Bronwyn Scott - Unbefitting a Lady

Bram folded a shirt and put it in the three-drawer chest in the corner. She was a duke’s daughter. He hadn’t expected that. He had expected her to be nicely situated country gentry and gently born, but not quite so high born. One simply didn’t open affairs with such lofty creatures. The penalties were too high. One might tolerate facing pistols at dawn over the Mrs Fentons of the world but there would be no scandalous pistols over Phaedra Montague. There would only be a ring and marriage, two very permanent reminders of one’s momentary lapse in judgement. It was probably for the best. Giles Montague was no doubt a deadly shot when it came to his sister’s honour.

It was too late to back out now. He’d taken this gamble on scant knowledge, lured to it by Phaedra’s spirit and the challenge of the colt to offset the looming boredom of six months in Derbyshire. He’d never imagined she’d be Rothermere’s daughter. He didn’t know the duke personally, but the peerage was not so large that a duke could escape notice. Bram knew of Rothermere but no more.

Still, he could leave whenever he chose if he didn’t like how things progressed. He wasn’t reliant on the position for a wage or a reference. He could vanish in the night and no one would be the wiser. As long as he dressed the part …

Bram studied the items in the drawer—three linen shirts and two waistcoats from London’s finest tailors. They simply wouldn’t do for stable work. He’d have to go down to the village and look for ready-made work clothes. He’d also have to see about making arrangements to discreetly retrieve his trunk from the inn in Buxton too. It was unmistakably a gentleman’s travelling trunk and would have raised too many questions. There’d been only time to stop by the inn on the way out of town and pack a quick valise. Even that had been tricky since the inn had been in close proximity to the luxurious Crescent area of Buxton, expensive quarters for a man looking for work.

Bram shut the drawer. What did he care if he was caught? The scandal would serve his father right. There was an irony to it. He’d been sent away to avoid further scandal, not to foment it. His father would die a thousand social deaths if it became known his son had taken employment as a groom in a duke’s household and lived above the stables with the other grooms and male workers. He didn’t want to get caught too soon though, not before he had a chance to see if the colt could be tamed—or Phaedra Montague for that matter.

A heavy footfall at the door caused him to straighten. He had company. He half expected it to be Phaedra. ‘So, you’re the one who has come to replace me.’ The voice was thick with the broad sounds of Derbyshire, the sounds of a man who’d grown up here all his life and wandered very little, a man who would see assistance as an intrusion.

‘Not to replace you, to help you. For a while,’ Bram said in friendly tones. He strode forward, his hand outstretched. ‘You must be Anderson.’ The man looked sixty at least, with a shock of white hair and weathered face. But he was sturdy in build with the stocky frame of a Yorkshire man.

He shifted his cane to his left side and shook hands. ‘Tom Anderson I am.’

‘I’m Bram Basingstoke. Have a seat. I’d like to talk to you about the horses.’ Bram belatedly glanced around the tiny room to realise the only place to sit was the bed.

‘Why don’t you come down to my rooms once you’re settled. We’ll talk more comfortably there.’

‘I’m ready now. I didn’t have much to unpack.’ Bram gestured towards the door. ‘I am hoping you can recommend a place in the village I can get work clothes,’ he said as they made the short trip towards Anderson’s rooms on the first floor.

Anderson waved his cane. ‘Don’t bother. I’ve got a trunk of shirts and trousers left over from the last fellow who was here. He was tall like you, they should fit well enough.’

Anderson’s rooms were slightly larger as befitted his status as the stable manager, and furnished comfortably with well-worn pieces. A fire was going in the hearth, a definite improvement over Bram’s cold chamber.

‘The last fellow?’ Bram enquired, taking a seat near the fire.

Anderson chuckled. ‘You don’t think you’re the first man Lord Giles has hired to help out, do you?’ He pulled out a jug of whisky and poured two pewter cups.

‘I hadn’t thought either way on it,’ Bram said honestly. He’d been too busy thinking about Phaedra and the colt to contemplate the nuances of his position.

‘You’re about the fourth in as many months.’ Anderson passed him a cup. ‘Winter hasn’t been kind to this old man. I’ve been down with one thing or another since November and now my hip is giving me trouble. I can’t work the horses with a bad hip.’ Anderson paused and raised his cup in a toast. ‘Here’s hoping you’ll last longer than the rest.’

Bram studied Anderson over the rim of his cup. Bram could see the age around Anderson’s eyes, his face tanned and wrinkled from a life lived outdoors. Anderson reminded him of the old groom at his family home. His father still hadn’t found a way to pension him off without hurting his pride. ‘The stables are well-kept and the quarters are decent. What drove them off?’

It was Anderson’s turn to eye him over a swallow of whiskey. ‘It wasn’t a “what”. It was a “who”. Some men don’t like taking orders from a lady.’

Ah. Phaedra Montague. He should have guessed. She’d been far from pleased with her brother’s announcement at the fair. ‘She makes life difficult?’ Bram asked. Did she plant frogs in their beds? He couldn’t envisage her stooping to such juvenile levels.

Anderson wiped his mouth with his hand. ‘Nah. She doesn’t do it on purpose. It’s not her fault she knows more about horses than they do. She doesn’t mean to drive them away.’

The first thing that struck Bram was that he doubted it. She probably did hope they would move along. She had not hidden her disapproval at the horse fair. The second was that she had the old groom wrapped around her finger. He was clearly defending her.

‘She’s that good?’ Bram took another swallow, trying to cultivate an attitude of nonchalance while he probed for information. It was always best to know one’s quarry before one began the hunt.

‘She’s that good. Lord Giles is a bruising rider but she holds equal to him. It’s not just the riding though. It’s everything else. It’s like she can look in their souls, that she can reach them on a level no one else can.’ Anderson poured himself a second drink. ‘I’ll tell you something crazy if you want to hear it and if it won’t send you packing.’

Bram was all ears. This part of the country was known for its superstitions and ghost tales and Anderson had the makings of a fine storyteller.

‘Two years ago last June we had a white stallion named Troubadour. He belonged to her brother Edward. Edward was off fighting Napoleon but Troubadour had been left home. One night around the fourteenth, he started acting all crazy-like in his stall, kicking, stomping. He wouldn’t eat. No one could get near him except Miss Phaedra. She sat with him for hours getting him to calm down. Mind you, there was no one here. All four of the boys were at war. It was just Lady Phaedra and Lady Kate and the duke, of course. When Lady Kate came out to see her, Lady Phaedra was crying something fierce. She told Lady Kate Troubadour was dying and that she feared young Lord Edward was dead. Before sunrise, Troubadour lay down in his stall and refused to get up. A month later, word reached us that Lord Edward had fallen at Waterloo, the very night Troubadour died.’ Anderson tapped his head with his finger. ‘She knows them, knows what’s in their heads.’