Lord of the Beasts Read online

  Encouraged by Cordelia’s response, the groom pulled a handful of grain from his pocket and offered it to Boreas, who accepted it daintily. “I’ve seen him run, too, ma’am,” he said. “Faster than lightning, he is.”

  “But his racing days are over…aren’t they, my friend?” Donal said. He leaned close to the stallion’s ear, cocked his head as if listening to some whispered confidence, and laughed. “Perhaps we will, at that.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Cordelia said.

  “Perhaps we’ll have a little race of our own,” Donal said, a private challenge in his eyes. “Boreas would like to show your mare his mettle.”

  Cordelia was spared the need to respond by the arrival of the dog cart, Theodora at the ribbons. “If you and Boreas are quite ready?” she said, accepting the groom’s hand. She stepped up onto the mounting block and settled into the side saddle, modestly arranging the skirts of her riding habit. Donal swung into his saddle with natural grace and gathered the reins. He held Boreas back until Cordelia and Desdemona had taken the lead.

  They rode at a sedate walk away from the stable and onto the carriage road that meandered through the park. Boreas was on his best behavior; Donal rode him with a slack rein and an easy, relaxed posture. Desdemona was positively flirtatious. The mare insisted on staying close to the stallion, which meant that Donal’s knees were soon brushing Cordelia’s skirts.

  She made several unsuccessful bids to draw Desdemona away and finally conceded defeat. The sun was gloriously warm, the breeze thick with the scent of flowers, and Cordelia remembered other days…days when she had been lost to the glories of nature in lands far from England’s shores.

  But such memories aroused thoughts of what she had imagined in the minds of the menagerie’s inhabitants, so she quickly shut them away and searched for some harmless topic of conversation.

  “You have never told me what you think of our park, Dr. Fleming,” she said.

  He tilted his head toward her with a little smile. “It is beautiful, Mrs. Hardcastle. Beautiful, peaceful and very English.”

  “You make the very state of ‘Englishness’ sound not quite desirable.”

  “That was not my intention. There is no impropriety in a thing being what it was meant to be.”

  “I’d have thought that you would prefer to see all of this island in its original, natural state.”

  “To achieve such a state, one would have to wipe out several thousand years of history,” Donal said, “and that would hardly be practical.”

  “Impractical and undesirable.”

  “Yet the beavers, bears and wolves might not agree. Men drove them to extinction in England hundreds of years ago.”

  “I pity those creatures, as I do any persecuted by men,” she said. “Yet if humankind had not existed in England, you would never have been born.”

  “That might not have been so great a loss.”

  “You are too modest, Doctor. You have done much good in the world.”

  “Would there be a need for veterinarians if men did not misuse the animals placed in their care?” He looked away. “I should very much like to find a place that no human being has ever touched.”

  “And if you found such a place, you would abide there in lordly solitude?” She shook her head. “It has often seemed to me that you pretend to a misanthropy that you do not truly feel.”

  “Do I not?” He brooded on the path ahead of them, lips compressed.

  “Your work has undoubtedly given you a dim view of your fellow men, but your compassion is no respecter of species. If it were, Ivy would not be here today.”

  “Nor would she be at Edgecott if not for the tragedies you have suffered.”

  She stiffened. “If you refer to my father’s comments…”

  “I refer to the pain you would pretend does not exist,” he said, looking into her eyes with an intensity that startled her. “You have been badly hurt more than once, Cordelia, and not only by your father. You endured the losses of your mother, your sister, your husband. And those losses have shaped you as surely as mine have shaped me.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CORDELIA HEARD Donal’s words, and suddenly memories she had thought long discarded washed over her like an unstoppable tide.

  “But I don’t want to go!”

  Lydia’s voice pierced Cordelia’s concentration like the strident blast of a hunter’s horn. She set down the dress she was neatly folding and faced her younger sister with her anger held tightly in check.

  “It will do no good to whine about it,” she said. “Papa has made his decision. We are to go to India, and there is no more to be said on the subject.”

  “You don’t care because you haven’t any friends!” Lydia accused. “You spend all day at the stables and kennels, getting so dirty that no one wants to be around you.”

  Cordelia stiffened. “Bennet is my friend…”

  “Only because he likes horses. He doesn’t think you’re at all pretty.”

  “I should rather be a horse than an empty-headed chit like you!”

  Lydia pouted, her nine-year-old face almost losing the delicate winsomeness that had made her their mother’s favorite before Eveline Amesbury’s death three years before. Lydia had always been spoiled, and Papa had always deferred to her wishes…until now.

  Now Papa said he had had enough of wasting his time in England when he could be overseas pursuing his long-deferred work as a naturalist. He had remained at Edgecott only for the sake of his daughters, pressured by Mama’s relatives to give them a proper upbringing.

  “I’ve had enough of their interference,” Papa had told Cordelia when he had announced his decision. “You are twelve, old enough to care for Lydia. You’ll learn far more of value away from this painted prison.”

  Cordelia had not disagreed. Papa was hopeless in society, and Mama had said that Cordelia took after him in her refusal to accept the rules of proper behavior. Lydia was the “little lady.” And that was why Lydia didn’t want to go. She intended to be just like Mama, graceful and elegant and admired by everyone in the county. Everything she wanted was here.

