Autumn Glory and Other Stories Read online

  “Botheration,” she cursed again on her way to wake her sleeping sisters, to announce the disasters in store for them. Of all the dire fates, though, in a life filled with injustice and slights, Algernon Thurkle was the worst blight of all. At least Ellie, beautiful Iselle, was to get a handsome peer. And Nessie, sweet Inessa, was to get Frye Hall and those marvelous horses. She, the last child, the unwanted third daughter, was to get Algie Thurkle, with his spots and stammer and stable-centered conversation. Why, his horse had more intelligence! She’d rather wed his horse, for that matter. At least the horse did not have roving hands. Lady Bannister’s youngest girl may have been without a governess for these past years, but she had the lending library and the collection downstairs to teach herself, and if there was one thing she learned, it was that there was more to life than horses and hunting. Well, she was not going to do it. She was not going to marry an unlicked cub without even making her bows at the marriage mart, and she was not going to become Mrs. Algernon Thurkle, not after spending the last eighteen years as Irmagard Snodgrass. Life could not be that cruel.

  The freckles were bad enough, the left-handedness could usually be concealed, and she had long resigned herself to being the ugly duckling in a family of swans, but Irmagard! Not even Maggie, she thought with eighteen years of resentment, because Lady Bannister thought Maggie sounded common. So she was Irma to her closest associates, and more often Irm the Worm to her older sisters, who had too often found the grubby infant underfoot, asking questions, following them about. From the natural superiority of five or six years, they resented the constant shadow of a bumbling baby sister.

  They did not resent her now, falling on Irma to save them from the atrocity of arranged marriages. At least they did so after Iselle roundly berated her for waking them before noon, and Inessa raised her blue eyes to heaven and clucked her tongue at the sight of the dirt tracks across her carpet.

  “Oh, hush, both of you, do. Ellie, you know you don’t need any beauty sleep; you’re always prettiest after dancing the night away. And if you don’t hurry and listen, you’ll find yourself never dancing again. And, Nessie, you’ll have to do more than pray over a little untidiness, unless you wish to have Mr. Frye tracking stable muck through your parlor.”

  “Mr. Frye? Whatever are you speaking of? He would never come calling on Mama in all his dirt.”

  “And what do you mean, I’ll never dance again? Why, there will be balls every night as soon as Papa’s wretched hunt is over and we leave for London.”

  “We are not going to London, none of us, that’s the point. We have a veritable crisis.” And so she explained about their mother’s plans to see each of them engaged by the night of the hunt ball, less than a week away.

  Predictably, Iselle dissolved in a flutter of weepy lace onto the chaise longue, without looking one jot puffy or red-eyed or rumpled, Irma thought disgustedly as she bathed her eldest sister’s forehead with lavender water.

  “I made sure Mama would give up after all these years,” Ellie groaned. “I’ll go into a decline, I swear, and waste away from a broken heart. Viscount Wingate will marry a faded wraith, and then I’ll come back to haunt him for taking an unwilling bride.”

  The only books Iselle ever read, nay, listened to while Inessa or Irma read aloud, were gothic romances from the Minerva Press. It showed. The handkerchief wafted through the air. “I shall die for true love.”

  “Don’t be a cabbage head, Ellie,” Irma chided. “No one dies from an arranged marriage. Just look at Mama.”

  Ellie moaned again. Then she sat up suddenly, tipping the basin of scented water onto Irma. “Wingate!” she shrieked, as if she’d truly seen a ghost. “Why did she have to pick that stuffed shirt Wingate?”

  Irma ignored the spreading wetness in her lap.

  “Oh, do you know him? Did you ever meet him in London? Mama says he is handsome.”

  “Handsome?” Iselle echoed distractedly. “I suppose, if you like sober-sided and stiff-rumped old men. Why, there’s never been so much as a hint of scandal to his name, not a single affaire or gaming debt or duel, only his stodgy accomplishments at those wretched peace conventions. No, I never met him, although I did see him a few times. But, but, Irma, you were right! He never dances, just stands in corners having boring conversations when he’s not at those fusty government conferences and things. I’d have to be a political hostess,” she wailed, “giving those interminable dinners where no one laughs or gossips or flirts. And you know I never understand any of that other talk about exclusions and excise taxes. You know I don’t!”

