Page 7 of The Derbyshire Dance (Kendall House #3)

Chapter four

Sheep

T he rain increased overnight and, by the time morning came, Nigel was expecting to see Gyles Audeley’s rose bushes floating away on a liquefied landscape. Surely, it was indoor weather today. There were too many puddles and too much mud to even attempt an outing.

Nigel recalled a house party he had attended last winter where it was too wet to leave the premises.

But even though there was rain outside, the lively gathering had been filled with drink, dancing, and mild debauchery—Lady Maltrousse would not have her reputation sullied with accusations of ennui when it could be sullied with accusations of dissipation and depravity.

But the confines of Audeley Manor held no such lively group to while away the weather.

After breakfast, Nigel gave a dilatory effort on the pianoforte.

He sat in the parlour opening and closing a book for twenty minutes.

He paced about the house, mourned the loss of his feline companion, and rewound the ball of string into a tight globe of yarn.

And then, after the rain abated at the noon hour, he decided that a walk would be just the thing.

Yesterday’s carriage ride had provided him a sketch of the geography of the neighbourhood.

The Miss Morrisons lived in a cosy stone house of three storeys with three windows across each floor.

Beyond the house was an old barn and several tenant cottages, with drystone walls dividing out different portions of the acreage.

Miss Lucy Morrison, as she thanked him for the carriage ride, had been assiduous in inviting him to call.

Bel Morrison, on the other hand, had been pointedly silent, refusing to add her voice to her aunt’s.

The thought of irritating the younger Miss Morrison with his presence was all the encouragement Nigel needed.

He had memorized which turn to take on the road and, puddles or no, he was determined to drink his tea with the Morrison ladies that very afternoon.

He stepped out the door and looked down at his boots.

Archie had done his best by them, but they would need a thorough cleaning once again after this excursion.

It was not more than ten minutes’ walk before the Morrisons’ house came into sight on the green horizon.

Nigel was still a good distance off when he noticed several labourers in a nearby field working to extricate a sheep from a mud pit.

The poor creature had slid into a depression in the ground, and it was too full of mud and water for the beast to climb out again.

Nigel paused and peered over the hedgerow to watch the fellows at work.

Two sturdy labourers were down in the mud pit, trying to seize hold of the frightened animal and put a noose around its shoulders. Five yards away, a much slighter fellow—dressed in sturdy boots, an oilskin coat, a large cap, and a pair of buckskin trousers—held the end of the rope .

“Lift her right leg, Jer,” said the smaller fellow, seemingly the leader of the bunch even though his young voice had not yet deepened, “and put it through the noose along with the neck so we don’t strangle the old girl.”

The fellow named Jer complied and, with the harness attached to the sheep, scrambled back out of the mud pit to help the slighter fellow pull on the rope.

Nigel’s eyes narrowed. There was something familiar about that lad in the buckskin trousers.

He wished that the lad’s cap was not covering his hair and shadowing his face so that he could see him clearly.

He resolved to tarry a little longer to see if the project of extricating the sheep was successful.

“Give him a shove, Tam,” said the lad, and the man still in the mud pit hit the sheep’s haunches with an encouraging thwack.

The slender fellow and Jer began to haul on the rope, and after a few minutes of straining, the mud released its victim.

The ungainly sheep scrambled up the sides of the mud pit, without so much as a thank you to its rescuers, and pulled impatiently while they untied the rope harness that had wrought its salvation.

“Well done,” said Nigel, clapping his gloved hands from his side of the hedgerow and alerting the farmhands to his presence. The younger lad seemed startled, almost bashful, at the presence of a gentleman and immediately knelt behind the sheep to work the knot on the harness.

“Thank’ee, sir,” said Jer, giving Nigel a nod and pulling his forelock with a dirty hand. The one named Tam grunted in acknowledgement, and Nigel recognised him as one of the Morrisons’ manservants from the churchyard. They stood staring at him until the situation became uncomfortable .

Nigel decided to continue his walk to the Morrison house. He turned toward the road and stepped forward without considering his surroundings. His boot splashed into a puddle with such force that the water flew between the sides of his unbuttoned greatcoat and spotted the front of his pantaloons.

“Fiend take it.” Nigel frowned and skirted the rest of the puddle. He had wanted to appear his best when calling on his neighbours, and now he looked like he had been dancing in a mud pit just like the rest of these Derbyshire locals.

From the corner of his eye, he saw that the sheep had been freed from the rope, and the muddy mass of wool was trotting happily away from its rescuers.

The slender lad stood up again, his large cap still covering his hair, but the grey eyes below the brim of the cap were watching Nigel make his way down the lane, and they were filled with unspoken laughter.

“How kind of you to call,” twittered Miss Lucy as soon as the housemaid showed Nigel into her parlour. “And so soon after our invitation! I’m afraid that Bel has gone…out for the afternoon. She will be disappointed to have missed your visit.”

“Yes, I’m sure she will,” murmured Nigel.

He had his suspicions just where Miss Morrison had disappeared to, but he kept those locked tightly beneath the breast of his grey woollen jacket and green paisley waistcoat.

At least only one woman would behold him in his bedraggled pantaloons—Lady Maltrousse would have laughed him out of her salon to see him so untidily dressed.

He wondered how he would keep the elder Miss Morrison entertained for the time it would take to drink a cup of tea, for he had been hoping to see another lady entirely and quiz her about her comment to the vicar.

“You must tell me all about London,” said Lucy, oblivious to his disappointment. “It has been five years since I was there last. Has much changed?”

“Er, no,” said Nigel. “The king is still on the brink of madness. Almack’s is still as dull as ever. And the Thames still stinks to high heaven.”

“But what about the shops and the theatre?”

“The shops still sell ribbons and gloves, and the theatre is still too bawdy for the Methodists, too frivolous for the critics, and too tedious for the ladies who only come to see and be seen.”

Lucy sighed in satisfaction. “How I should like to visit once again! You must be quite a favourite in London, Mr. Lymington.”

Nigel cleared his throat. “I am occasionally in demand by the less discriminating hostesses.” It was a modest way of phrasing his popularity, but then, Lucy Morrison did not need to know that Lady Jersey, Lady Sefton, and Lady Maltrousse all counted on him to make up their numbers for a dinner party.

“But what set do you frequent? You are not a Corinthian?”

“Heavens, no. I despise curricle-racing and boxing and every other sport that induces a man to perspire.”

“But you are also not a dandy?”

“No, indeed. I like my collar points to be low enough to see who’s sitting beside me.”

“Then what are your interests, Mr. Lymington?”

Nigel cocked his head. He did not know how to answer.

For the last two years he had never asked himself that question once.

He had merely looked for the next luxurious house party, the next risqué ridotto, the next exclusive card game to prove that the Duke of Warrenton could play and partake with the best of them.

His interests, of late, had been scrambling for money to maintain his social cachet.

But now, here he was, immured in the countryside—and it had taken him less than a week to discover that his own company was as perishingly dull as Parliamentary proceedings.

“I suppose I can only claim a passion for collecting interesting people to talk to.”

Aunt Lucy nodded perceptively. “You’ll enjoy my niece then, for she’s as interesting as they come.”

Nigel grinned. He was positive Miss Morrison would not be pleased with her aunt’s efforts to continually thrust her niece forward as a conversational topic.

“Perhaps I shall have the chance to speak with her at dinner on Wednesday,” said Nigel lightly.

Or perhaps fate might contrive an encounter even sooner.