fellow’s pockets? Away with you, you cad, or it will be much the worst for you!”
Alastair struggled to sit up, trying his best not to succumb to the near fit of hilarity brought on by both Hugo’s frantic expression and the outrageousness of the unknown female’s accusations. This proved extremely difficult, as Hugo, who was obviously thoroughly cowed, had buried his face against the Earl’s chest, seeking sanctuary. “I say, Hugo, leave off, do, else you’re going to crush the life out of me,” Alastair pleaded, trying to push the man to one side.
“You—you know this brute?” the woman asked, dropping the ruined parasol onto the sand, clearly astonished. “I came upon him as I rounded the small cliff over there. I thought he was a smuggler going to…but he must actually have been afraid of me…which is above everything silly, for he is four times my size…and then I took him for a robber when he was only trying to help you? This is all most confusing. I don’t understand.”
“That makes the two of us a matched set, madam, for I am likewise confused,” Alastair replied, prudently reaching for his cane before attempting to rise and get his first good look at the woman who had so daringly defended him against Hugo.
She was a young woman of medium height, slightly built in her rather spinsterish grey gown, her fair hair scraped back ruthlessly beneath her bonnet so that she looked, to his eyes, like drawings he’d seen of recently scalped colonials. Her huge brown eyes were curiously slanted—probably a result of her skin-stretching hair-style. She looked, and acted, like somebody’s keeper, and he immediately pitied her “keepee.”
“When last I saw friend Hugo here, for that is his name,” Alastair continued, “he was amusing himself chasing a painted lady.”
“I beg your pardon,” the female said crushingly. “I have not insulted you, sirrah! Just because I am on the beach without a chaperone is no reason to—”
Alastair hastened to correct her misinterpretation. “A painted lady is but another name for a butterfly, madam—the two-winged variety, that is,” he said, rising to his knees as Hugo put a hand under each of his arms and hauled his master ungainly to his feet. “Ah, there we are, almost as good as new. Thank you, Hugo,” he said, having been righted satisfactorily. “Now, perhaps we might try to make some sense out of these past few minutes.”
“I knew that,” the woman said in a small voice.
“You knew what?” he asked, bemused by the slight blush that had crept, unwanted, onto her cheeks.
“I knew about painted ladies—that is, about butterflies,” she stammered, looking at him as if she had never seen a man up close before. “Are you sure you are quite all right? That was quite a blow you took.” Her voice trailed off as a humanizing grin softened her features. “You—you must have bounced at least three times,” she added, belatedly trying to disguise the grin with one gloved hand. “Oh, I’m sorry! I shouldn’t see any levity in this, should I?”
Alastair made to push the kneeling, still-quavering Hugo—who reminded him of an elephant cowering in fear of a mouse—away from his leg. “Oh, I don’t know, madam. If we can’t discover the levity in this scene, I should think we are beyond redemption.” He held out his hand. “I am John Bates, by the way.”
She looked at his outstretched hand, then pointedly ignored it, all her starch back in her posture. “I am Elinor Dalrymple, sister of Leslie Dalrymple, Earl of Hythe—on whose lands you, Mr. Bates, are trespassing. May I ask your business at Seashadow?”
“Aargg, ummff, aaah!”
“Yes, yes, Hugo, I quite agree with you. I shall tell the lady. Don’t excite yourself,” Alastair soothed, patting the giant’s head as he tried desperately to gather his thoughts, and control his anger. Who was this unlovely chit to dare ask his business upon his own land?
Why, the only reason she was still here rather than rotting in some damp jail—her and her miserable, conniving brother—was due to his charity in not demanding they be arrested the moment he’d first learned of their usurpation of his lands and title. No, he corrected himself, that wasn’t quite true. It had been Geoffrey Wiggins’s idea (conveyed in a hurried meeting between the two men) to continue the deception Alastair had first planned while still recuperating in Hugo’s hovel—and the romance of the thing was fast losing its allure.
“You know what he’s saying?” Elly asked, clearly surprised, as she peeped around Alastair to get a better look at Hugo.
“By and large, Miss Dalrymple, by and large. Hugo doesn’t plague one with a lot of idle chitchat, having lost his tongue in some way too terrible to tell. However, if you should wish for him to show you the wound, I’m sure he would be delighted to satisfy your—”
“That won’t be necessary,” Elly cut in quickly. “But you—you understand him, poor fellow?”
“Now who are you calling a poor fellow, I wonder? But never mind. I shall answer your question the best I can. Yes, Hugo and I have, by way of his most articulate grunts and some acting out of intent, learned some basic communication. For instance, I am sure Hugo is devastated at having frightened you—nearly as devastated as he is by his fear of you. Please wave and smile to him, if you will. I should like for him to feel secure enough to leave go his death grip on my leg, for it is just regaining its strength from the wound it lately suffered on the Peninsula.”
“You were on the Peninsula?” Elly asked, dutifully smiling and waving to Hugo before returning her gaze to Alastair. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”
“And how should you, madam?” Alastair asked, intrigued by her quick about-face. She seemed almost caring. “Tell me, is your brother the Earl in residence? I wished to thank him for renting me the cottage, but all I have seen thus far, other than your delightful presence, of course, was a slightly vacuous-looking youth walking the beach earlier, collecting seaweed for only the good Lord knows what purpose.”
He watched as Miss Dalrymple blushed yet again, and had the uncomfortable feeling that he had just struck a nerve. “That vacuous-looking youth, as you termed him, Mr. Bates” —she shot at him in some heat— “is the Earl of Hythe—and I should thank you to have the goodness to keep your boorish opinions to yourself.” So saying, she turned on her heels, about to flounce off, he was sure, in high dudgeon.
She had taken only three steps when—again, as he was sure she would—she turned back, her slightly pointed chin thrust out, to exclaim, “What do you mean, sir—you wish to thank my brother for the use of the cottage? What cottage? Where?”
As Hugo had been distracted by another gaily colored painted lady and was lumbering down the beach in pursuit of the gracefully gliding butterfly, Alastair felt free to spew the remainder of his lies just as he and Wiggins had practiced them. “Why, madam, I thought you knew. After all, it was your brother who agreed to lend me the cottage on the estate while I recuperate from my wounds. It’s the cottage just to the east of here—slightly inland, and with a lovely thatched roof. Hugo and I have been quite comfortable there for over a month now, although this is my first venture so far from my bed. But you still appear confused, Miss Dalrymple—and you shouldn’t frown so, it will cause lines in your forehead.”
“Never mind my forehead, if you please!” Elly shot back, bending down to retrieve her ruined parasol. “Wait a minute!” she said as she straightened. “Over a month ago, you say? Why, that must have been the late Earl. Of course! You rented the cottage from the late Earl! That’s why Leslie and I weren’t aware of it.”
“The
