Page 39 of Libby's London Merchant
She considered the issue. “I suppose we are, although you have not seen me at my worst yet, and perhaps I should still insist upon Miss Ames.”
“Scamp.”
He set up the easel for her in the orchard, moving it several times to suit her and then plunking it down and glaring at her when she suggested another location. Libby laughed and moved the easel herself, waving him toward a boulder where he could perch in relative comfort. He sat down carefully, his look of pained concentration warning her that he had probably walked enough for one day.
“Will you be all right?’’ Libby asked.
“I will be fine,” he said firmly.
Libby nodded, her mind already on her task, and turned to her paints. She selected the browns and yellows she wanted, and applied them to her well-used palette. She raised her brush, only to set it down, and exclaim, “Drat!’’
“H’mmm?”
She pointed into the distant field. “It is Joseph, and he is much too close to the squire’s land. What is the fascination, I would like to know?” she asked herself out loud. “Some days he is worse than a two-year-old.”
They both watched in silence, Libby tense, a frown creasing her forehead, and the duke, looking mildly interested.
Libby relaxed finally. “That’s right, Joe, go back into the woods,” she said softly, and then looked at the duke. “It appears he is heading into our woods now, thank the Lord.’’
Nez watched as she picked up her brush again and approached the easel. Yea or nay? he thought. Should I meddle?
He considered the matter. If he asked no questions, if he did not become involved in these lives, beyond an appreciative glance now and then at Libby’s ankles, or her trim figure, he could leave this place in a few days, report to Eustace, and return to London.
But he had to ask, and somehow he knew it would make a difference.
“Libby, has Joseph always been . . . well, slow?’’
There. He had asked. In some inscrutable fashion, at least in his own mind, he had become involved at last with the Ames family.
Libby seemed not to realize any implication with his question. She merely sighed and sat beside him on the boulder. He obligingly move over to make room, but not too far.
She fiddled with her bonnet strings, as if forming an answer in her mind, and then turned to him.
“Do you know, Mr. Du…Nez…sometimes I wish he had always been slow. Then it would bother him less because he wouldn’t remember other, better times. No, he has not always been the way you see him now. There was a time . . .” Her voice wandered off and he could tell by her expression that she was somewhere far away.
“Once upon a time ...” he offered helpfully, and she laughed, recalled to the present.
“No! Were you ever in Spain?”
He shook his head, knowing it was a lie, but not wanting her to know, for some reason he didn’t understand.
“I did not think so. You could never mistake Spain for a fairy tale. No, Joseph was thrown from his horse during the retreat from Burgos, four, five years ago. He was twelve.” She paused again, remembering. “The path was icy and we were being harried rather close from the rear.” She shuddered. “He fell from his horse and hit his head on a stone. It didn’t seem to be anything serious at first, but he did not regain consciousness and his head started to swell.”
“Was there a doctor?”
“No. He had been killed in the retreat, and in any case, we could not stop until nightfall.”
Libby got off the rock, as if the memory were hurrying her along, too. “Poor Joseph! Poor Papa! He had just given Joe the horse for his twelfth birthday. Papa cried and blamed himself, and Mama, oh, how she carried on.”
“What did you do?” the duke asked.
“I found a Spanish doctor,” she said briskly, as if his question was a silly one. “Papa never was much good in domestic crises. And Mama?” Libby shrugged. “They were so much alike.”
He looked at her with even more respect. “You couldn’t have been over fourteen or fifteen yourself.”
“I was sixteen. The doctor came and was able to drain off some of the fluid. In a few days, the swelling went down, but Joseph was never the same again.”
Libby returned to the easel and picked up the brush again. “Poor Joe. For the longest time, he couldn’t remember anything. Gradually, some of his memory came back, but he doesn’t reason well anymore; emotionally he is very young.” She dabbed at her eyes. “It isn’t too bad, if you just don’t allow yourself to remember how he used to be . .
