An Unlikely Suitor

There was a rusty iron trap snapped shut around her skirts, its teeth grinning at her in an evil parody of a smile. Lavender felt a little faint as she realised how close she had come to stepping on it. Another few inches and it would have been her leg between those metal jaws, her bones broken without a doubt. She had seen traps before, man-traps and spring-guns and leg-breakers like this one set to catch poachers, but she had had no idea that she might stumble on such a thing in Steep Wood. She could not imagine who would have set such a trap.

Worse was to come. From her position prone in the grass she could no longer see Barney, but it seemed impossible that he had not heard the trap going off or the alarm call of the birds as they scattered into the tops of the trees at the sudden noise. Panicking, Lavender tried to get to her feet, then sat down again in a hurry when the weight of the trap made her over-balance. She could not prise it open and it was too heavy for her to pick up, though she would definitely have made a run for it, trap and all, if she could have done so. She could now hear footsteps, coming closer, and she knew they had to belong to Barney. She closed her eyes in an agony of mortification.

There was a step in the grass beside her, then Barney’s voice said, ‘Miss Brabant! What in God’s name—’

Lavender opened her eyes. The wind was ruffling his thick dark hair as he stared down at her from what seemed a great height. He had a casual shooting jacket slung over his shoulder, and at close quarters she could see that his buckskins fitted like a second skin and his shirt was still clinging to his muscular torso. Feeling hot and very peculiar, Lavender closed her eyes again.

She was not sure what was the most embarrassing aspect of her current situation. Perhaps it was being found in such an undignified tumble by such an attractive man, or perhaps the fact that he would guess she had been spying on him was even more embarrassing. She kept her eyes closed and hoped he would go away.

He did not. Lavender reluctantly opened her eyes again.

She saw his gaze go to the cut in her leg, and tweaked her skirts down as best she could, but not before he had seen the tell-tale trickle of blood. He frowned and went down on one knee beside her in the grass.

‘You are injured! Have you fallen and hurt yourself—’

The trap was all but covered by Lavender’s skirts. She gestured towards it. ‘As you can see, sir, I have had an accident.’

Barney’s gaze went from her reddening face to the rusty trap. He bit his lip. Lavender would have sworn that he was about to laugh.

‘Oh dear. I see. Presumably it is too heavy for you to hobble home?’

Lavender’s face reddened even more, this time with fury. ‘Your amusement is misplaced, sir! It is not remotely funny that people go around setting traps strong enough to break a man’s leg! If you cannot find anything more constructive to say, perhaps you should leave me to deal with it as best I may!’

‘I’m sorry.’ Barney spoke gently. ‘Take comfort from the fact that it did not in fact break any bones. Although,’ his gaze turned back to her ankle, which Lavender was trying to hide under her skirts, ‘I did think that you had sustained a graze…’

‘It is nothing!’ Lavender snapped. She did not think that she was spoilt but she felt she was entitled to feel a little sorry for herself. The refusal of this man to sympathise with her predicament was infuriating. Barney was still kneeling by her side and she wished that he would just go away.

‘My sister Ellen was caught in a man-trap in these woods once,’ he said conversationally. ‘She was not as fortunate as you, Miss Brabant. She fell into the pit and pierced her arm on a spike. She bears the scar to this day.’

Lavender was silenced. Suddenly the tears of shock and self-pity were not far away. She sniffed and turned her head away so that he would not see.

‘I am sorry,’ she said, a little stiffly, ‘but who would do such a thing—’

‘The Marquis of Sywell, I imagine.’ Barney had picked up the trap and was attempting unsuccessfully to open it. ‘He used to derive much pleasure from maiming and killing—man or beast, it did not matter. This is an old trap of his, I am sure.’ He looked at her. ‘I am sorry, but I cannot move it. You will have to take off your skirt.’

He spoke in such a matter-of-fact tone that at first Lavender did not register the sense of his words. Then she did and forgot her tears in her outrage. She glared at him. ‘How can you be so nonsensical, Mr Hammond! I shall do no such thing!’

Barney grinned. ‘Come now, Miss Brabant, this is no time to be missish! I had thought you had more sense than most ladies of your class, but it seems I was wrong!’ He stood up. ‘Have no concern for my feelings! I have three sisters and shall not be shocked!’

Lavender stared, open-mouthed. It had not occurred to her that he was about to watch.

‘But Mr Hammond, you must go away!’

‘Miss Brabant,’ Barney gave her a quizzical smile, ‘if I am to help you, I must stay.’

Lavender tried to struggle to her feet and stumbled as the weight of the trap bore her down again. Immediately, Barney’s arm was about her waist. She could feel the warmth of his hand through the cotton of her dress.

‘Let me assist you—’

‘No!’ Lavender almost yelped with fright at his touch. ‘Go away! I can manage perfectly well!’

She realised that she did indeed sound like one of the hen-witted society girls that she so despised. Barney was laughing at her, a twinkle deep in those dark eyes.

‘If I let you go you will fall over. Now, pray be sensible, Miss Brabant. You will either need to remove the skirt or at the very least, rip off the offending piece—’

‘Thank you,’ Lavender said, knowing that she sounded sulky. ‘I had worked that out for myself! If you will stand a little off, Mr Hammond, I shall do what is necessary!’

