“Richard!” He scrambled off the banister, hastily formulating and rejecting several explanations for his uncharacteristic behavior. “I beg your pardon. We—I was just—”
“Never mind,” Richard cut him off brusquely. “I’m quite aware of what you were doing. What I should like to know is why you thought it would be a good idea.”
“I just thought—you see, I’d never—” Peter abandoned the hopeless task. How did one defend the indefensible? “I beg your pardon, Richard. It—it will not happen again.”
“It was my fault,” Susannah spoke up. “The first time I saw this room, I told Peter I should like to slide down the banister, and although he told me at the time that it would be very improper to do so, he did it to oblige me.”
“It’s not as if you held a gun to my head!” protested Peter, determined not to let her bear the blame for his own indiscretion. “Besides, you were—are—new here, and unfamiliar with our ways. I haven’t your excuse. I knew—I should not have—”
“But I’m the one who—”
“No, I can’t let you accept responsibility for my—”
“If you will have done with flagellating yourself, Peter,” put in Richard, interrupting what showed every sign of being a protracted debate, “I have a task for you. I was coming to inform you of it when I discovered you at your revelries, or whatever you choose to call them.”
“Yes, of course,” Peter said hastily. “What is it you want me to do?”
“I shall require accommodations in Paris for myself and Susannah following the wedding. You will write to the Maison Blanche in the Rue St. Honouré and ask if they can oblige me with rooms for, say, three weeks at the end of August.”
“Yes, my lord.” Peter cast an apologetic glance at Susannah, then betook himself from the room.
“So I’m ‘my lord,’ am I?” Richard muttered. “He does have a guilty conscience, doesn’t he?”
Alone with her fiancé, Susannah hung her head. “Please don’t blame Peter. He didn’t want to do it—that is, he confessed he’d always
wanted
to slide down the banister, but he never would have actually
done
it, had I not urged him to it.” She ventured a look at him through her lashes. “Are you going to dismiss him?”
“Dismiss Peter? Good God, no! He’s the best steward I ever had. No, I shall probably give him a tongue-lashing, and tell him that such carryings-on are, or ought to be, beneath the dignity of a Ramsay, and that I do not employ him to engage in the sort of hijinks which he should have outgrown a decade ago—facts of which he is no doubt already well aware—but I have no intention of cutting off my nose merely to spite my face.” He bent a stern gaze upon the top of her bowed head. “I trust I shall have no reason in future to ring a similar peal over my wife.”
“No, my lord,” she said meekly.
“Cousin Richard,” he corrected her.
She looked up at him then, the hint of a smile trembling at the corners of her mouth. “I am sorry to contradict you, but I must agree with Peter. When you take that tone, and look down your nose in such a way, you are very much ‘my lord.’ ”
“In that case, I trust that once we are wed, you will conduct yourself in a manner befitting ‘my lady,’ ”
Susannah tilted her head and considered the matter. “Well, I’ll
try
, but I make no promises, for I don’t know how ‘my lady’ is
supposed
to behave. I am glad you don’t intend to punish Peter, though.”
“My dear girl, I never said I didn’t intend to punish him, only that I didn’t intend to dismiss him.” Seeing her puzzled expression, he explained, “Clearly, you have never been on the receiving end of one of my reprimands.”
“Oh,” said Susannah, rather daunted.
She started up the stairs, and Richard felt compelled to ask, “I trust you are not going up to have another go at the banister?”
She paused on the third riser, then turned, lifted her chin, and looked down her nose at him. “I am going to my room to change my clothes for luncheon, which I believe is the custom here. Or do you intend to come and watch, to make sure I do that to your satisfaction?”
“No. At least,” he added smoothly, “not yet.”
“Oh!” Susannah, blushing furiously, turned and hurried up the stairs as if fearful he might change his mind.
Chuckling a little over his bride’s hasty departure, Richard lingered in the hall puzzling over the un-characteristic behavior of his steward when Jane en-tered the house, having spent an agreeable morning in the garden. Upon seeing the odd expression on his face, she took off her broad-brimmed hat and laid it aside, along with the basket of flowers she’d cut, and joined him at the foot of the stairs.
“Richard? What is the matter?”
