Baroness in Buckskin (5 page)

The rest of the journey passed without incident, and shortly after five o’clock in the evening they had turned into the sweeping drive that led to Ramsay Hall. Peter regretted that he could not hear her observations upon first catching sight of her future home, but her nose pressed to the glass of the carriage window, her wide eyes, and her open mouth told their own tale.

As the post-chaise drew to a stop before the house, the great front doors burst open, and an army of footmen emerged; clearly, someone had been keeping watch for their arrival. Peter swung himself down from the saddle and tossed Sheba’s reins to the groom hurrying up from the stables, while one of the footmen began to unfasten the straps holding his valise in place. The driver had dismounted as well, and as he flung open the door of the carriage and let down the step, Peter strode forward to hand both young women down.

Susannah immediately folded the innkeeper’s daughter in a fond embrace. “Thank you so much for accompanying me, Betsy. Please give my regards to your parents, and tell your little brother that I hope his toothache is better soon.”

Peter interrupted what promised to be a very protracted farewell by pressing a crown piece into Betsy’s hand and directing her to the servants’ entrance, where the housekeeper would give her refreshments in the kitchen and a bed for the night before her return journey to Portsmouth in the morning. Having dispatched the innkeeper’s daughter to her proper sphere, he turned back to his charge and offered his arm with great ceremony.

“Welcome to Ramsay Hall, Cousin Susannah.”

She pressed one trembling hand to the bosom of that regrettable buckskin coat, took a deep breath, and laid her other hand lightly on his sleeve. Another footman flung open the door as they climbed the shallow steps to the portico, and Peter handed her over the threshold.

Yet another footman took Peter’s hat and gloves, and would have relieved Susannah of her odd buckskin garment, but she had no attention to spare for him, engaged as she was in gaping about the entrance hall. Peter suppressed a smile, recalling his own similar first impressions of the marble-tiled floors, intricately plastered ceilings, and, most of all, the broad curving staircase with its beveled banister of polished oak.

“Oh!” she breathed. “Do you ever slide down it?”

Whatever he had expected her to say, it was not that. “Er, slide down it?”

“The banister, I mean.”

His eyebrows shot up in alarm. “Good heavens, no! Nothing could be more improper.”

“Why?”

There were so many reasons, he hardly knew where to start. “I am an employee in this house—” he began.

She bravely lifted a chin that showed only the slightest tendency to wobble. “If I am to be mistress here, I should like to slide down it at least once a day.”

“Er, you must of course do as you think best, Cousin Susannah, but perhaps it would be wise of you to meet the members of the household before you begin setting it on its ear.”

Much distressed, Susannah clapped a hand to her mouth. “I’m sorry! I did not mean—” She broke off, seeing the twinkle lurking in his brown eyes. “I think you are teasing me, Cousin Peter!”

He bowed in acknowledgement. “I am, indeed. And in the interest of full disclosure, I must admit that I have long wondered what it must be like to slide down the banister.”

“Very well, then, when I am mistress here, you can join me, and we will slide down it together.”

“Perhaps we can form a club,” he suggested, making her giggle. “But in the meantime, I believe the ladies of the household are waiting to make your acquaintance. Shall we?”

He nodded toward the door to the drawing room, beyond which a flurry of feminine voices had fallen silent in anticipation of their appearance. Susannah followed him across the hall and, at a sweeping gesture from Peter, preceded him into the room.

This room was no less intimidating that the entrance hall, but its rather daunting effect had less to do with the thick Aubusson carpet, graceful Hepple-white furnishings, and elegant Adam fireplace than with the room’s inhabitants. Three ladies sat within, two of them elderly, and the third much younger, all eyeing the newcomer with varying degrees of curiosity and outright disbelief. The two elderly ladies, each wearing a frilled white cap over iron-grey curls, Susannah had no difficulty in identifying as the aunts: Charlotte, he’d said, and the second—Emily, was it? No, something else—Amelia. Yes, that was it, although she was not sure which was Charlotte and which was Amelia.

