Friends and Foes (10 page)

Sorrel came perilously close to tears. She never allowed herself to cry! She could picture herself slumped over Fairy Cake’s neck, shivering with fever, heavy and limp in the arms of a man who, no doubt, found her helplessness and broken state terribly humorous. Yet another thing that made her vulgar and unworthy in the eyes of the world. If a woman with a limp could never be fit for society, a woman with a tendency toward fevers and falls qualified as positively revolting.

“I should never have gotten on that horse,” Sorrel whispered, her heart dropping. “I should have stayed in the house.”

“I have told you so these two years, Sorrel.” Marjie laid her hand on Sorrel’s just as she would have done to a tiny toddler who had finally acknowledged the superior reasoning of her parent. Sorrel hated being treated like a child simply because she struggled to walk. A broken hip did not automatically mean a broken brain!

Sorrel pulled her hand away perhaps a touch too forcefully. Marjie’s lips pursed in disapproval. “It seems you have overtaxed yourself,” she suggested. “Time for a nap, I think.”

“Marjie,” Sorrel protested the patronizing tone.

“Can I talk to Sorrel for a minute?” Fennel requested. “Alone?”

“She needs to rest, Fennel.”

“Only a minute, Marjie. Then I’ll let her have her
wittle nap
.” Fennel said the last two words precisely as a four-year-old would, and Sorrel couldn’t help but smile. Fennel knew
exactly
how Marjie made her feel. Marjie did not miss his tone, either.

“Well,” she said, rather vexed. “Forgive me for being a bother. I suppose you would prefer I ignore Sorrel the way—” She stopped short, but Sorrel knew what Marjie had been about to say.
The way Mother does.

“Of course you are no bother,” Sorrel said placatingly. “I am simply a difficult patient. You know I always have been.”

Marjie smiled again and shook her head almost amusedly. “You promise to rest after Fennel leaves?”

“On my word of honor.”

Her air of maternal regard fully restored, Marjie pulled Sorrel’s blanket more closely around her, adjusted the drapes so no rays of light would fall across Sorrel’s face, smiled fondly at her older sister, and slipped from the room.

“She is going to drive me mad, Fennel,” Sorrel declared after Marjie’s departure.

“Marjie cares about you. She never quite got over nearly losing you. We all felt that rather acutely, you know.”

“Yes, but even Mother doesn’t hover the way Marjie does.”

“Perhaps that has something to do with
why
Marjie does,” Fennel mumbled, as he always did when making an observation he thought should have been apparent. He abruptly switched topics. “Why do you hate Lampton?”

That was blunt.

“I do not hate Lord Lampton.”

“Dislike, then?”

“I . . . that is . . .”

“You don’t even
dislike
him, do you?”

“He . . . just . . .”

Fennel watched her quite patiently. Sorrel was sorely tempted to change the subject, but Fennel, she knew, would never allow it.

“He is aggravating and arrogant and . . .” Sorrel continued searching for the right word but couldn’t seem to wrap her mind around it. She found Philip Jonquil entirely maddening but couldn’t begin to say why. Nor did she know why she found his aggravating company oddly enjoyable at times. Ever since pulling out of her fever earlier that day, she’d found herself missing him, wishing he’d come argue with her. Marjie treated her like spun glass. Lord Lampton treated her like . . . like a worthy opponent, like a human being. Few people did anymore.

Suddenly realizing she’d been wool gathering in the middle of a conversation, Sorrel turned her eyes back to Fennel. He watched her with a barely masked smile she recognized. He assumed that expression whenever he discovered some secret or solved a mystery he did not intend to reveal. All of their larks had made his insightfulness well known to his oldest sister. At times, like now, she found that tendency a touch aggravating.

“I really hope you aren’t actually going to stop riding,” Fennel said quite unexpectedly. “Lampton said you were riding quite well before you took ill.”

“Then he is not very observant,” Sorrel countered. “I rode awkwardly and slowly, and it hurt like bloo—”

Fennel’s laugh stopped the words before they left Sorrel’s mouth. “If Father had known the stable hands were teaching you to talk like that, he’d have dismissed the whole lot.”

“Before or after thoroughly birching me?” Sorrel asked with a touch of bitterness she didn’t like hearing. “‘Have to beat the devil out,’ he’d say. There were times I hated the man.” She suddenly remembered she was speaking to her younger brother, a young man who ought to be permitted to retain some of his naivety. “Sorry, Fennel. I had no right to say that.”

Fennel managed an obviously forced smile. “None of us were exactly overcome with love for him.”

A heavy silence hung over the room. Sorrel tried to force away the constriction that always seemed to seize her chest when her thoughts turned to her late father. Fennel seemed to be reliving a few unpleasant memories of his own.

