The Dubious Miss Dalrymple

“Eeeeek!”

“Aaaarrgh!”

What a commotion! What a to-do! What high-pitched, unbridled hysteria!

“What in bloody hell? Hugo!” It all happened so quickly that Alastair was taken off guard, his hand automatically moving to his waist, and the sword that wasn’t there. All he had was his cane, and he raised the thing over his head menacingly, vowing to do his best with the tools at hand, for obviously there was murder taking place just out of sight along the beach.

Cursing under his breath, he began to run down the hill toward the shore, the shifting sands beneath his feet nearly bringing him to grief more than once before he cannoned into Hugo—who had been running toward him at full tilt—and was thrown violently backward against the ground, his wind knocked out of him, his senses rattled.

Air returned painfully to his starving lungs and he took it in in deep, hurtful gulps. There were several painted ladies hovering over him, swirling about in circles like bright yellow stars. No, they were stars, brilliant five-pointed objects that hurt his eyes. But that was impossible, for it was just past noon. There couldn’t be any stars.

He shook his head, trying to clear it, slowly becoming aware of a shadow that had fallen over the land. Hugo. The man’s enormous head blocked out the sun, the butterflies, and the circling stars.

“Aaarrgh,” Hugo moaned, his hamlike hands inspecting Alastair from head to foot for signs of damage.

Suddenly a parasol, built more for beauty than for combat, came crashing down on Hugo’s back, once, twice, three times, before splintering into a mass of painted sticks, pink satin, and lace.

“Unhand that man, you brute!” a woman’s raised voice demanded imperiously. “Isn’t it enough that you accost helpless females—must you now compound your villainy by trying to pick this poor 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 Earl is dead? I have been out of touch, haven’t I?” Alastair bowed deeply from the waist. “My condolences on your loss, madam.”

“None are required, Mr. Bates,” Elly answered distractedly, clearly still trying to absorb his news. “I never knew the horrible man, I’m happy to say.”

Alastair longed to take Elinor Dalrymple’s slim throat in his hands and crush the life out of her. Smiling through gritted teeth, he responded, “Then may I offer my congratulations to your brother and yourself, for surely the two of you have fallen into one of the deepest gravy boats in all England. The late Earl was known, after all, for his great wealth.”

“That’s not all the late Earl was known for,” Elly said, sniffing. “He was a profligate, useless drain on society, if half the stories I have heard are to be believed. If you wish to talk about painted ladies, you should have been here for his memorial service. There were more butterflies at Seashadow that day than this, if you take my meaning.”

This time Alastair could not suppress a grin. “Lots of weeping and gnashing of teeth, was there? There’s many a man who would relish such a send-off. Was there a redhead among them? I’d heard the late Earl had quite a ravishing redhead in keeping.”

Elly’s spine stiffened once more, most probably, Alastair supposed, more in self-censure at her own loose tongue than at his daring response to her indiscreet chatter. “Be that as it may be, if he leased a returning veteran a cottage in which to recuperate, he did at least one good deed in his wasted lifetime, and I shall not take this one vestige of goodness from his memory by refusing to honor his wishes.”

“You are kindness itself, Miss Dalrymple,” Alastair cooed, longing to throttle her.

“The sea air will doubtless be salutary to your wounds,” she continued. “As a matter of fact—as a small way of showing you Seashadow’s hospitality—may I tell my brother that you are to join us this evening for dinner?”

Alastair smiled, succeeding in splitting the three-week growth of beard so that his even white teeth sparkled in the sunlight. “Madam,” he said sincerely, “I should be delighted!”

THE EVENING WAS comfortably cool, with a slight breeze coming off the sea as Elly stood just outside the French doors watching the sea birds as they circled the beach. Raising a hand to her throat, she adjusted the cameo that hung from a thin ivory ribbon, wondering if jewelry—even such simple jewelry—was proper during her supposed time of mourning for her cousin, the late Earl.

“Oh, pooh,” she said, allowing her hand to drop to her side, where it found occupation smoothing the skirt of her silver-grey gown. “What does it matter anyway, now that you’ve been so stupid as to express your true feelings about the man to a relative stranger—a relative stranger you have invited to dinner, and then dressed yourself up like some man-hungry spinster at her last prayers?”

She should have invited Lieutenant Fishbourne to join them as well, considering the fact that his warning to her was the main reason she had invited John Bates to dine. “Report any strangers to the area and any goings-on that appear peculiar,” the Lieutenant had cautioned her, and Elly had every intention of reporting John Bates and Hugo to the Lieutenant just as soon as she was sure if they were smugglers or spies. She only needed to squeeze a bit more pertinent information from Mr. John Bates so that she wouldn’t disgrace herself by turning in an innocent man.

“John Bates couldn’t be innocent,” she told herself reassuringly, hearing the brass door knocker bang loudly in the foyer, announcing her dinner guest’s arrival. “Nobody that handsome—or forward—could possibly be innocent.”

Stepping into the drawing room, she looked around to see that Leslie, who had been dutifully sitting in the blue satin striped chair when she had left the room, was nowhere to be found. “Leslie?” she hissed, looking about desperately as she heard footsteps approaching the room. “Leslie! You promised! Where are you?”

“Lose something?” a voice inquired from behind her just as she was peeking through the fronds of a towering fern in hopes of discovering her brother hiding behind it.