  “Sh, Ellie, don’t get yourself in a pelter. Mama says Wingate is retiring from the government to take up managing his properties.”

  “Worse and worse!” Iselle cried. “Then I’ll never get to London at all! How will I find out the latest fashions? Besides, in the country away from company, I’d have to talk to him all the time, every day!”

  “Yes, dearest, that is customary among husbands and wives.”

  “But, but, Irma, they say Wingate speaks eight languages! Eight!”

  Irma had no words of comfort for the beautiful wigeon who barely spoke one. She turned instead to her other sister, who had been quietly wringing her hands together in the corner of the sitting room the sisters shared.

  “What think you, Nessie? Can you be happy with Mr. Frye?”

  With blue eyes awash in tears, Inessa looked like an injured angel. Her chin trembled and her voice quavered, but she managed to say, “If Mama wishes it, I shall try to make him a good wife.”

  “But can you be happy?” Irma insisted. “Mama doesn’t have to live with him, you know.”

  Inessa swallowed. “A woman cannot simply follow her own heart in these things, Irmagard. You’ve always been too impetuous to see that there are higher goals than the mere pursuit of happiness. A daughter owes her parents obedience and…and deference to their wisdom.”

  Irma made an unladylike sound. “Is it wise to shackle you to a man nearly old enough to be your father and whose manners, moreover, smell of the shop no matter what airs he puts on for the countryside? That is not wisdom, Nessie, it’s greed for all that money he has.”

  “Well, at least I shall be able to accomplish a great many good deeds with all that wealth.”

  “What fustian. The man did not get to be a nabob by giving alms to the poor. And I am certain he won’t want his beautiful young bride going among the diseased and downtrodden. Can’t you see, Nessie, Mama just picked him because he is well-heeled and handy. She just wants to get rid of us.”

  Iselle dabbed at her nose. “I cannot see what you have to complain about, Irma. Your life won’t be ruined. You’ll still be able to muck about in the stables and tromp over the hills to visit the tenant farmers the way you’ve been doing. Algie won’t mind that you never learned to play the pianoforte or embroider.”

  “What you mean is that I can never hope for a better match.”

  “I never said that! It’s just that you and Algie have so much in common. Your…your outdoorsyness, and…and your freckles!”

  Irma laughed. “A fine basis for a marriage. You are as bad as Mama, but never mind. No one thought to inquire if I might enjoy a London ball, or even an intelligent conversation. You might be resigned to the fates Mama has assigned you, but I swear to you, I shan’t marry Algernon Thurkle. And no,” she said to Iselle, “I won’t go into any histrionic declaration that I’d sooner die. I’d more likely murder poor Algie first. But if you don’t want to hear my plans…” And she made to leave the room, flipping her damp skirts away from her legs.

  “Don’t you dare leave, you little worm, without telling us your plan!” Iselle commanded. Then Inessa murmured, “Do you really think there is a chance Mama will change her mind?”

  Irma grinned, showing dimples alongside her mouth. “Never, but not even Mama can make us marry gentlemen who don’t ask. And I mean to make sure they never do.”

  Nessie worried her lip between perfec
t white teeth. “I don’t believe I could act vulgarly enough to give Mr. Frye a disgust of me, Irma.”

  And Iselle fretted: “If you’re thinking I can get myself up to look like a hag in order to discourage Lord Wingate, I don’t think I can do it. Remember when I was supposed to be Medusa for that masquerade? Everyone laughed.”

