9. Lemonade

Chapter nine

Lemonade

Derbyshire, England ~ August 1810

T he August morning started like any other. Gyles worked in the rose garden till the noon sun had fully risen, trying to get his outside chores completed before the heat of the day when he would go inside and make notes in his journal. He was experimenting with a new sort of irrigation line to keep the roses watered in the summer drought, and just yesterday, he had trained Archie Garrick on how to use the hoses. The lad was persistent if he was anything, and Gyles had taken pity on the spotty faced boy and given him some employment.

Nut-brown from a summer of outdoor activity, Gyles was cleaning up clippings of leaves and branches from the garden pathways when a charming faerie figure appeared before him. It was a petite young lady, with delicate features, dark black curls, and blue eyes as bright as cut sapphires .

"If you please, sir," said the girl said in breathless tones. "I am looking for a place to hide. My evil guardian is in hot pursuit, and I cannot be found by him."

Gyles stared. The sylph-like stranger was a vision of loveliness, made all the more beautiful by the garden surrounding her. He had never seen such a thing, unless maybe in a Lawrence painting in a London gallery…or in a walled garden at Carlton House four years ago. "Of course, miss. There's a pavilion in the rear of the garden where you can take shelter."

The young lady followed Gyles back through the rose garden until they came to the shade of the stone pavilion. Gyles recalled that he had entered a pavilion once before in a rose garden with a young lady far different than this one. That young lady had also needed assistance but had hidden her distress more carefully.

The dark-haired faerie, who introduced herself as Penelope Trafford, poured out a story of tragedy and terror fit for the London stage. Her parents had been killed in a carriage accident, and she and her sisters had been forced into the wardship of her uncaring uncle. Now, the villain had separated her from her beloved Ginny and Milly and was bringing her to London to compel her into matrimony with someone as cruel and callous as himself.

While she was speaking, Garrick came out to the pavilion bearing a pitcher of lemonade with two glasses on the tray. Clearly, Gyles' mother was aware that he had a visitor in the garden and was hoping to promote the acquaintance. Gyles almost rolled his eyes as the butler served them each a glass of the cold beverage and then hurriedly departed the way he had come.

As Miss Trafford's story continued, Gyles' breast began to swell with sympathy for the young lady. To be imposed upon and taken advantage of in such a way—her uncle sounded truly villainous! Indeed, Miss Trafford's description of him beggared belief. Her uncle was as unyielding as a customs agent, as formidable as a barrister for the Crown, and as cruel as a Barbary pirate. He offered her a second glass of lemonade, and she gulped it down gratefully. "If there is anything I can do to assist you, Miss Trafford, you have only to name it—"

"Penelope Trafford!" A new voice boomed like a timpani across the garden paths and into the pavilion.

The young lady shrieked, jumped up from her chair, and darted around the table to hide behind Gyles' shoulder. The tall gentleman entering the pavilion had the same crystalline blue eyes that the young lady possessed, and Gyles, with laudable intuition, knew that he was about to make the acquaintance of the evil uncle.

"So, you have found me at last, have you?" said Miss Trafford. "You may have fooled everyone else with your false charm, but I see through it to the cold-hearted monster that you are. I refuse to be used for your own selfish purposes. Mark my words, uncle, your time of tyranny is coming to an end."

Gyles could see his mother close behind the stranger, looking a little flushed from the sun in the garden. She seemed more out of breath than alarmed, but even so, Gyles ordered the man to stand back. "Your niece has told me of the wrongs done to her, and I'll not let you take her from this place."

The gentleman sighed. "Mr. Audeley, I am not sure what tales my ward has been telling you, but let me assure you that her safety and wellbeing are very much my concern." It was a reasonable statement, far too dull for the Drury Lane tale Miss Trafford had been drumming up. But wolfish uncles could wear sheep's clothing too. Gyles watched as Miss Trafford came out from her position behind his shoulder to stand her ground in front of her uncle. He knew little of who was in the right in this situation, but a lady who cried ill-treatment deserved to be believed until events proved otherwise.

"Perhaps we might all sit down and discuss this in a civilised manner," said Gyles' mother. Reluctantly, the embattled foursome sunk into the chairs around the table. Gyles wished that there were more lemonade to go around, for this promised to be a lengthy conversation.

At his mother's prompting, Miss Trafford repeated the story that she had already shared with him, how her uncle, Lord Kendall, had become her guardian after the tragedy of her parents' death, and how he was forcibly removing her to London away from her two sisters. She begged Gyles to stop her uncle from spiriting her away to the metropolis. Much to Lord Kendall's disgust, Gyles assured her that he would stand by her.

As the air continued to grow warmer, they retired to the drawing room inside the house to continue the debate. Lord Kendall insisted on his right to remove his ward that very afternoon. Miss Trafford cast Gyles such a speaking look, that he felt obliged, once again, to intervene. "I shan't let her go to London all alone with you."

"You really think I would allow a young pup like you to trail after us?" Lord Kendall's voice was as inflexible as iron, but, unlike Gyles' father, he still retained a modicum of good humour when he was annoyed.

"But that's a simply marvellous idea," said Miss Trafford. "Why, if Mrs. Audeley and Gyles—that is to say, Mr . Audeley—were to go to London too, then I should feel ever so much safer and more comfortable." She cast a look of utter devotion at Gyles.

It was a warmer sort of emotion than Gyles cared to awaken, but still, it made him feel as if he ought to earn that devotion with some other mettle than words. "We have been talking about taking a house in London for the season."

"We have?" said his mother, her face a perfect picture of shock beneath her lace cap. "But what about your roses?"

"Garrick's nephew can water and prune them." God willing, Archie was obedient enough to stick to a very strict list of instructions. Perhaps Gyles could post back to Derbyshire every few weeks to check on matters and ensure that his instructions were being carried out—

"But my dear! What about the Sweet-Scented China Rose which should bloom for the very first time this summer?"

Gyles took a deep breath. Here it was. The supreme sacrifice that chivalry demanded. "I shall bring it with us," he said, hoping that it would transplant successfully into an earthenware pot. He remembered that the prince's gardener at Carlton House had kept all the roses in planters—but it was warm weather to be displacing his prize rose bush so haphazardly.

Miss Trafford clapped her hands with glee. "Then it's all settled. We shall travel to London together. Oh, it shall be so grand." And there it was again—that supreme look of adoration cast in Gyles' direction.

He smiled shyly in return. Miss Trafford was certainly lovely, and her girlish dramatics were quite the opposite of the solid and sensible Miss Morrison. She was beautiful and she needed him.

But, at the same time, there was something in Miss Trafford's effervescent emotions that troubled Gyles a little—was beauty always this volatile? If so, the trip to London promised to be a highly unpredictable affair.