He shook his head in bewilderment. “I’ve just interrupted the most bizarre scene. I came out of my room and reached the top of the stairs just in time to see Peter sliding down the banister.”
“Did you?” Jane choked back a gurgle of laughter. “How—how very odd!”
“Had I been a little earlier,” he continued, “I might have observed the future Lady Ramsay similarly en-gaged.”
“Ah, that explains it,” she said, nodding sagely. “Depend upon it, Susannah was behind it. She really is the most unusual girl!”
“Oh, she admitted as much! I suppose I must pardon her behavior on the grounds of ignorance, but Peter has no such excuse, for he surely must have known better. I can’t imagine why he allowed her to persuade him into betraying such a want of conduct.”
She shook her head. “I doubt she could have persuaded him to do anything that he did not wish to do. Really, Richard, is it possible that you have lived here all your life, and have never once slid down the banister?”
Richard had the grace to look ashamed. “Not since I was twelve years old, anyway.”
“And that was almost twenty years ago! I think you have shown a quite remarkable restraint.”
“But Peter is not twelve years old,” he pointed out. “Nor, for that matter, is Susannah.”
“No, but I daresay she has never seen such a staircase in her life, so she has never before had the opportunity. As for Peter, well, it must have been a great trial to him, looking at this one every day for the last two years and believing it to be forbidden fruit. I suppose it only wanted a co-conspirator to tip him over the edge.”
“Defend them all you like, but I know
you
would never behave with such a disregard for propriety!”
“No,” she said sadly, regarding the forbidden banister with a rather wistful little smile. “No, I suppose I would not.”
“Jane! You cannot mean to tell me that
you
have any desire to engage in such antics!”
“Oh, can I not? And here I thought we could always be honest with one another!”
“If you had any desire to slide down banisters, you surely could have done so as a child, in your father’s house,” he pointed out, determined to bring her to some sense of reason.
“No, for the staircase there did not have such a lovely curve as this one, and was broken in the middle by the half-landing, beside. Furthermore, the wood was not so smoothly polished, so that one would almost certainly have got splinters in one’s, er, hands.”
Richard was surprised into a shout of laughter. “I’ll wager it was
not
your hands that concerned you! Very well, never let it be said that Peter and Susannah may enjoy an experience that is denied Jane Hawthorne.”
He seized her hand and started up the stairs.
“Richard! I am hardly dressed for such an exercise,” she protested laughingly, fingering her straight skirts.
“No, you will have to sit aside, as if you were riding a horse.”
“I will very likely fall and break my neck!”
“No you won’t, for I shall go down with you, and hold you.” Seeing her waver, he shot her a challenging look. “Fighting shy, Miss Hawthorne?”
“Never, Lord Ramsay,” she shot back. “If you insist, why then, I await your pleasure.”
“No time like the present. Besides, we had best complete the experiment before either Peter or Su-sannah returns—or, worse, both of them at once—or I shall never hear the end of it.” When they reached the top of the stairs, he sat on the banister and lifted one leg over the rail, then patted the narrow strip of polished oak in front of him. “Madam, your chariot awaits.”
She sat on the spot he had indicated, but when she leaned back against him, bunched her skirts together, and prepared to swing both legs over the banister, he was moved to protest. “You can’t intend to slide down with nothing below your feet but twenty feet of air!”
“
You
can’t expect me to make such a once-in-a-lifetime journey staring at my shoes the entire time,” she retorted. “Besides, you assured me that I would be perfectly safe.”
“Very well, then, if you insist.” He pulled her tightly against him, locking his arms about her waist.
And then he pushed off. Jane felt the pleasantly warm friction of the polished wooden banister sliding away beneath her hands, and the no less pleasant—and no less warm—sensation of Richard’s chest pressed against her back, and decided it was probably a good thing that they did not intend to make a habit of this particular activity.
Then, as they rounded the sweeping curve of the staircase, a door opened in the hall below, and the butler’s shocked voice exclaimed, “Your lordship!”
Startled by the interruption and embarrassed at being caught out in such an indiscretion, Richard lost his hold on Jane. With a little squeak of sheer terror, she slipped from his grasp and toppled headlong over the railing.
