Chapter Seventeen

Morvoren

"We shall get up early tomorrow morning and you can teach me how to ride astride," Ysella said as she and Morvoren climbed the stairs to their rooms that evening, hands protecting their guttering candle flames. "I can wait no longer."

This didn't sound like a particularly good idea. "What if someone catches us?"

"Nonsense. We won't be caught if we get up at six. Mama stays in bed until nearly ten, and Kit will be busy in the estate office with Sam Beauchamp. I heard them talking this afternoon. Sam wants Kit to go over the estate books with him, and I heard Kit asking if there were any more families in want. When he's here, he does like to enquire into the welfare of our tenants. If I know Sam, he'll keep Kit occupied all morning, not even stopping for breakfast." She beamed. "Which means we can go down to the stables and make sure our horses have the right saddles for riding astride. No one will ever know."

The flaw in her plan seemed to be that the grooms would all know and probably gossip about it in the servants' hall, but Morvoren resisted saying so. After all, she did want to ride astride on that pretty little grey mare and feel the wind in her hair again in a gallop through the grounds of the estate. And jump those obstacles properly. Temptation was a fickle thing.

"What are we going to wear?" she asked, glancing down at her dress and fancy slippers. "We can't ride astride in riding habits. We need trousers. Where will you get breeches for us?"

Ysella tapped the side of her nose. "Come with me and I'll show you. Kit's and my old clothes are stored in our old school room. Since I abandoned it last year, it's been used for storage. No doubt it will stay like that until Kit decides to grace us all with a bride and some children, but for now, there are some very useful trunks of his old clothes in there that I've made use of before. He wasn't always as tall as he is now, you know."

Morvoren followed Ysella along the corridor to a door at the end, opposite Kit's own room. As he was even now downstairs enjoying a glass of port with Sam Beauchamp, who'd come up to the house after dinner, it was safe to investigate the school room.

The light of the two candles flickered over a room festooned with white dust covers that reminded Morvoren of the box room at Jago's farm, only a lot larger. Sure enough, as Ysella had said, to one side four large wooden chests stood uncovered. Ysella set down her candle and dived into the first one with unholy glee, rummaging through shirts, breeches, and jackets, and making an untidy mess all around her.

Eventually, she tossed several pairs of different colored knee breeches to the floor by Morvoren's feet and said, "Better try them on. I've noticed boys are not quite the same shape as we young ladies. Smaller bottoms for a start. And I've grown a bit since I last availed myself of these clothes."

Entering into the spirit of the game, Morvoren kicked off her slippers and pulled a pair of navy breeches on over her underwear. The flap at the front had her foxed for a moment, but she soon had the buttons fastened. She wrinkled her nose. "They don't feel terribly secure around the waist. Walking far in them might be embarrassing."

Ysella clearly had found the same problem. "There are laces at the back," she said, twisting around to peer at her rear view, while also holding most of her petticoat and gown out of the way. "Could you take a look, do you think? And tighten them for me?"

Morvoren examined Ysella's pert rear view by the inadequate candlelight. Yes, there were ties. She pulled them as tight as she could and did them up. "Is that better?"

She nodded. "Let's see if I can do the same for you."

She could and did. The breeches felt a sight more secure, although Morvoren couldn't help but think braces would have been useful.

"Now for shirts and shoes," Ysella said with determination, letting her skirts drop down over her breeches. "Our own stockings will be fine. And maybe coats?"

Coats turned out to be the biggest problem, as Kit had clearly been a slender boy and none of his coats seemed made for a womanly shape. No surprise, really. Morvoren fished a plain brown waistcoat out of the chest and held it up. "Will this do? We could wear waistcoats unbuttoned over shirts."

Ysella had found some shirts. "And these are nicely baggy so will hide our somewhat differently shaped top halves." She giggled. "Have you ever done this before? It's such fun to have the freedom of breeches after always having to wear a gown. No wonder men don't want us to discover it for ourselves."

Morvoren bit her lip, not quite sure how far she should share her own experiences. Well, why not throw caution to the wind? "I grew up on a farm," she confided. "And I practically lived in trousers for most of my life. It was just much more practical. No one thought it odd."

Ysella sat back on her heels, a natty red neckerchief in her hands. "Really? You're so lucky. I can't imagine what Mama would say if she could see us now. I don't believe she ever did anything exciting in her whole life. Your parents must have been very unusual." She paused, a small frown wrinkling her brow. "Where are they now?"

Morvoren sucked in her lips. "They died. About four years ago now, while I was at university."

Ysella's eyes widened, glittering with the reflected flame of her candle. "I'm so sorry." She laid a comforting hand on Morvoren's arm. "But you said university? How have you been to university? Aren't only men allowed to go?"

