The Mammoth Book Of Regency Romance Part 22

"Invisible Girl shouldn't climb trees," Harriet abruptly called as Verity headed for a low-hanging apple branch. "Trees make her visible."

Verity darted back into the cover of the hedge.

Now he was more than intrigued. "Invisible Girl?" he enquired.

She shrugged. "Women and children are expected to be invisible. That works for some of us. Not all."

"Expecting Verity to behave is not asking her to be invisible. There is a reason discipline and authority are required," he objected. "If my men didn't follow my command, they could put themselves or others in harm's way."

"Provided your command was correct," she argued. "You do not allow for independent thinking."

"Not while I'm the one responsible for what happens! That's the entire point of being in charge to know what is best for those relying on my expertise and knowledge. Verity cannot simply run unchecked about town, not acknowledging anyone's authority but her own."

"She is a child! She cannot be expected to respect the authority of someone she barely knows. And who barely knows her! Have you even tried to understand your daughter, Major Sumner?"

"I shouldn't have to understand her, Miss Briggs," he declared. "She should simply obey the adults in her life until she's reached an age of reason."

Miss Briggs gave him a look of incredulity, emitted another rude snort, and climbed the turnstile to join Verity in the field. Together, they ran laughing in the direction of the village.

Lucas didn't think his suit was going very well. Perhaps he should consider plump, henpecked Mary after all. He marched down the lane, realizing this was the first time he'd seen Verity laugh since he'd returned home. He tugged uncomfortably at his neckcloth.

Striding down the lane after Sunday dinner, Harriet knew she'd behaved badly earlier in the week. And she'd done so deliberately, rejecting Major Sumner before he could reject her. She'd seen the disapproval in his eyes, let it raise her temper and then she'd goaded him into behaving like a military high stickler. Which he was, or at least, he had been. That did not mean he was a bad man, just one accustomed to certain behaviour.

The kind of behaviour a child could not follow. Nor Harriet, for all that mattered, but that did not mean Major Sumner was wrong. It just meant that he and his daughter would have a very hard time of it, if someone did not intervene.

She was probably not the right person to do so, but who else would? The other unattached ladies in town simply whispered to each other behind their hands, wearing their best bonnets in hopes that Major Sumner would notice them. As if he was likely to notice a bonnet full of roses and birds! They'd do better to wear stiff military caps to make him feel more at home.

Mary had taken him a basket of m.u.f.fins. Jane had taken him a pie. The child and Major Sumner would not go hungry, at least. But Verity would be ignored and feel even more like an Invisible Girl.

Verity was the only reason Harriet was marching down the lane this fine April Sunday afternoon, carrying a basket containing an adorable black-and-white kitten that would create havoc in Major Sumner's orderly household. Perhaps he needed to be reminded as the other ladies would not that he was not the only person in his home.

She supposed she ought to apologise for her earlier behaviour while she was at it, but she was not so certain on that matter. She had, though, dressed carefully for church that morning. If Major Sumner had noticed, he had not given a sign. He'd been too busy trying to keep Verity behaving like a proper major general.

So Harriet was taking the liberty of calling on the child this afternoon, while still wearing her Sunday sprigged muslin. She'd even tamed her hair to stay inside her bonnet, except for a loose curl or two. She wore her gloves and kid slippers and looked as much like a lady as she possibly could, so Major Sumner would have no reason to disapprove of her disreputable untidiness and set off her temper again.

Perhaps she might show him she could be proper, if she must, but neatness had never been overly important to her. She'd kept the family housekeeper on even though Agnes was half-blind and unaware of the damages Harriet's pets caused. Harriet preferred her pets and Agnes to orderliness. If the Major wanted tidy, he should court Mary Loveless and her overbearing mother.

Nor could she compete with pretty Elizabeth or sweet-tempered Jane. Harriet was plain. Sometimes, when she did needlework, she even wore spectacles. And no man had ever called her sweet. So all Harriet could hope was that if she looked respectable enough, Major Sumner would allow her to be a friend and help with his daughter.

She had ascertained that Lucas had returned to his father's old cottage on a small lot between her father's farm and the village. His father had been the town physician until his death last spring. Harriet had often visited his home with her father's tenants. She was familiar with the two-storey cottage.

The lilac by the front door needed tr.i.m.m.i.n.g, but it would bloom wonderfully in another month. Harriet rapped the knocker. Before anyone could answer, a childish shriek of fear and a masculine shout of panic erupted from the yard behind the house.