“How did . . .” Fennel pulled his legs up onto the bed in front of him, looking more five years old than fifteen. “Father was so . . . horrible, sometimes, but you never . . . broke down. You never cried even once, not like his son, the ‘watering pot.’”

Sorrel flinched at Fennel’s well-known quote—her father had detested the very tears he’d routinely brought to Fennel’s eyes. He’d minced no words when berating his son. Father’s repeated insults flung at Fennel were part of the reason she despised her father’s memory so much. “He was arrogant, pompous, and entirely without basic human compassion, despite his professed piety. I refused to be humiliated by a brute. I promised myself I would never retreat.”

“So your first war, then, was with Father?”

“I suppose so.” Sorrel felt drained again.

“You look tired, Sorrel.”

How does Fennel always seem to know precisely how I feel?

She nodded. Fennel jumped from the bed much more himself than he’d been moments before. “Marjie’ll skin me alive if I interrupt your nap time.” He grinned then turned to the door. His hand on the knob, Fennel turned back to her. “You know, Sorrel,” he said with the look of a discerning gentleman, “Lampton is
not
Father.”

“I know that,” Sorrel replied, completely baffled.

“No. I don’t think you do.” A moment later, he was gone.

Lampton is
not
Father. What does he mean by that?

Philip winced.

Lizzie’s voice could probably be heard throughout Kinnley. “Edward! Come see. Hanover is here!”

Her exceptionally patient husband arrived on the scene and shook his cousin’s hand. “What brings you to Kinnley?”

Philip kept his grimace inside. Hanover Garner, despite being an invaluable agent, could not fabricate a believable story any more than he could stitch a decent sampler. He could shoot the spade out of an ace of spades from across a room, in dim candlelight. He had an almost unfathomable mind for strategy. But the man struggled with the slightest of fibs. If not for that quirk, Garner would have been the best spy in England—that and the fact that spying made him nervous and being nervous made his nose run. Philip had every intention of giving Garner a box full of handkerchiefs for Christmas.

“I was headed to Lowestoft to visit my Aunt Harriet,” Garner told his cousin. Philip tried not to smile when Garner sniffed—his sinuses were giving him away already. “I heard you were at Kinnley for the holidays and hoped to impose on your hospitality for a day or so.”

“Of course you must stay!” Lizzie declared.

“That, I believe, would be up to your sister-in-law,” Garner reminded her gently.

Lizzie blushed. Philip barely managed to not laugh. Catherine was, as mistress of Kinnley, the true hostess of their gathering, though she had relegated most of the planning and carrying out to Lizzie. Catherine most likely preferred it that way.

“You are quite welcome, sir,” Catherine assured them all a few minutes later.

Philip saw the look of relief that crossed Garner’s face. The man needed to work on a more neutral exterior. Introductions were quickly made. Garner wrinkled his nose—he had to hold back a drip, no doubt—when Lizzie “introduced” him to Philip. Perhaps they ought to have devised a different strategy.

Knowing Garner would probably contract an inflammation of the lungs if their first “chance meeting” were left in his hands, Philip skillfully arranged to bump into his handkerchief-clutching partner as he returned from checking on his horse in the Kinnley stables.

“A fine afternoon,” Philip observed casually. “And my waistcoat matches the sky perfectly. I thought it would be a shame if I did not take a walk under such astounding conditions.”

“I could use a walk myself.” Garner sniffled. “Mind if I join you?”

Fifteen minutes later they were circling the banks of Kinnley Lake, out of earshot of the house and entirely alone. Garner’s nose had stopped leaking.

Philip dropped the dandified tone he’d grown to loathe over the years. “So, Ipswich?”

“Precisely. Though our sources seem to think it is merely a temporary stop-off.” Garner thrust his hands into the pockets of his greatcoat, a sign he was deep in thought. “He is passing off information sometime in the next weeks, but somewhere other than Ipswich.”

“It is left in our capable hands, then, to discover in whom he is confiding, where they will meet, and the exact date and time?” Philip raised an eyebrow at the improbability of their task. “Is that all? Perhaps we can cure the King’s madness in our spare time.”

Garner chuckled. “We are supposed to meet with one of our contacts in Ipswich three days from now. With any luck, that meeting will prove beneficial.”

“But how to make the trip without raising eyebrows?” Philip pondered the dilemma. He doubted Mrs. Kendrick nor Miss Marjie would think anything of their leaving. Lizzie might shrug before turning her attention to her party. But Sorrel would not only notice, she’d be suspicious from the beginning and would quite likely nose about in search of answers.