  Irma drew her sisters closer. “I know neither of you is good at deception, so you’ll just have to trust me. Nessie, you can be as good as ever, and Ellie, twice as beautiful, if that’s possible. Just listen…”

  3

  His boots were dusty, by Jupiter. Dusty and scuffed and caked with mud. Damn if they didn’t look good to Brigham Winn, Viscount Wingate. Here he was, alone in the English countryside, with no one to impress but the occasional sheep or cow and his own horse. And the stallion trailing behind him at the end of the reins was missing a shoe altogether, so the blasted horse couldn’t complain. Winn laughed out loud with the sheer joy of freedom. He looked back along the tree-lined lane the way he had come, then forward on the leafy path, then reached up with his free hand and loosened his neck cloth. Walking one’s horse for a few hours was warm work, even if the bright autumn sunshine did not carry much heat with it. The viscount told himself that it would not do to arrive at Bannister Grange looking like some kind of undergroom, but he was gambling on getting ’Ledo to the stables, then finding a servant to direct him to a side door before he had to greet his hosts. That is, if he ever found Bannister Grange at all.

  Lord Wingate had been wandering these country byways for hours, it seemed, after leaving his carriage, baggage, groom, and valet at the last posting stop. The ostler had sworn he knew the best way to get to the Grange across the fields and streams, the best ride to challenge both nobleman and stallion. Master and horse had been confined too long, held to the carriage’s slow pace halfway across Europe, making their way to London after three days’ delay for the Channel crossing. Then they had to idle about for a fortnight in town waiting on the Cabinet ministers and doing the pretty with Wingate’s mother and her friends. It was exhilarating to have the strength of the stallion beneath him as hedgerow and stone wall flew by. It was not quite as exhilarating to walk miles out of the way to find an opening in those same fences and brambles after the steel gray Toledo cast a shoe. The ostler’s directions, of course, meant nothing if horse and rider couldn’t take the third fence after jumping the brook, catercorner from the fallen elm, et cetera. By the time he found a low spot to lead the stallion across a fast-running stream that was strewn with dangerous rocks, he couldn’t locate a fence post, fallen tree, or his hat.

  So he was lost and late, damp and dirty—and he didn’t care. The viscount was no longer a public figure. He was not representing England, the throne, or the entire British upper class. Negotiations did not hinge on the punctilio of his address, nations were not going to rise or fall on the height of his shirt points or the depth of his bow. Brigham Winn was a free man.

  If he was about to assume another type of yoke, well, he still knew his duty to God, the king, and the family name, but, deuce take it, he was going to enjoy these last hours of liberty. Like a small boy, he kicked up piles of fallen leaves with every boot step until the stallion snorted and sidled at the end of the reins.

  “Very well, lad,” the viscount told the horse, “I’ll stop playing and get on with finding you your supper and a cozy crib for the night. Ah, but ’Ledo, isn’t England a pretty place?” Wingate paused to wave his hand around, encompassing the blue skies, the scarlet leaves, the rolling fields. The horse nudged him from behind, sending him on his way again. “Yes, yes, I am going. You have no poetry in your soul, though. Come along now, there’s a hill just ahead. Likely I’ll be able to spot some landmark or other from there, or at least a farmhouse where I can ask directions.”

  Wingate was right. From the top of the hill, he could look down to what had to be the main highway, from the width and condition of the road. On another rise across the road, he could see the chimneys of a large building, large enough to be Bannister Grange itself. He checked his watch. With any luck his own coach would be passing by shortly, and he could freshen his appearance before reaching his destination after all. Unless the carriage with his valet and clean clothes had already gone by. Undecided, Wingate looked around him while the horse cropped the still-green grass.

  The viscount took a deep breath, catching wood smoke and the hint of an apple press in the air. Cultivated fields stretched in all directions, grains tied in bundles or piled in ricks, waiting for the lumbering wagons and huge workhorses he could see making their way from row to row. The windbreak evergreens made dark contrast to the orange and yellow leaves of the vines and hedges. “I cannot help it, ’Ledo,” he told the disinterested animal, “I am happy to be home in England, especially at this time of year. It may be trite but no less true for all that: autumn truly is a glorious season.” Wingate turned back to gather the reins again when another splash of color caught his eye from the side of the hill he was on, closer to the road. As he went nearer, leading the stallion, the brightness defined itself into a female figure in a russet frock reclining on an undyed wool blanket beneath a small hawthorne tree. A maid on her half day off, he thought a bit enviously, waiting for her beau for a picnic in the grass. At least someone could tell him if his carriage had passed by recently and if that was, indeed, Bannister Grange.