That would make the third lady—her eyes widened at the discovery that Cousin Jane was not at all the middle-aged spinster she’d imagined, but a very attractive woman who looked to be still in her twenties. Susannah was still trying to assimilate this discovery when the lady rose to her feet, revealing the full glory of a high-waisted, narrow-skirted gown of some peach-colored fabric which a more knowledgeable young lady would have recognized at once as silk, but which even to Susannah’s untrained eye whispered of wealth, breeding, and quiet elegance. Susannah unconsciously fingered the folds of her buckskin coat, realizing for the first time how she must appear to these refined aristocrats. Peter must surely have noticed, but he had been too well-mannered to let on; she hardly knew whether to feel grateful or mortified.

“Miss Ramsay,” he said, taking her elbow and leading her forward into the center of the room, “allow me to present Aunt Charlotte Ramsay, Aunt Amelia Ramsay, and Miss Jane Hawthorne. Aunt Charlotte, Aunt Amelia, Cousin Jane—Miss Susannah Ramsay.”

Stiff curtsies were exchanged all around, during which Susannah felt a feather-light touch against her left eyebrow, and realized her unruly hair had once again slipped its moorings. Noting her Cousin Jane’s elegantly coiffed ash blonde tresses, she thrust her lower lip sharply to the left and let out several huffing breaths, as if she could somehow blow the offending curl back into place—a strategy that had not worked once in eighteen years, but one to which she still sought frequent and hopeful recourse.

Cousin Jane took Susannah’s hands in welcome. “Cousin Susannah—I may call you cousin, may I not?—you must be famished from the journey. We will dine at eight, but do allow me to offer you something in the meantime. Cakes, perhaps, and tea?”

“Yes, thank you,” Susannah agreed meekly.

It was as if the room itself let out its breath. Aunt Amelia (who proved to be the one in mulberry satin, while her sister, Aunt Charlotte, wore purple) moved forward to press a kiss to her cheek, exclaiming, “Let me look at you, my dear. Yes, I believe you have great-grandfather Edward Ramsay’s nose. I wonder I didn’t recognize it at once.”

“Most likely because it is covered in freckles,” observed Aunt Charlotte, but this criticism was leavened with a hint of a smile. “I hope your journey was not too tedious, and that our Peter took care of you?”

“Oh, yes! And not only Peter, but everyone has been most kind,” Susannah agreed readily, although some instinct warned her not to mention Betsy, and still less the crew of the
Concordia
.

The promised refreshments arrived in short order, and Susannah set to with a will; as Peter had already had cause to discover, she was possessed of a healthy appetite which several hours on the road had done nothing to diminish. Conversation was of necessity scant, as the Ramsay ladies had the courtesy not to ply their young relation with questions while she was eating—or perhaps they had no very great confidence that she would not attempt to answer any such questions with her mouth full.

In any case, they had not succeeded in learning much about her when the butler appeared, looking uncharacteristically flustered and casting furtive glances at the new arrival. “Miss Hawthorne,” he said, addressing the
de facto
mistress of the house in an undervoice, “I felt I should warn you—inform you, that is—that his lordship—it is sooner than expected, I know, but—well, miss, the truth of the matter is that Master Richard is here!”

“What, already?” asked Jane, ignoring the old retainer’s use of Lord Ramsay’s childhood designation. “I had not thought to see him until tomorrow, at the earliest.”

“Yes, miss. But he is here, sure as I live. He has gone upstairs to freshen up after the journey, but—”

His gaze darted once more to Susannah, and Jane had no difficulty in interpreting the meaning of that look. Indeed, her own thoughts were running along very similar lines. She had not known quite what to expect out of their American cousin, but given the tone of Mrs. Latham’s letter, she (unlike Peter) had been glad to know that Richard would not be present to witness the arrival of his bride, as she had expected to need a little time to make Miss Ramsay presentable to her future husband. She had thought to begin by taking her to a dressmaker; now, it appeared she would not even have time to drag a brush through the girl’s hair.

“Thank you, Wilson, but I am sure we shall contrive,” she said with a confidence she was far from feeling. “Pray instruct Antoine to move dinner forward as much as possible, for I am sure his lordship must be quite famished.”

“Yes, miss.” The butler bowed and, with one last dubious glance at his future mistress, betook himself from the room.

“Here is good news,” she declared to Susannah, as if stating a falsehood with sufficient confidence might make it so. “Cousin Richard has returned early from London. He has gone upstairs at present, but you may meet him very shortly.”