He barely registered Garner’s chuckle. As he seemed to do alarmingly often the last day or so, Philip was thinking of Sorrel. She’d been almost friendly the afternoon before when he’d visited her in the sickroom. Sure, she’d scoffed at his cravat, but in the same visit, she’d smiled at him. She’d been so deucedly adorable dwarfed by the enormous four-poster bed. The way she’d blushed—

“This isn’t such a difficult problem.” Garner interrupted Philip’s dangerously deviated thoughts.

“What isn’t such a difficult problem?” Philip asked, masking his alarm. Had he unknowingly spoken aloud?

“Getting to Ipswich,” Garner answered. “We simply say we haven’t finished our Christmas shopping.”

“Shall I supply you with yards of linen for that bouncer?” Philip eyed Garner amusedly.

“I have a few things to pick up.” Garner shrugged. “I can offer the excuse honestly. No dripping.”

“Suppose there are others who feel inspired by our outing and wish to come along?” Philip asked. Lizzie could never pass up an opportunity to shop.

“We needn’t shop en masse,” Garner said. “We’ll agree to meet up again at a certain time, in a certain place—after we’ve met our contact.”

“It is plausible.”

“And, might not even be necessary. Everyone else may have planned ahead better.”

*   *   *

With the absence of Sorrel and the addition of Garner, the numbers at supper were decidedly lopsided. Obviously at a loss as to how she might maintain the partnering up that Lizzie had, no doubt, convinced her all formal meals required, Catherine looked over the male-heavy gathering with an expression of utter bewilderment.

“The numbers will grow more uneven, I fear.” Philip shrugged from his position beside their hostess. “Two more Jonquils will arrive within the week—we are all male in my family, you know.”

“I don’t imagine your mother would entirely agree with your generalization.”

Philip smiled. Catherine, though the quietest woman of his acquaintance, could hold her own when she chose to. “I will apologize to Mater quite promptly for my unintended insult of her femininity,” he said.

“Though that will hardly solve
my
problem.” Catherine’s attention turned to Crispin, as it always did. Lud, those two were decidedly too happy for company. They were making Philip rather ill and, though he shuddered to admit it even to himself, slightly jealous.

“We are all friends here, Catherine,” Crispin answered. “No one objected the last time we chose a more casual approach. Simply let them wander in and sit wherever they’d like.”

“And suppose I would like to sit
on
the table?” Catherine asked with a look of such feigned innocence it was all Philip could do to pretend he couldn’t overhear what had quickly become a private conversation.

“You know the punishment for outrageous behavior, Lady Cavratt,” Crispin replied with a playful raise of his eyebrow.

“Oh, dear, not the dreaded lake.” Catherine clutched a hand dramatically to her heart.

Crispin smiled amusedly. “It is not yet frozen over, you know.”

“I suppose I will have to sit demurely, then.” Catherine almost managed a repentant look.

“Not too demurely, my love.” Crispin took Catherine’s hand and kissed it with enough fervor to make Philip step away, but not before he heard Crispin whisper, “I love you far too much when you are mischievous.”

Philip would forever be glad he had interfered in that marriage. If he hadn’t played matchmaker, they might never have stayed together. Philip smiled but doubted the gesture reached his eyes. He was happy for his friends but found their contentment hard to stomach at times. Not that they weren’t circumspect in their shows of affection—Catherine would be mortified if she knew how much Philip had overheard of their most recent conversation. What ate at Philip felt more like loneliness.

I wouldn’t wish loneliness on my worst enemy,
Sorrel had once said.

Too bad, General Sorrel,
Philip mused.
Your worst enemy is, at the moment, quite lonely.

He’d have been glad for a good argument just then. Miss Marjie had informed him in no uncertain terms that Sorrel was not well enough to appear downstairs just yet.

Catherine invited the guests to make their way into the dining room with as much disorder as Crispin had earlier suggested. Philip dragged his feet.
What is the matter with me?
he wondered. His recent bouts of discontent seemed to have given way to full-on discouragement the past couple of days.

Dandies are never blue-deviled. Philip really needed to get himself under control. Pulling himself up to his most ridiculously composed manner, he stepped out of the drawing room behind all the others.

As the group’s footsteps and conversations began to fade into the dining room, Philip distinctly heard a strange thumping. He paused mid-stride and listened. Thump. Pause. Pause. Thump. Pause. Pause. Thump.

“What the devil?” he muttered.

The sound came from behind him. Rhythmic and growing louder.

Philip retraced his steps, moving in the direction of the noise. Thump. Just as enough time passed for the next thump he heard, instead, a scrape and a thud. Then, in a voice he would have known anywhere, came a decidedly lower-class expression that would have made Mater blush. To Philip, it was music.

He grinned. “Sorrel,” he mouthed silently as he picked up the pace.

Turning the corner leading to the massive front staircase, Philip found Sorrel struggling to regain her feet.