Uh oh. Big mistake. Morvoren floundered for a moment. "Just a slip of the tongue," she managed, annoyed with herself for having mentioned it. "I meant that I was still at school. Of course girls can't go to university. What would the world be coming to if we could? We'd be able to do the sorts of jobs men can do." She laughed, aware of how false she sounded and wishing she hadn't had to lie. How easy it was to make mistakes in Ysella's relaxed company. She needed to be more careful what she said.

Moving on to the second chest provided a collection of Kit's old footwear, some of it so small it must have belonged to him as a young child. Morvoren had to conquer an irrepressible, and downright silly, urge to take one of the small shoes back to her room to put under her pillow. She pulled herself together and, after trying on a few pairs, selected some stout buckle shoes that possessed the heels necessary to make riding safe. How odd, though, to be wearing Kit's old clothes. A warm glow had settled on her since she'd slid into the breeches, and now, complete in his shoes as well and with one of his waistcoats on over her pretty gown, it wouldn't go away. Good thing Ysella couldn't see her warm cheeks by this light.

"We'd best hurry," Ysella said, glancing over her shoulder at the slightly ajar door. "Lest Kit should choose to come to bed and notice a light in here. He's so very nosy. If he catches us, he'll be bound to put a stop to what we have in mind. He's become such a spoilsport since he inherited Papa's title."

Hurriedly, they stuffed everything they didn't want back into the chests, then, still wearing their borrowed breeches under their skirts and carrying the rest of their loot, hastened to their respective rooms.

Loveday was waiting in Morvoren's. There was no way of avoiding embroiling her in this escapade. Morvoren dropped the shoes, shirt and waistcoat on the bed and rounded on her, determined she wasn't going to get a chance to blab.

"No. Don't speak until you've heard me out." Morvoren lifted the hem of her dress to reveal the navy breeches she'd purloined. "You're not to tell anyone I've got these clothes or I shall have to ask Kit to send you back to Nanpean on the next cart going west." She reeled in shock at how easily she'd slipped into the role of entitled Regency lady and nearly spoiled the effect by apologizing.

A mixture of emotions flitted across Loveday's face—surprise and irritation, but both swiftly followed by curiosity. "What be you wantin' those boy's clothes for then?" she asked, not bothering to even acknowledge the threat.

Morvoren dropped the hem of her dress. "It's best you don't know. Can you unfasten my gown for me? I have to be up early tomorrow with Ysella." She turned her back on Loveday. No way could she get out of this dress by herself. What it was to be a Regency young lady and unable even to get ready for bed on your own.

Loveday began undoing the ties that held the back of the dress together from neckline to waist. "You be up to some mischief, I'll be bound, with that Miss Ysella. I've heard about her from Martha. She's not happy unless she's up to somethin'. You want to watch she doan get you into trouble, Miss Morvoren."

As Loveday was right in her surmise, Morvoren remained silent until her gown had been removed. A sudden realization dawned. She'd need her stays in the morning, drat it. She'd have to rope Loveday in as she couldn't put them on by herself.

She swung round, now only wearing her light shift. "All right. I'll tell you. I'm to teach Ysella how to ride her horse astride, but we can't let anyone know, as people…" and by this she meant Kit and his mother and probably all the servants, "…don't think riding astride is ladylike. But it is. It's how I've always ridden. So, we'll be riding really early, and I'll need your help to put on my stays."

Loveday pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes. "An' if I helps you, you'll be sure an' not let Mr. Kit send me back to Nanpean when he finds out what you done?"

Morvoren nodded. "Of course. You're my maid now, not his. And if you help me, you'll be my friend forever." Probably bribery would work better than threats.

Loveday remained silent for a minute, possibly considering whether Morvoren had enough power to force Kit not to send her back if he found she'd helped. Then she nodded. "All righty. What time d'you want me here by?"

Morvoren smiled. "Six, please. Ysella says Kit will be working all morning with Samuel Beauchamp in the estate office, so we should have a good three hours before Lady Ormonde gets up and we need to be in and changed for breakfast. That should be plenty of time."

Loveday's eyes twinkled somewhat conspiratorially. "I'll be here for six then," she said, with a grin. "To wake you up. But if anyone asks me where you is, I'll be sayin' you said not to be disturbed until after nine because you was tired."

Morvoren nodded as Loveday slipped her night gown over her head. "Good plan."

*

Loveday didn't needto wake Morvoren. She was already up and putting on her stockings when her maid arrived, the curtains of her room wide open, and bright early morning sunlight streaming in like an invitation to be up and about. Loveday had brought hot chocolate and cold toast, but Morvoren didn't mind and devoured it all, despite the bubbling excitement in her stomach.

