A Loyal Companion

Table of Contents Copyright A Loyal Companion Dedication Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Chapter Eighteen Chapter Nineteen Chapter Twenty Chapter Twenty-One Chapter Twenty-Two Chapter Twenty-Three Chapter Twenty-Four A Loyal Companion By Barbara Metzger Copyright 2012 by Barbara Metzger Cover Copyright 2012 by Ginny Glass and Untreed Reads Publishing The author is hereby established as the sole holder of the copyright. Either the publisher (Untreed Reads) or author may enforce copyrights to the fullest extent. Previously published in print, 1992. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold, reproduced or transmitted by any means in any form or given away to other people without specific permission from the author and/or publisher. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to the living or dead is entirely coincidental. Also by Barbara Metzger and Untreed Reads Publishing The House of Cards Trilogy A Suspicious Affair An Angel for an Earl An Enchanted Affair Cupboard Kisses Father Christmas Lady Whilton’s Wedding The Duel http://www.untreedreads.com A Loyal Companion By Barbara Metzger To Yang-Sho Sundial Jim, who is my sunshine Chapter One Squire Elvin Randolph was a proud man. He was proud of his vast, well-tended Berkshire acres, and proud of the wealth they brought him, so he and his wanted for nothing. He was proud of the ancient name he bore, and of the sons who would bear it after, and the daughters who graced his fireside. If Squire Randolph had any misgivings, it was that his beloved wife had passed on to an even better life, if such were possible. His chest still swelled, albeit over a comfortable paunch, when he recalled the day Allison Harkness, daughter to the Duke of Atterbury, had chosen him, a simple farmer, to receive her hand and heart. She had never regretted her decision, despite that widow in the village, no, not even when he turned down Atterbury’s offer of a title. “A title does not make a better man,” she’d said, to his everlasting gratification. He missed his dearest Allison still, despite that widow in the village, but he took comfort knowing she would have shared his pride in the fruits of their union. The boys were George and Hugh, an heir and a spare as the saying went, solid lads with good bottom. They’d be educated as gentlemen farmers the same as their father: as much book learning as they’d sit still for, with the mud of Randolph’s Deer Park Manor only temporarily scrubbed off their hands and faces. There was enough property for Hugh, the second son, to claim a tidy parcel, or enough income to purchase his colors if the little hellion didn’t outgrow his love of knights and dragons, pirates and Indians. The girls would be well provided for, too, their mother’s portion making them heiresses in their own rights. Catherine, Squire’s firstborn child, had also inherited her mother’s delicate beauty. She was soft-spoken and well mannered, even as a tiny moppet in sparkling, starched pinafore and smooth blond braids. A lady to her fine-boned fingers, she was destined to grace London ballrooms, to shine as an ornament of society, to make a noble marriage. Her grandmother, the dowager Duchess of Atterbury, was already planning her come-out, with the squire’s blessings. Frankly, Catherine’s perfection terrified Randolph. What if he got her dirty, or uttered a profanity in her hearing, or touched her soft skin too hard with his rough hands? Better the dowager saw to such a paragon. He’d look after the boys, and Sonia… If the dark-haired, sturdy boys were as alike as two cherries on the same vine, the squire’s daughters were as similar as apples and oranges. Catherine was refined elegance, with the cool essence of silvery moonlight. Sonia was exuberant sunshine, all bouncy golden curls and bluebell eyes and a dimpled smile that could melt the frostiest heart, which the squire’s certainly was not. The baby of the family, younger than Catherine by ten years and soon left motherless besides, Sonia was pampered and spoiled and adored by the whole household. “You’ll ruin that child,” the dowager duchess warned. “Letting her run wild after the boys like that, taking her up on your horse with you every time she holds her arms out, instead of sending her back to the nursery where she belongs. Mark my words, Elvin, that gel will be a rare handful. No man will take a hoyden to wife.” “But she’s just an infant, Lady Almeria,” Squire replied, brushing cookie crumbs from his now-rumpled cravat. “Time enough to worry about a husband later.” The dowager only sniffed. “She doesn’t even know the meaning of the word ‘no.’” “Of course she does.” Randolph tossed the babe up in the air and asked: “Precious Sunny, do you want a fussy old rich man with a title to take you away and keep you in some cold, dark castle?” “No,” she shouted between squeals. “No, Papa, no!” Squire called her Sunny, not Sonny with an o. He denied his mother-in-law’s claims that he was trying to make another son out of the girl. He was content with his boys, and absolutely delighted with this pink and white bundle that was soft but not fragile like porcelain, sweet but not cloying like wedding cake. Besides, no little boy would be so generous with sticky hugs and sloppy kisses. He called his youngest child Sunny simply because she lit up his life. When she looked up at him with adoration, he saw her mother, Allison, and he was proud all over again. Unfortunately, when Sonia looked up at him like that, Squire Randolph could deny her nothing. Even more unfortunately, perhaps, Sonia also inherited, beyond Allison Harkness’s beauty, fortune, and loving nature, her mother’s knack of knowing her own mind. Allison had always known what she wanted, and had accepted nothing less. Didn’t she marry plain Elvin Randolph, Esq., despite an uproar that shook stately Atterbury House in Grosvenor Square to its very foundations? So, too, did Miss Sonia Randolph