Setting the kitten basket on the doorstep, she lifted her Sunday skirt and raced past a few bedraggled jonquils and a struggling peony, around the corner, to the old stable.

Seeing no one in the yard, she followed the sound of angry shouts into the stable where Verity hung upside down from the rafters with a large harness around her waist, in peril of slipping out on her head at any moment.

If it were not so terrifying a situation, it would have been funny. How had the child ended up swinging like a trapeze artist?

The rafter was tall and Verity was short. Major Sumner stretched between the ground and his daughter's hair, barely keeping her from falling but unable to grasp her sufficiently to lower her to the ground. Hence the furious shouting. Men despised helplessness.

There was no point in explaining that a little girl did not know how to grasp leathers and climb back up from whence she'd fallen, as her father was encouraging her to do. Tucking the back of her skirt into the front of her petticoat ribbons, Harriet hastened up the ladder into the loft as she often did at home.

"If you tug the strap, she will fall!" Lucas warned from below. "And you are likely to fall with her."

"I know my limitations," Harriet retorted, stripping off her gloves. "Verity's coming down. Stand under her and grab for her shoulders." She found the buckle the little imp had wrapped around the beam and carefully undid it, hanging on to the leather with all her strength. "Verity, reach for your father because I cannot hold this for long."

Verity shrieked. Lucas yelled. And the harness whipped from Harriet's hands, leaving a burned streak across her palms. Shaking, Harriet closed her eyes, too terrified to see if she'd killed them both.

Verity began weeping loudly. Probably frightened out of her mind. Lucas scolded. Not the best of reactions for either, but at least she knew they were alive. Opening her eyes again, Harriet attempted the ladder, only now realizing how very unladylike she would appear with her stockings and garters exposed.

A strong arm caught her waist and lifted her free of the ladder. "I've got you. Let go."

She did, and Lucas swung her to the ground, while keeping a tearful Verity tucked under his other arm. The man's brains were in his brawn.

She liked the feel of his brawn a little too well. Shaking now that the incident was done, she wanted to bury her face in his big shoulder and weep out her fear as Verity was doing.

Lucas had apparently removed his frock coat after church and was in only waistcoat and s.h.i.+rt. She could smell his shaving soap and the manly aroma of his skin. While she fought back tears, he held her a little longer than was necessary, steadying himself as well as her.

Apparently realizing that fact at the same moment as she, he released her waist, but then remained uncertain what to do with the hysterical child he'd so rudely tucked under his other arm.

"Verity, sweetheart," Harriet murmured, still shaken but unable to resist a sobbing child. "Give over." She slid her arms around the girl and lifted her away from Lucas. "Verity, you terrified us. You have no idea how much it hurts your father when he thinks you're in pain or danger. He can't cry as you do, so he has to yell and shout."

Lucas snorted rudely, as she had once done, and Harriet shot him a retaliatory look. He rubbed his hands through his already dishevelled hair, like a man who had reached his last tether.

Verity flung her skinny arms around Harriet's neck and buried her runny nose in the pretty sprigged muslin. Too rattled to care, Harriet rocked her and patted her on the back as if Verity were a babe. Her arms ached with the weight, but Lucas had not yet learned to comfort his daughter. Someone must teach him.

Calming down enough to learn his lesson, he lifted Verity from Harriet's arms. "You scared me out of ten years' growth, child. Whatever were you doing up there?"

Verity sniffed and rubbed her nose on his waistcoat and finally wrapped her arms around her father's neck long enough to stop sobbing. Harriet thought perhaps she ought to sneak out now that the two were learning to get on, but she was interested in hearing Verity's reply.

"I wanted to be big!" she wailed. "Davy said he stretched his arms big by swinging on ropes, so I wanted to swing!"

Four.

"Oh, dear." Miss Briggs snickered and turned away, as if to depart.

Holding Verity in one arm, Lucas caught his saviour's elbow with his free hand. His heart still hadn't stopped attempting to escape his chest at the sight of his daughter hanging upside down in danger of breaking her neck.

If Miss Briggs had not come along, he would have had to learn to fly. He'd never seen a more level-headed, courageous lady, and even if she was a tart-tongued hoyden, he needed her. Verity needed her.

"Don't go." He tried not to plead, but he could see disaster written on his future unless he kept this woman with him. "We haven't thanked you. I don't suppose it's proper to invite you in for tea." He hated being uncertain but he was too overwrought at the moment to care. He just didn't want her to go until his heart stopped pounding in his ears.

