Free The Sergeant Major's Daughter by Sheila Walsh Page B

will suit me, for let me tell you there is nothing like a little learning for breeding sedition—and sedition breeds riots, as I know from my foundries.”
    “Then I am sorry for you,” said Felicity quietly. “But I am even sorrier for the children concerned, since you obviously mean to withdraw them from the school.”
    “And do you think that will suffice, Miss Vale? Do you imagine that my people will not envy those in the village with greater advantages and seek some means of redressing the balance?”
    “The matter is between you and Lord Stayne. There is nothing I can do.”
    “I do not agree. What does Stayne pay you?”
    “I beg your pardon?”
    He moved impatiently. “Everything has a price, madam. What is the price of a schoolmarm? No matter. Whatever it is, I will pay more. You can come to Manor Court to try and see if you can instill some knowledge into my Geoffrey. His present tutor is no damned use.”
    Felicity could not disguise her instant revulsion. “Thank you, Captain Hardman,” she said tersely. “But I have no wish to teach your son. I am well satisfied with my present position.”
    His eyes narrowed to pin points. “Then we must pray you do not regret your decision, madam .”
    The whip flicked for a third time, and this time the sting of it made her smart. Her anger rose. She seized the trailing lash and held it at arm’s length.
    “I will not regret anything, Captain. And now I really must beg you to excuse me. Do not seek to detain me, for I am already late—and have left my gig at your gate where it may readily be seen by anyone coming to look for me.”
    For a moment their glances locked; then he jerked the whip petulantly from her grasp, wheeled his horse, and thundered off into the trees, leaving Felicity limp and more shaken than she cared to admit.
    The leaden sky was shedding its first spots of rain; by the time she reached Cheynings it had become a steady downpour. She ran from the stables to the house, longing only for the privacy of her room where she might compose her frayed nerves, but the sound of raised voices reached her before she had gained the first landing. Cavanah came from the small drawing room and for the first time Felicity saw him at a loss. His troubled face cleared hopefully on seeing her.
    “Miss Vale! Thank goodness you are come! Have you seen young Master Jamie? He is nowhere to be found and Madam is distracted!”
    The petty tyrannies of the day were swept from Felicity’s mind; she closed the drawing-room door and stood with her back against it taking in the scene. Amary llis lay prone upon a sofa in the throes of near-hysteria, with Rose Hibberd close by, red-eyed and far from well, twisting her fingers in a quite untypical gesture of nerves.
    Before the fireplace stood Lord Stayne. Felicity saw that his patience was stretched to the breaking point. She judged that calm was the first priority if anything was to be achieved.
    “Cavanah tells me Jamie is missing,” she said lightly. “What a monstrous disagreeable boy he is, to be sure — putting everyone about in such a fashion!”
    All eyes were on her. In the Earl’s she thought she detected a glimmer of relief.
    “Thank God!” he said tersely. “Here is someone, at least, who does not treat a child’s prank as though it were a Greek tragedy!”
    “Maxim! How can you be so unfeeling! Jamie has been gone three hours!” sobbed Amaryllis, her delightful lower lip quivering with the force of her emotions. Felicity thought inconsequentially that few people had crying down to such a fine art as Amaryllis. Even though her grief was quite genuine, she cried so ... becomingly! One could not fail to be sympathetic. She put a comforting arm around her cousin’s shoulders.
    “Then he will be confoundedly bored by now and wishing to be found. You may depend upon it, my dear.”
    Amaryllis shook her off. “You don’t understand. The poor darling was terrified! And I’m sure I don’t wonder at