Once Loveday had laced up her stays, Morvoren pulled on Kit's old shirt and wriggled into the breeches. And after Loveday had tightened the back ties, Morvoren fastened the buttons around her knees. Then his old shoes went on, a little dull from their long incarceration, but the leather still supple to the touch. She finished her ensemble off with a waistcoat and tied her long hair out of the way with a black velvet ribbon.

Loveday pushed the cheval glass forward, and Morvoren was just admiring herself in it and deciding she made a creditable boy, when her bedroom door opened and Ysella came in. She too made a creditable, if extremely pretty, boy.

"I did wonder if you might have overslept," she said. "But I see Loveday is privy to our adventure. I, too, had to take Martha into my confidence and swear her to secrecy." She skipped across the room and stood beside Morvoren. "Do we not look like brothers?"

Morvoren smiled, Ysella's boundless enthusiasm infectious. "We do indeed."

Leaving Loveday to tidy the bedroom, they tiptoed down the wooden staircase, treading only at the edges where Ysella vowed they would make no telltale creaks. She led the way across the great hall and through a small side door toward the back of the house, into the area where the servants lived and worked.

Of course, they were all up. Ysella hadn't taken into account that servants rise long before their masters to carry out all the chores the aristocracy don't even know go on. So their secret plan was rumbled from the start. The servants all saw them, from Cook in her clean white apron down to the footmen sitting polishing boots and the maids with their baskets of kindling and coal they were carrying upstairs to light the fires, even though it was summer.

Ysella put her finger to her lips and winked at them, and to Morvoren's surprise, she received conspiratorial winks in return. Perhaps they knew her of old, and she'd gone out through the kitchens in the early hours dressed as a boy before. They might not have been so forgiving if they'd known what unladylike activities she had in mind this time.

They made it to the stable yard at the back of the house unhindered. On the left, several wide doors stood open on various shiny horse drawn vehicles, while to the right, a pair of double-doors revealed interior looseboxes. And there were a lot of horses.

"Our carriage horses, Kit's driving pair, the pony who pulls the mower, the kitchen cob, the hackney for the governess cart," Ysella listed as they passed them.

Lochinvar and Sweetlip's looseboxes were next to each other at one end, but Ysella passed them by, heading for a closed door just beyond. The tack room.

And of course, it was occupied. A groom was sitting cleaning tack at a table in the center. The coachman who'd driven them into Marlborough, now out of his dress uniform and just in mufti and shirt sleeves.

He jumped up and sketched a hurried bow, while tugging his tow-colored forelock at the same time. "Miss Ysella. Miss Lucas." Despite their boy's clothing, he clearly had no difficulty in recognizing them.

"Good morning, James," Ysella said, her gaze going past him to the racks of saddles occupying the only harness-free wall. The sidesaddles they'd used up until now occupied two low-down racks.

"Shall I saddle your horses for you?" James asked, a little diffidently, his eyes roaming furtively over their breech-clad legs. Probably trying to work out how they planned to ride sidesaddle in these clothes.

Ysella nodded. "Yes please. But ordinary saddles. Men's saddles." She flashed a wide smile at Morvoren. "Miss Lucas is going to teach me to ride astride."

Poor James. He was, after all, in the employ of Ysella's brother, and not her, and was probably wondering how much trouble he was going to get into if Kit found out he'd aided and abetted this mischief. But Ysella could be very persuasive and, by the look in the young man's eyes, she was winning. How could any man resist her charm?

"I tell you what," Morvoren said, feeling sorry for him. "You just show me which saddles to use, and we'll put them on ourselves. You can pretend you didn't even see us this morning. How would that be?"

Ysella grabbed her arm. "Morvoren! I don't know how to put a saddle on. We need James to do it for us."

Morvoren shook her off. "You might not know how, but I do. Let James go off so he won't get into any trouble. I'll show you how to saddle and bridle your horse—it's time you learned if you own one." High time. The thought that she'd reached eighteen without ever having had the necessity to tack up a horse by herself came as a shock.

Ysella's eyes flashed with excitement. "What an excellent idea. Off you go James. Perhaps you should polish the barouche in the coach house where you can't possibly hear us when we ride out."

With a look of relief, and after having briefly touched the two sets of tack that were needed, James scuttled away, hopefully not off to tell Kit what they were up to.

Morvoren took her set of tack and proceeded to demonstrate on Sweetlip how to saddle a horse. Then they fetched Ysella's tack, and Morvoren supervised while she rather ham-fistedly tacked up Lochinvar. But once she'd done it, she beamed with satisfaction. "I should do this every time I ride him. It's such fun. Why should our grooms have all the fun?"