"I think it might be a good idea for Verity to go inside and wash up and lie down for a little while. Keeping up with her cousins is very tiring."

Davy was one of Verity's older cousins. Lucas caught the lady's implication. He'd left his baby girl to compete with three older male cousins. His fault. Everything was his fault. It was up to him to undo what he had wrought.

"We will be just a minute," he told her, looking for some way to persuade her to stay. "There is some pie left. We can eat it under the tree, where everyone can see we are very respectable." He started for the house, trying not to notice as Miss Briggs brushed her skirt and petticoat back where they belonged.

She had long, lovely legs.

And shapely arms that cuddled a child the way he wouldn't mind being held.

He wondered if Miss Briggs might ever rest her head against his shoulder as Verity did. That wasn't a proper or respectable thought.

"I don' wanna take a nap." Verity hiccupped on her protest.

"Just lie down and rest your eyes a little," Miss Briggs said soothingly, matching Lucas' stride with ease. "And if you're good and rest long enough, I'll have a surprise waiting for you in the kitchen."

"A surprise?" Verity lifted her damp cheeks. "For me?"

"Yes, just for you. Are you big enough to run upstairs and wash and take off your dress or do you need help?"

"I'm big enough!" Verity pushed off Lucas' shoulders and wriggled to get down. When he let her go, she raced ahead of them.

"I've never seen her hurry so to take a nap," he said wryly. "I hope you really do have a surprise for her."

"You'll hate it, but I do. She needs to feel she's important, so I brought her a kitten. Learning to take care of a pet will teach her that others rely on her, and that she's very important, indeed. But you'll have to put up with the mess."

"You're laughing at me," he said accusingly, steering her towards the tea table his mother had set up beneath the beech tree.

"Perhaps, only a little, because I'm still quaking in my shoes. She could have been killed!" Miss Briggs wailed, almost collapsing into the chair he held for her.

"Exactly my thought twenty times a day. Wait here, and I'll bring out the cups and things, after I see Verity into bed. Did you leave the kitten in front?" At her nod, he made a mental note to fetch it. He doubted Verity's ability to take care of a kitten, but his heart warmed that Miss Briggs had thought of her.

He could foresee cat hairs in his future, but Verity was more important than tidiness. Somehow, he must learn to rearrange his priorities.

His daughter had already stripped off her grubby and ruined Sunday dress and was splas.h.i.+ng cold water as if she were a duck at play. Lucas scrubbed off some of the grime on her face and hands and watched her climb between the covers, before returning downstairs to the kitchen and setting on a kettle of tea. He supposed he should have done that first. He needed to hire a maid to think of these things, but it seemed awkward unless he had a wife first. He missed his batman.

He had imagined a sweet little woman ordering his household about, one who smiled cheerfully and arranged for delightful meals to appear on the table and pottered about keeping order, until it was time for her to come up to his bed. He could see now that his imagination was considerably rosier than actuality, rather like his youthful idea of war.

Life had a habit of not living up to his expectations. He could not even live up to his own. In the military, it had been relatively simple to follow orders, understand his men and take action. Women, on the other hand, were a mysterious universe he might never comprehend. How did he persuade one that he needed her without sounding desperate?

Remembering the kitten, he stopped at the front to pick up the basket. It smelled of lavender and sported pink ribbons and a little black nose was pus.h.i.+ng aside a gingham cloth. He hoped it was a male cat or he'd be outnumbered.

Carrying basket and tea tray, Lucas geared up his considerable courage to approach the intrepid Miss Harriet Briggs. He needed a wife who could rescue children from barns more than he needed a lady to look pretty and make tea. He simply had to find some way of asking her Harriet thought about running and hiding before Lucas returned. Just the fact that she was thinking of him as Lucas instead of Major Sumner spoke much of the familiarity of her thoughts.

She had no mirror and couldn't straighten out the frizzy mess her hair had become when the pins loosened in her climb. She shoved as much as she could inside her bonnet, then discovered she'd left her gloves in the barn. Her hands were bare, revealing her broken nails and dirt from the leather. She was an unmitigated hoyden, just as her father claimed.

Fine, then, she had nothing about which to worry. Major Sumner would not be interested in anyone as indecorous as she, so she could simply sip tea and discuss Verity's welfare.

She hurried to rescue him from tea tray and kitten as soon as he appeared. She couldn't help her heart from making an odd leap at the sight of the big strong man biting his lip while attempting to balance tray and swinging kitten basket at the same time. Even though he'd properly donned his Sunday cutaway coat and looked beyond das.h.i.+ng, the self-confident Major wasn't quite as intimidating or perfect in domesticity.