“Alas. Someone has overwaxed the floor again,” Philip said as dolefully as he could manage.

Sorrel’s head snapped up, and her eyes met his, her surprise quite obvious. She would be angry with him, take a verbal bite out of his proverbial backside—something he looked forward to, strangely enough. The shock in her eyes, however, gave way to what Philip could only describe as mortification.

“Oh, Lud! Not you!” she muttered, looking down at the floor.

Now why did that reaction sting when a razor-sharp cutting remark would have been welcome?

“I am afraid so, Miss Kendrick.” Philip did his best to maintain a lighthearted reaction, even though all the while
Not you!
echoed in his mind. “Shall I fetch your walking stick?” He motioned toward it where it lay just out of her reach.

Sorrel nodded mutely but did not return her eyes to him.

Why not me?
he demanded silently.

Philip retrieved her walking stick then squatted before her, holding out his hand to offer assistance.

She obviously saw his gesture from the corner of her eyes. “I do not need your help, L—”

“Blast it, Sorrel!” Philip snapped. “I only want to help.”

“I am a perfectly capable person, despite—”

“I am certain you are under normal circumstances. But you were thrown about on that ride, regardless of your valiant efforts to hide the grimaces. You have been laid up with a fever for two days and, according to your sister, ought not to be out of bed yet.”

“Marjie would have had me in bed every day for the past two years if the decision had been hers.”

“Sorrel.”

His use of her given name brought those ebony eyes to his. Confusion, pleading, defiance, even a hint of pleasure lurked in their depths. Her every emotion seemed readable in her eyes. Including a great deal of pain, and he didn’t think it was entirely physical. Obviously, she struggled with admitting she needed help. She needed a way of accepting without admitting she’d given in. What had she said to him?
I don’t retreat.

“All I am asking is that you allow me to help you to your feet,” Philip told her plainly. “I am not implying you are lacking in capability or that you require my assistance in any way. Not even necessarily in
this
way. I offer only because I am the victim of a rather unfortunate upbringing.”

She was curious—Philip could see it in her face.

He shrugged as casually as possible. “Father and Mater raised us to be gentlemen. A gentleman offers his arm to a lady at every possible opportunity.”

“I would be insulting your honor as a gentleman by refusing?” Sorrel eyed him a touch suspiciously.

“Precisely,” he answered as seriously as he could.

“I would not want your mother to think she’d failed you.” She knew he had offered her a way around her pride. He could tell she knew. She didn’t seem angry at the subterfuge. She seemed almost grateful. “Very well. For your sake.”

Philip smiled. Her hand slipped inside his own, and he began to rise. In less than a moment he realized Sorrel needed more help than she’d let on. Simply offering a hand to hold would hardly do the trick. Philip took back his hand and placed in hers the walking stick before putting his arm around her waist and lifting her to her feet.

When she began to protest, he stopped her by declaring, “I must as a gentleman.”

“Of course. Wrapping one’s arms around a lady is a regular requirement of gentlemanly honor.” Sorrel eyed him shrewdly.

“Is it?” Philip asked, not releasing her. Feeling strangely determined to pound someone, he demanded, “What
gentleman
told you such rubbish?”

“Only you,” Sorrel answered, and a smile seemed to sneak into her eyes. “Your gentleman’s code seems nearly as elaborate as your war tactics.”

“Like keeping an eye on the enemy,” Philip said, feeling relieved. “At the moment I am fulfilling both my code and my strategy.”

“Your proverb refers to your eyes, not your arms, Lord Lampton,” Sorrel pointed out.

“Philip.” He ignored the pointed reference to his arms, still supporting her, though she hardly needed it any longer. “I would like you to call me Philip. It is so much simpler to be on a first-name basis with one’s enemies.”

“You seem to have more experience with war than I do.” She hadn’t attacked him for his rather forward request and hadn’t pulled away.

“Perhaps I do.” Philip shrugged. “Or maybe I simply have more enemies.”

“
That
I believe.” But her tone was teasing. Teasing? Sorrel?

“Actually, you are quite possibly the only person I have ever met who disliked me from the very first.”

She looked at him doubtfully.

“I am generally considered witty and engaging.” Philip smiled smoothly, rather enjoying her signature scent of limes. “And devastatingly handsome.”

She didn’t deny the claim, he noticed.

“So why do you dislike me so vehemently?”

She opened her mouth to say something, but the remark seemed to die unspoken. Instead she watched him rather intensely. All the animosity, all the prickles, vanished, as if she searched for the answer to his question but couldn’t find it, or couldn’t express it. There was a vulnerability to her that she so seldom let show. It made her so human, so reachable that, without thought, Philip inched closer to her.