing it towards Richard, with a look in his eye that seemed half amusement, half threat. “That is my son-in-law you speak of.”
“Then you are as great a fool as he, and worse so, to give your daughter to such a blockhead.”
Bennet lowered the spike to his anvil and burst into a hearty laugh. “We shall get on well enough, Colonel! I spoke in jest—he is not my son-in-law, nor, God willing, shall he ever be. But as for my daughter, if Bryson laid a finger on her, I expect he would lose it.”
Richard could not help a sly smile, and he watched as Bennet returned to his work. “Where did you learn your trade, sir?”
“Where does any man learn? My father taught me, although I never thought I would have to earn my living at it.” He paused in his work to crank a handle on a surprisingly modern blower apparatus. It appeared to have been made by hand, but it was effective, nonetheless.
“What is your business here, Colonel?” Bennet asked nonchalantly. “Have you come to ascertain that I will not burn down the corrals with my forge, or did you merely look for conversation consisting of more than one syllable?”
“I came to see the horses’ feet. I expected no one here had the least idea what they were about, and I cannot risk a hundred lame horses.”
Bennet tipped his head to the left as he bent it again over his anvil. “I just finished the third shoe on that horse there. I hope it meets with your approval. Now, if you please, I should like to finish for the day, because as pleasant as this conversation is, I am looking forward to a mug and a book in my tent far more.”
Richard shook his head and left the work area. A peculiar man, this Mr Bennet. He walked over to the horse tied at the front of the smithy, and with a gentle pat on the shoulder, picked up the hoof. The foot appeared balanced, the shoe well-fitted, and the nails all perfectly placed. He slowly dropped the horse’s hoof again and looked back to the man at the forge. Bennet appeared to have done with him, for he never even glanced up to see if Richard had approved of his work.
Richard sighed and looked around. The hands were still trying to impress him with their dubious talents—unless that was the way they always rode—and there seemed little more he could do until the morrow when he brought his men and set to work in earnest. A pity he could not travel to another station and buy horses elsewhere, but he had his orders. This entire venture was a bloody waste of his time.
At least there was a proper hotel in town. Given the current state of affairs, Richard expected a decent bed would be welcome by the end of his days here.