She had already dusted off the old table and now used the gingham from the kitten basket to cover it before she set the tray down. "Is Verity all settled in?" she asked nervously when he hovered too close, forcing awareness of how large he was. He'd lifted her from the ladder, while holding Verity! Her heart did another little jig.

"I think she was frightened enough to be glad of a moment alone."

"She's a bright child, with a strong imagination. Once you learn of what she's capable, you'll enjoy her company, Major Sumner," Harriet said stiltedly. She'd been to London and had learned to make polite small talk with gentlemen about the weather and the music and the company. She'd never had to pretend restraint in the village. Until now.

"Please, call me Lucas. I am no longer in the Army and, after this episode, I would like to call you friend, if I might."

She nodded and poured the tea, aware of how ugly her hands looked. "I am Harriet, although everyone calls me Harry. I fear my name is as unladylike as I am."

"Ladylike is not a quality useful in dealing with Verity, I fear." He sat uncomfortably in the small wrought-iron chair. Even the teacup looked frail and useless in his hand.

Harriet winced at his unintended insult and sipped her tea. She was good at caring for animals but not so quick at witticism. Still, she tried. "Real ladies would not be so inclined to ruck up their dresses and climb ladders," she agreed with innocence.

He nodded. "That is precisely what I mean. Action and quick thinking is what is required around Verity. Polite manners and pretty dresses are irrelevant."

Thinking polite manners might prevent her from dumping the tea over his head for implying she wasn't a lady because she could think, Harriet bit back an impolite retort. "I daresay ladies are irrelevant on all counts," she agreed maliciously. "They are merely decorative, are they not? Rather like stained-gla.s.s windows. Perhaps they should be left in church."

He looked startled. Instead of replying, he apparently made a hasty rea.s.sessment of their exchange. "I did not mean to imply-"

"Oh, no need to apologise." She waved away whatever he meant to say. "I'm aware of my shortcomings. Instead of sitting prettily in my parlour, I climb in haylofts and trees. I shout at dogs. I crawl about in henhouses. I will never be considered decorative, by any means!"

"As you say, decorative is for churches. I'd much rather see a woman who isn't afraid to help a child or an animal." He said it uneasily, as if afraid he was walking into a trap.

"One who argues," she suggested, listing her many flaws. "And speaks up for herself. You do not prefer polite, pretty ladies who demurely nod their heads and make men swoon with a smile."

"Exactly," he said, apparently pleased that she understood his requirements. "I hope I am not being too forward. When I went to your father, it was because I remembered you with fondness and hoped to press my suit. But Verity . . . Verity does not make it easy for me to court in a traditional manner. You are a woman of exceptional understanding. I would like to call on you, if I might be so bold."

"You wish to call on a woman who is not a lady, one who argues and rudely rucks up her skirts and isn't remotely attractive enough to be decorative?" she asked in feigned astonishment, raising her eyebrows. "I think not, sir. You may call on me when Verity needs rescuing again, perhaps. Until then, I give you good day."

Ribbons bedraggled from being crushed by an unthinking military man, Harriet rose from her chair and, head held high, sailed from the yard with bits of straw stuck to her crumpled muslin.

Five.

Dropping his best visiting coat over a chair, Lucas rubbed his aching head. After an hour of listening to Miss Elizabeth Baker and a few of her dearest friends prattle in high-pitched voices about London fas.h.i.+on and the best teacakes, he was ready to stick his head in a bucket to clean out his ears. He was evidently not meant for feminine company.

He stared morosely out the kitchen door at the fields separating his cottage from the Briggs' estate. He wished he understood the feminine mind. He'd thought he and Miss Briggs had reached a level where they could talk honestly. He'd hoped . . .

But she'd thought he was insulting her, when he thought he'd been showering her with fevered compliments and his genuine delight at finding a sympathetic ear. He had porridge for brains.

He'd sent round a note of apology. He'd asked the vicar to put in a word for him. He'd spoken to the Squire himself. But nothing had worked. They muttered plat.i.tudes about Miss Harriet coming around in her own time. But she was never at home when he called.

He sighed as he watched his daughter climb the back fence to gather wildflowers from the field. Verity apparently had a pa.s.sion for flowers. He didn't know one from another. A woman could help Verity grow a garden. He didn't even know where to acquire seeds.