  Unfortunately, the maid appeared to be asleep. He tied ’Ledo to a nearby branch so as not to startle her, and walked quietly to her side, then silently whistled. This was no maidservant. Not in a russet velvet riding habit cut in the latest military fashion, and no child, either, judging from how the velvet hugged a delightful little figure. He looked around for the horse and spotted a dainty roan mare across the roadway, placidly cropping grass. That was no workhorse, and this was no farmer’s daughter picking berries or whatever. So where was the groom who should have been in attendance? Well-bred young ladies did not loll about empty hillsides for any passing stranger to chance upon. England could not have changed that much in his absence. Gads, what if he’d been one of the roving ex-soldiers or an angry, out-of-work farmhand?

  He sank down beside the foolish wench, a scowl on his face, ready to blister her ears with a few home truths, when he saw the pistol tucked under her skirts. Not quite a henwit, then, if the pistol were loaded, if she knew how to use it, and if she had the bottom to shoot a man. That pointed little chin seemed to indicate enough determination, but there was a sweetness around the lips that hinted at a tender heart. He found himself wondering what color the chit’s eyes were, and if they’d be stormy if he kissed those soft lips awake. He gently nudged the pistol further out of her reach, just in case he let his baser instincts win out. ’Twould teach the girl a lesson, he tried to convince himself, and failed. He was still a gentleman, for all his release from duty. Wingate sighed and forced his eyes away from those tempting lips. The corners of his own mouth tilted up when he studied the jaunty little hat, now cocked over one brow, with a green ostrich feather resting against one creamy cheek. Fine lot of good that minuscule bonnet was doing keeping the sun off her face, about as much as the pistol was protecting her from unsought admiration. By the freckles he spotted and the warm-toned skin, Sleeping Beauty was no more caring of her complexion than she was of her reputation. And that red hair—a minx for sure.

  It wasn’t quite red, not carroty at all, more a mix of gold and copper, with curls that just asked a man to hold them to the light, to watch the fiery glimmers change color. Damnation, his wits must have gone begging along with his hat.

  Winn looked away with a twinge of regret that the unknown miss wasn’t one of the Bannister daughters, who were exquisitely fair, according to his mother. Then who the devil was she, and what was she doing out here alone on what had to be Bannister property? And with a pistol. He had not forgotten the pistol.

  He moved it farther away, feeling guilty at the liberties he had taken, if only in his mind. Hell, if he
gave way to even a quarter of the impulses this female was stirring, she’d have every right to shoot him. On the other hand, he couldn’t just go away and leave her unprotected this close to the road. Winn started to clear his throat when a paper fluttered at the girl’s other side. He moved around to see what he’d missed, a drawing pad and a set of watercolor paints together with a small jug of water and a rag. Ah, so she was off on a drawing excursion, practicing one of those paltry skills deemed so necessary among debutantes, like harp playing and batting their eyelashes just so. Winn swallowed his disappointment as he flipped back the page on her painting. Lud, she needed a lot of practice!

  The view from the hill was there, the reds and golds of the changing leaves, the blue of a cloudless sky, and the greens where the grasses hadn’t turned yet, even the browns of the harvested fields—except the browns came more from her reds and greens running together, and all the colors flowed and moved like leaves on the breeze. There was no recognizable feature in the whole picture, and yet the chit had captured the essence of the autumn day as seen through half-blind or squinted eyes. Winn looked around for spectacles. No. Perhaps she just saw things through a child’s mind, then? There would have been an attendant here for sure if she was that much of a slowtop. With his collector’s eye, Wingate decided the chit was either brilliant, doing with autumn what Turner did with fog, or she was a wretched watercolorist. Undoubtedly she was using the excuse of painting to avoid whatever duties awaited her at home, the same as he was avoiding his.

  To put the moment off a bit more, he replaced the painting next to her on the blanket, only this time upside down. Not that it made much of a difference, he decided, a definite quirk in his smile. He stood back and studied the new still life he had created: the vibrantly colored girl, the vivid painting, the radiant hillside. “Yes,” he said aloud, “the glories of autumn, indeed.”