“Good God!” He snatched at her, but his hands closed on empty air. “Jane!”
I fell as a dead body falls.
DANTE ALIGHIERI,
The Divine Comedy
Richard did not wait for the newel post at the bottom of the stairs to halt his descent, but jerked to a stop by gripping the banister with both hands. He scrambled over the railing with more speed than grace, then took the stairs two at a time and rounded the newel post to reach the spot where Jane lay. Wilson was there before him, but Richard pushed the butler aside and dropped to one knee before her inert form.
“Jane, are you all right? What a stupid question! Of course you’re not all right,” he muttered, turning to toss a command over his shoulder to the butler. “Bring some brandy, Wilson, and be quick about it. Jane, can you move? Can you sit up?”
Jane, dazed almost as much by the expression on Richard’s chalk-white countenance as she had been by the fall, put these questions to the test by gingerly flexing arms and legs in turn. “I—I think so.”
He took her hand in his and, easing his other arm behind her shoulders, gently raised her to a sitting position. Meanwhile Peter, banished to his office in disgrace, now emerged from that chamber, lured from his lair by the sounds of commotion in the hall.
“Richard? What is—good heavens! Cousin Jane! What happened?”
“Well might you ask!” Richard retorted. “She fell from the banister. You see where that stunt has led!”
“I—I’m sorry—I never dreamed—”
“Never mind that now,” Richard cut him off, uncomfortably aware that he was placing on Peter’s shoulders blame that should be more rightly assigned to himself. “I should be obliged if you would ride for the doctor.”
“Yes, of course.” Peter strode quickly toward the door, losing no time in carrying out this command.
“And have him come at once!” Richard ordered his retreating back. “Tell him it is of the utmost urgency!”
As the door closed behind Peter, Jane felt compelled to protest. “Nonsense! I am sure I shall feel better directly, if only I may rest on the sofa for a bit.”
“You, my girl, will do as you are told!” he said, raising her to her feet nonetheless. “Can you walk?”
“I think so,” she said again. “It is only that my ankle hurts so—
oh!
”
As if to prove her point, the ankle in question balked at bearing her weight, and she would have fallen had Richard not caught her against his chest. Ignoring her feeble protests, he swept her up in his arms and carried her bodily into the drawing room, where he laid her gently on the sofa. He turned to fetch a cushion to place beneath her rapidly swelling ankle, and saw Wilson hovering just inside the door holding a tray with a decanter of brandy and a single glass.
“Good man,” Richard said, unstoppering the decanter and pouring a generous measure into the glass. He took it to the sofa where Jane lay, then raised her to a half-sitting position with one arm behind her shoulders while he raised the glass to her lips.
“Really, Richard, there is no need,” she objected, attempting without much success to push the glass away.
“Nonsense! You’ve had a nasty shock; the brandy will do you good. Now, will you drink it yourself, or must I pour it forcibly down your throat?”
A surprisingly tender smile robbed his words of any real threat. Still, she submitted meekly to his demand, insisting only that she be allowed to hold the glass herself. Alas, her hands shook so badly that he was forced to steady the glass lest she slosh brandy all over herself. He glanced toward the door and, discovering that Wilson had withdrawn, leaving him alone with Jane, addressed her in a low voice.
“Jane, I am sorrier than I can say. I hope you can forgive me, for I will never forgive myself!”
“There is no need for these self-recriminations,” she assured him, and he was relieved to note that her voice, at least, sounded somewhat steadier. “After all, it was my own idea, so I have no one else to blame.”
“Still, if I had not agreed to it—”
“If you must insist on taking responsibility, Richard, you may console yourself with the knowledge that the accident has at least robbed me of any desire to repeat the experience.”
But even as she said the words, she wondered if they were true. Until Wilson’s untimely interruption, the sensation of flying had been very pleasant, and the feel of Richard’s steadying arm about her waist and his broad chest against her back had been pleasanter still. And even after the fall, there had been that moment when she had looked up from where she lay on the floor and seen him staring down at her with such an expression on his white face that she had never thought to see on his usually stoic countenance. No, to surprise such a reaction from him, she was not at all sure that she would not run up the stairs (or hobble, as the case might be) and make the attempt all over again.