Out in the stable yard, they made good use of the mounting block and in a moment or two were both sitting astride their horses, nearly ready to go. After a bit of stirrup adjustment and tightening of girths, Morvoren rode out of the stable yard into the welcoming early morning beside Ysella, who had a satisfied grin plastered to her face. This was going to be fun.

*

Kit

Kit stifled ayawn and tried to concentrate on what Sam Beauchamp was saying about the projected harvests on the various tenant farms. He knew he needed all this information, but it was too nice a morning to be looking at account books.

It was his own fault Sam was going into so much detail. He'd asked him which of the tenants in his many farms and cottages were suffering the most with the downturn in the rural economy, and Sam had taken him at his word and launched into an impassioned speech.

Sam was an affable young man approaching his thirtieth birthday, probably too affable to make a really good land agent as that required ruthlessness, but Kit didn't want ruthlessness in his agent. He wanted compassion. At Kit's own instigation, Sam had been handing out food parcels already this year to some of the elderly people who couldn't make ends meet. And now, it seemed, some of his other tenants might need help as well.

That Morvoren had assumed he wouldn't want to help the little seamstresses had annoyed him. He could have told her right then that he had enough to do with helping his own tenants, but he'd held his tongue. If she wanted to help those girls in thanks for making her a gown, then let her, even if it was he who ended up doing the helping. Perhaps she would teach Ysella some sense of responsibility.

Sam stopped talking and a grin spread over his homely face. "Sorry, Kit. Am I boring you?"

Kit flashed him a wry grin. Sam was someone with whom he felt entirely at home, as they'd almost grown up together here at Ormonde. When Kit had arrived from Cornwall as a rebellious nine-year-old determined not to be snatched from his ancestral county, Sam had been the only person he'd found to befriend.

Sam's father, Frederick Beauchamp, who now occupied one of the estate cottages and was all but retired, but who on occasion could be relied upon to give his son and his employer his advice, had been a land agent before Sam. On Kit's inheriting the estate and title five years ago, old Fred had declared that with a new lord, there needed to also be a new agent more similar to him in age. So, Sam had inherited his father's position much as Kit had inherited Ormonde. Since then, they'd rubbed along very well and the fact that Sam was a friend as much as an employee had never soured their relationship.

"Seeing it all on paper somehow doesn't make it real," Kit said with a sigh, thinking of the beautiful morning. "Why don't we ride out together, and you can show me what you've been doing?"

Sam closed the ledger book. "You've never had a better idea. It's too lovely a day to be shut inside. Let's go."

Together, they walked out to the stables where they found a distinct lack of grooms. "Probably at breakfast," Kit said. "Let's tack them up ourselves."

He and Sam went into the tack room and collected their saddles then walked down the row of stables. Sweetlip and Lochinvar were both missing, so the girls must be out riding. Hadn't he seen their saddles were still in the tack room, though? He must have been mistaken.

Once the horses were saddled, both young men mounted up and clattered out of the stable yard into the surrounding park land.

"Where should we go first?" Kit asked.

"The cottages near the mill," Sam replied. "Old Betsy Lockhart's been struggling with her arthritic fingers and can't make her lace anymore. And without the income from the lace, she's been finding it hard to pay the rent and buy food. I've told her not to worry about her rent, and I've had a hamper sent down to her from the kitchens once a week. We could start there first. She'll be pleased to see you."

Kit nodded. "Good idea. Betsy was always kind to me." He smiled in remembrance. "I well remember the honey cakes she always had ready, whenever I rode down there, as if she knew I was coming. I'm glad to be able to ease her old age."

They trotted their horses down the drive toward the woodland, Kit intent on turning this mission of mercy into a pleasurable promenade. The sun beat down on their backs and the water on the lake reflected back the blue sky and the few fluffy clouds. What could be better?

A flash of movement between the trees on the other side of the lake caught Kit's eye. What was that? He strained his eyes. It did not look like his sister and Morvoren.

"Sam," he called to his friend, whose horse had got ahead. "There's someone over on the far side of the lake. Looks like two boys on horseback."

Sam reined in and shaded his eyes to look. "You're right. And those horses look like your horses. I'm sure that's your mother's grey, Sweetlip. And that looks like Ysella's Lochinvar in the front. I noticed they'd both gone from their boxes, but I just assumed the young ladies must be out riding."

"Those are not young ladies," Kit said, anger rising. "Some local lads must have sneaked into the stables this morning and stolen the horses." Might they even now be making off with them to sell? "If so, they've a brazen cheek to try this in broad daylight. And where the hell were my grooms while this was going on?"

Sam set his heels to his horse's sides. "If we ride toward the mill, we should be able to head the thieves off. This way."

Both horses sprang forward into a canter, hooves thundering down the grassy track.