  And I shall have to find a way to make her happy, Cordelia thought. Certainly Papa would never make the effort.

  No one would care if Cordelia was happy or not. That, too, she would have to do herself.

  She placed the folded dress in the trunk and sat on the edge of the bed, clenching and unclenching her fists. She would have been glad to leave this very instant. There would be so many new things to do and see in India, and all the other places of which Papa had spoken. Perhaps she wouldn’t feel so awkward and different away from Edgecott. Perhaps Papa would like her better.

  And perhaps, when they returned to England, Cordelia would finally know who she was meant to be.

  She stood up and made her way to Papa’s rooms. Clothing was scattered over every piece of furniture. Nothing had been packed. Papa’s valet had already found another position, and it was clear that Papa would never finish if he didn’t have help.

  With a sigh, Cordelia began to pick up the shirts and trousers and other garments, separating them into piles for folding. If someone didn’t take charge, everything would come apart again. And there was no one else to do it except Cordelia.

  But not forever. Someday she would be grown up and get to choose her own life. And no one in the whole wide world would be able to stop her….

  “Cordelia?”

  She came back to herself with a start, surprised to find Desdemona still beneath her and the soft English sunshine warming her shoulders.

  “Are you quite well?” Donal asked, leaning over to peer into her face.

  She cleared her mind with an effort. “Quite,” she said, summoning a smile. “I was merely…remembering.”

  “They must have been most unpleasant recollections.”

  She glanced back at Theodora and kicked Desdemona into a smooth, swift canter. But she knew she could not outrun either Donal or his questions. He
was soon beside her again, holding Boreas gently but firmly as the animal tried to surge ahead.

  “I offered to be an impartial listener,” he said.

  “Impartial?” She exhaled sharply and commanded her muscles to unlock, well knowing that Desdemona’s skittishness betrayed her. “You ask these questions because of Ivy, and I am far from certain that you can be impartial where she is concerned.”

  “Perhaps that is an impossibility for either one of us,” he acknowledged. “But I am not only concerned for Ivy.”

  Cordelia counted slowly under her breath, letting the irrational anger wash through her. “Has the learned veterinarian taken it upon himself to cure the terrible afflictions he has observed at Edgecott?”

  Boreas tossed his head, eyes rolling. Donal reined him to a walk, and Desdemona dropped back, ignoring the firm pressure of Cordelia’s heels.

  “You have said that I pretend to a misanthropy I don’t truly feel,” Donal said. “If that is so, am I not permitted to be concerned for the welfare of another human being?”

  “I have never doubted that you care for Ivy—”

  “But not only for her.”

  Cordelia finally looked at him, bracing herself for the pity she feared to see in his face. There was none. But the openness of his gaze, the unflinching tenderness in his eyes, was far more devastating.

  She twisted the reins about her fingers. “Dr. Fleming—”

  Donal reached over and touched Desdemona’s neck. The mare stopped.

  “It may be against all the customs of your society,” Donal said, “but I consider you a friend. And it is my understanding that friends attempt to help one another in times of need.”

  No glib response came to Cordelia’s lips. Confusion held her mute—confusion and a strange paralysis that stripped her of all defenses.

  “It is…” She swallowed, appalled at the hoarseness of her voice. “It is kind of you—”

  “Pray do not accuse me of this indifferent ‘kindness,’” he said gruffly. “Can you return my friendship?”

  She was vaguely aware that Theodora had once again caught up with them, but her cousin seemed part of another, distant world. “I can,” she stammered. “I do consider you a friend, Donal.”

  “Then you will let me help you.”

  “I can manage my father. I have done so since I was a child.”

  “I don’t doubt it. But his extraordinary degree of hostility suggests that your relationship with him has never been an easy one.”

  Shameful tears stung Cordelia’s eyes. She blinked them away. “If we are truly to be friends,” she said, “then these confidences you desire must be shared in equal measure.”

  She was as much saddened as relieved to see the wariness in his gaze. “I doubt you will find my past to be of much interest,” he said.

  The dog cart rattled up alongside them. Theodora looked at them quizzically.

  “We are almost to the river,” she said. “Shall I go on ahead?”

  “If you don’t mind, Theodora,” Cordelia said.

  Her cousin nodded and clucked to her horse, turning him toward the grassy bank. Cordelia watched her go. In a flat, steady voice, she told Donal of her mother’s death from a lingering illness and Sir Geoffrey’s decision, some years later, to take his children with him to India.

  Donal guided Boreas very close, the top of his boot nearly touching her skirts. “I understand that you seldom returned to England for the next several years.”

  “Theodora told you.”

  “Only in the most general terms. Sir Geoffrey saw to your education?”

  Cordelia let Desdemona’s smooth rhythm lull her into a sense of detached indifference. “He hired tutors when they were available, and taught us himself when he could.”

  “What of a child’s other needs?”

  “We were never without adequate food and clothing and shelter.”

  “And love?”

  “My…Sir Geoffrey is not one to display overt affection.”