Barney gave her another grin and let her go very gently. Once Lavender had found her balance she discovered that she could manage perfectly well, and was even able to hop into the shelter of a nearby oak, dragging the trap behind her. Having checked suspiciously that Barney was being as good as his word and had turned his back, she slipped her skirt off, her fingers clumsy in their haste. Once she was free of it, it was a relatively simple matter to tear off the strip that was caught, and rearrange the rest about her as decently as possible. When she had finished, she decided that she looked almost respectable, if a little odd. The left-hand side of the skirt was a little lop-sided at the hem, showing a couple of inches of petticoat and an entirely improper glimpse of ankle, but it could have been so much worse. Her leg was sore and stiff from the cut, but she was tolerably certain that she could manage to limp home.

Barney was whistling again, the lilting tune that she had heard earlier. As she came out of the shade of the trees he turned to look at her, and Lavender’s heart did a little skip at his long, slow scrutiny.

‘Can you manage to walk home, Miss Brabant, or shall I carry you?’ he asked. ‘I saw that you had a nasty cut to your leg.’

‘I can manage, I thank you,’ Lavender said, feeling quite weak at the thought of Barney picking her up in his arms.

‘Then I shall carry your bag rather than your person,’ Barney said, stooping to pick up the bag with Lavender’s sketches and crayons. ‘I should not like to outrage your sensibilities any further.’

‘There is no need to accompany me at all,’ Lavender argued, her temper decidedly scratchy by now. ‘And whilst we are settling our differences, Mr Hammond, I must ask you not to make patronising assumptions about me! I am no feather-brained girl to fall into a swoon just because I have a small accident! If it comes to that, you are very different inside your father’s shop from out of it, but you do not hear me making ill-bred observations!’

There was a taut silence, but for a wood pigeon cooing in the branches above their heads. Then Barney gave a slight nod. His gaze was very steady.

‘Very well, Miss Brabant. I accept your reproof—if you will accept my escort back home.’

Lavender shrugged with an ill grace. She went ahead of him to the path, trying not to limp too obviously as she struggled with brambles and the grasping stems of dog rose that seemed determined to rip the rest of her skirt from her. She was beginning to wish that she had never let curiosity get the better of her when she had heard the fencing match.

Pride could only get her so far. Eventually they came to a place where a fallen tree had blocked the path, and she was obliged to accept Barney’s hand to help her over it. After that he walked by her side, kicking a stray branch from her path and holding back the straggling stems of rose and bindweed whenever they threatened to catch on her clothes. Lavender tried to repress the treacherous feeling of warmth that this engendered, but it was impossible not to feel more in charity with him for such gallantry. Then, when they had been walking in silence for about five minutes, he said, ‘I infer from your remark about my being a different person outside the shop that you saw the fencing match, Miss Brabant?’

Lavender stole a quick look at his face and blushed.

‘I am sorry…It is not that I was watching, but the noise of the contest attracted my notice and I stopped to see what was happening—’

‘I see.’ She thought Barney sounded as though he saw rather too much. ‘No doubt you were surprised?’

‘Well, I…’ Lavender struggled to think of a way of expressing her feelings without sounding rude. ‘I suppose I was. It was not something that I expected you…’ She broke off. ‘That is, you seemed very proficient—’ She stopped again. Now she had given away that she had been watching long enough to make a judgement.

‘Thank you.’ Barney was smiling at her. ‘No doubt it must seem odd to you, but I have been fencing since I was a boy. James Oliver, my opponent a few moments back, was also my first adversary. I met him and a few of his aristocratic playmates when I was about eleven, and walking in the forest.’ He shot her a look. ‘They taunted me, the poor village boy, and I was so angry that I challenged James to a fight. Imagine my dismay when he suggested we should fight with swords, like gentlemen rather than peasants, as he put it!’

Lavender could not help smiling at his droll tone. ‘What happened?’

The laughter lines around Barney’s eyes deepened. ‘Well, no doubt I was a little unorthodox in my style, but I discovered that I had a natural bent for fencing! I beat James easily and then he and his friends did not crow so loud! And since then he has sworn he will beat me one day, but he has yet to do so!’

‘He seems a better friend to you now than he must have been then,’ Lavender ventured, for one of the things that had struck her about the two men was their easy camaraderie.

Barney laughed. ‘Oh, he learned respect! No, James is a good fellow at heart and I have counted him a friend for many years now.’ He hesitated. ‘All the same, Miss Brabant, I should be grateful if you told no one that you witnessed our match.’

Lavender stopped, taken aback. ‘Of course, if you wish it! But is this some strange kind of reverse snobbery that prompts you not to acknowledge your aristocratic friends, Mr Hammond?’

She could have bitten her tongue out as soon as she had spoken, for she knew she did not know him well enough to ask such a personal and challenging question. Whilst Lavender had little time for the commonplaces and evasions of polite society, she did at least feel that she always spoke with courtesy. This time, however, she had been lured by the unusual nature of their conversation into asking a rather direct question. She saw Barney raise his eyebrows at her plain speaking, but he did not seem in any way taken aback and he answered her without prevarication.