This cheerful prophecy was sufficient to make Susannah choke on the seed cake she was eating, forcing Peter to pound her on the back. Scarcely had she gained control of herself when the door opened, and she had her first glimpse of the man whom she had travelled halfway ’round the world to marry.

He was quite tall, as Peter had said, with hair as sleek and dark as a raven’s wing. His eyes, too, were dark, just as Peter’s were, but his jaw was sharper and his chin rather stronger. Where the younger man’s expression was open and friendly, the head of the family appeared distant, perhaps even bored. A disinterested observer would have accounted Lord Ramsay the handsomer of the two men, but Susannah was far from disinterested, and she determined at once to like Peter better than his noble cousin.

“Why, Richard, what a pleasant surprise,” Jane said, rising to greet him. “We had not thought to see you until tomorrow.”

“As you can see, I yielded to Peter’s entreaties and hurried home immediately after the vote was taken in the Lords. But where, pray, is my affianced bride?” His dismissive gaze took in the young woman seated on the sofa, and returned to his cousin Jane. “I see her abigail has made herself quite at home, but if Miss Ramsay thinks to entertain the servants to tea on a regular basis, I must be sure to inform her that such democratic notions will not—”

“Richard,” Jane interrupted, fixing him with a speaking look, “allow me to present Miss Susannah Ramsay. Miss Ramsay, our mutual cousin Richard, Lord Ramsay.”

Susannah rose from the sofa with surprising grace, her heightened color the only hint that she was aware of the insult.

“My lord.” She placed her hand in his own belatedly proffered one, and sank to the floor in a curtsy so low that the fringed hem of her buckskin coat brushed the carpet.

“Miss Ramsay,” Richard said stiffly, bowing deeply over her hand. Jane had no difficulty in recognizing his excessive formality as an attempt to cover his embarrassment at his own glaring
faux pas
, but Susannah had not the advantage of long acquaintance with his lordship. To her, this overdone courtesy smacked of arrogance, with perhaps a little mockery thrown in for good measure.

Perhaps, Jane thought later, all might have been well if she had not instructed Antoine to move dinner forward. Perhaps if they had dined at eight, as originally planned, there would have been time for Richard to apologize for his error, and the whole matter might have been laughed off. But no, Richard had scarcely released his bride’s hand when Wilson returned to announce dinner.

“If you will do me the honour, Miss Ramsay?” Lord Ramsay asked, offering his arm.

“With pleasure, my lord.” With a sparkling eye and a disdainful sniff, Susannah placed her hand on his.

Behind their backs, Jane and Peter exchanged looks of mutual dismay, then followed the mismatched pair into the dining room.

Mother, may I go out to swim?

Yes, my darling daughter:

Hang your clothes on a hickory limb

And don’t go near the water.

ANONYMOUS,
Rhyme

“My poor Jane! Can you ever forgive me?”

Lord Ramsay collapsed onto the sofa beside his cousin and raked long, slender fingers through his dark hair. The interminable dinner had finally come to an end, the aunts departed for the Dower House, and Peter and Susannah retired to their respective bedchambers, each professing exhaustion from their journey. His lordship had not retreated to his library, as was his usual habit after dinner, but instead had sought out his cousin Jane, drawn to her serene composure as steel to a magnet.

“That depends,” she said, inserting the needle into her embroidery and pulling it through. “What have you done that I am expected to forgive?”

“Need you ask? I have set you an impossible task, for which I apologize with all my heart. A baroness in buckskin!” he said bitterly, shaking his head in appalled disbelief.

She gave him a reproachful look. “I think she deserves your apology far more than I. Really, Richard, how could you be so maladroit as to take her for a servant girl? And she has your great-great-grandfather’s nose, too!” she added, with a lurking twinkle in her fine grey eyes.

“Has she? I confess, I did not notice. I was too taken aback by the clothes, and the hair, and the freckles, and the—”

“Clothes can be changed, hair can be cut, and freckles can be faded with crushed strawberries. As for the responsibilities of running a noble household, bear in mind that Miss Ramsay has had charge of her father’s house from a young age. In fact, she may find instructing servants to be rather less demanding than being obliged to do everything for herself. So you see, it is not so impossible a task, after all. But I do think you must beg her pardon.”