  Donal let the silence stretch for several uncomfortable moments. “He referred to me as your latest protégé, and suggested that you attempt to dominate any male who crosses your path. Why would he say such a thing, Cordelia?”

  Her throat grew disagreeably tight. “My father was a brilliant naturalist, but his brilliance…distracted him from attention to the daily necessities. I helped him by caring for Lydia and saw to those common details of life that he was not equipped to manage.”

  “And he resented his dependence upon you.”

  She looked away. “When we returned to England, he…grew even more bitter at his inability to shape his own life. That is what you saw last night.”

  Donal tucked his chin against his chest. “What did Sir Geoffrey do when you married Captain Hardcastle?”

  “Theodora told you about my husband?”

  “Only that you were married but three months before he died.”

  The bluntness of his words slashed at Cordelia’s fragile composure. “Yes. Sir Geoffrey did not approve of James, or at least not of our marriage. He left shortly before the wedding.”

  “But you were happy.”

  Happy. Cordelia had not considered happiness a necessity of life for a very long time. “James was very free with his affections. He was generous to a fault. After Lydia died…”

  Donal’s voice roughened. “I am sorry. You must have suffered greatly at his loss.”

  “I was fortunate,” she said. “I was able to rejoin Sir Geoffrey soon after the funeral, and there were many distractions.” She realized how cold her explanation sounded and glanced at Donal to gauge his reaction. His expression was grim.

  “If your curiosity is quite satisfied,” she said brusquely, “perhaps you might tell me something of your youth and background.”

  Boreas danced sideways and half-reared, snorting through flared nostrils. “What do you wish to know?” Donal asked.

  “Where were you born? What is your family like? How did you come to be a veterinarian?”

  Donal gently brought Boreas back under control. “I was born in Westmorland. My parents were separated when I was an infant, but were reunited by the time I was six. They still live in Westmorland, along with my younger brothers, one of whom is married.”

  “A most concise biography,” Cordelia said dryly, “but it seems that you have omitted your entire childhood. Surely it was difficult for you if your parents were separated so early in your life?”

  Boreas bobbed his head up and down. Donal sighed. “When I was born, my parents were not married.”

  His words fell like a thunderclap. Cordelia jerked on the reins, confusing poor Desdemona. She eased her grip and waited for her heartbeat to slow.

  “I am sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean—”

  “I’m not ashamed of being a bastard,” he said. “In your circles it may be a scandal, but it was not a matter of importance at Hartsmere.”

  “Hartsmere?” she repeated, grasping for a less disconcerting topic.

  “The…village where my parents live.”

  Cordelia didn’t recognize the name, but she had seldom traveled so far into the north. She knew that birth to unwed mothers occurred quite frequently in the countryside, in spite of stern sermons by churchmen and the disapproval of good society. Certainly she had seen plentiful examples of such circumstances in many parts of the world.

  But Donal’s parents must have been somewhat educated, or their child would not have been likely to harbor the ambition to become a veterinarian.

  “It might relieve you to know that they had intended to be wed,” he said, breaking into her thoughts. “A misunderstanding came between them, but later they rectified the error. My brothers are quite legitimate. We were all raised identically.”

  “Your parents are both still alive?”

  “And well.” He smiled with such affection that Cordelia knew he truly adored his family.

  “I’m glad.” Her throat constricted on emot
ions she dared not examine. “Did you live with your mother before their reunion?”

  Boreas planted his hooves and stopped in mid stride. Donal stared at a point between the stallion’s ears, and after a few moments the horse began to walk again.

  “I was given away at birth, without the knowledge of my mother,” Donal said. “I was fostered in Ireland, among people who were interested only in the money they received from the man who had arranged the adoption.”

  No expression of dismay seemed adequate to address the rigid dispassion with which Donal spoke those words. “They were cruel to you,” Cordelia said.

  He shrugged. “They were poor and ignorant. One old man was kind to me when I was very young, and taught me my letters. He died when I was five, and after that I was left to do whatever I pleased.”

  “That is no way for a child to live,” she said.

  “I had friends among the animals,” he said, his voice losing some of its harshness. “They understood me, and I them. When my mother found me and brought me home to Hartsmere, I was given everything I had lacked. My father soon joined her, and I was happy.”

  Cordelia knew that there must be far more he left unsaid, but she comprehended how difficult it had been for him to reveal so much. He was not by nature a man much given to confidences in others, and yet when he did speak it was with complete honesty.

  “Now I understand why you took Ivy from the streets,” she said.

  “It was purest chance that I found her.”

  “Pray do not belittle your generosity.” She smiled at him warmly. “Yet I see why you chose to heal animals. They must have seemed far more worthy than the people you had known.”

  “I was blessed with a natural gift,” he said. “It would have been wrong not to use it. As it would be wrong for Ivy not to make use of the natural talents she possesses.”

  Cordelia’s smile faltered. “I intend to cultivate her intelligence and spirit, each within its proper boundaries.”

  “And if she rejects those boundaries?”

  “I see no reason why she should, if we both encourage her to accept the benefits of self-control by setting our own examples.”