make her wishes known. Poor Elvin had more than one opportunity to think back on the dowager’s dire warnings. Especially when it came to his hounds. Now, as proud as he might be, Squire Randolph did not take credit for his lands. They were passed down to him, as he’d hand them on to George. That they were fertile was a gift from on high, to be nurtured and tended as best he could. Even his children, as much as he loved them, were more products of Allison’s goodness than his own, he felt. But his hounds? Ah, now, there was something a man could brag about to his cronies. He could invite those toffs down from London and show off his darlings till the titles turned green with envy. Hadn’t he bred the dogs himself, for generation after generation, to get just the right conformation, just the perfect pitch, color, and temperament? Hadn’t he trained them all himself, right from the weaning box, till he had the best fox-hunting pack in the county, maybe the country? By Jupiter, he had! Sheltonford was not Quorn territory, and the squire was too conscientious to let anyone destroy his tenants’ fields or disturb their herds, fox or no, but an invite to ride with the Deer Park pack was seldom refused. When there was no company or no fox, Randolph had one of his kennelmen drag a hide for him, just so the hounds stayed keen, just so he could have the joy of riding behind, a fine piece of horseflesh between his legs, the wind in his face, and the sound of a dog on the scent like music in his ears. Aw-roo! Aw-roo! Squire could pick out the individual hounds’ voices the same as he could identify his children’s. Better, for there was Belle, first to find the scent, loudest to bay, sweetest in timbre. Belle was the best dog Squire ever owned. Gold and white, with velvet ears and doe eyes, her tail arched just so, she stood foursquare and jaunty, always eager. Her heart was in the hunt, and Elvin Randolph’s heart rode with her. * * * Bud Kemp was also a proud man. He ran over three hundred head of fat and fluffy black-faced sheep on hundreds of acres of land he leased from Squire Randolph, just like his father before him, and he’d never missed a rent day. He had three strapping boys to help him at lambing, shearing, and market days, with another gone for a soldier. The youngest was studying with the vicar to see if he’d suit the priesthood. His wife still looked good to him, especially in the dark, and they had enough money set by in case times got hard. Bud Kemp could rest easy nights, knowing he’d done right by his family, his landlord, his church, and his country. He could also sleep soundly knowing his woolly assets were safe out in the valleys with his dogs, the smartest, loyalest, most competent sheepdogs in the shire. Hadn’t Bud bred them himself for generations, right since crossing his older border collie bitch with Shep Hayduck’s Belgian herder? Damn right, he had. And kept breeding the good ’uns back to the lines to weed out the bullies, the daydreamers, and the weak of body or soul. Those sheep were the stupidest creatures on four legs. They’d get lost in the front yard if not for the dogs. They’d panic at the slide of a pebble on a slope, graze clean off a cliff, or baa in the face of a long-knifed poacher, if not for the dogs. Bud Kemp’s sheepdogs kept him snoring, and the dog that brought a smile to his weathered face, even in his dreams, was Jack. Jack was a handsome black dog, well-furred to keep him warm out in the hills on cold, wet nights. He had a white blaze and a white bib, and half-cocked ears that were always vigilant for warning sounds. He carried his feathered tail low, in the habitual low profile that let him swivel quickly or bunch his muscles for a quick burst of speed. Jack was so smart, Bud boasted, he could drive those sheep through the eye of a needle. And he never harmed a one of the plaguey beasts, nor ever let anyone or anything else hurt one either. Jack was so smart, Bud swore down at the local, he could sense danger when it was two valleys away. The only thing Jack never did understand was market day. He and the boys and the other dogs brought the sheep to whatever place Bud told them and then…nothing. No sheep, no job, just a saucer of ale on the floor of the tavern. Now, Squire Randolph wasn’t too stuck up on his own worth to bypass the local alehouse on his way home through Sheltonford village, nor to share a mug with his tenant, nor to admire Bud Kemp’s fine working dog. The two men had a lot in common, but this was not France. Neither man, in fact, would think of getting their dogs together any more than they’d encourage the sheepherder’s sons to go courting the landowner’s daughters. There was just no way in King George’s England for Squire’s Belle and Kemp’s Jack to know each other, in the biblical sense, that is…except for Miss Sonia. * “But, Papa, they were only playing!” Squire’s bellow of rage could be heard two counties away. “Hell and damnation, Sunny, didn’t I tell you I wanted Belle in the house tonight? I should have listened to your grandmother and beaten you years ago. It’s not too late. I’ll ship you off to boarding school, see if I don’t!” “But, but, Papa,” she said, sniffing, “you just said Belle was to keep me company tonight because you had to go visit Mrs., um, someone on business.” At his narrow-eyed look, Sonia hurried on, her bottom lip trembling. “And, and Belle missed her friends in the kennel so much, she was crying by the door.” “You are never, ever permitted to open the front door by yourself at night!” Sonia shrank back from his roar, her blue eyes awash in tears. “I didn’t, Papa, truly. Jack came around by the library door, you know, the one Taylor leaves open for you when you’re coming home late from—from wherever you go. Isn’t Jack clever, Papa?” Squire Randolph sank down in an old leather chair in what used to be his orderly library, in what used to be his well-ordered life. He shook his head in resignation and motioned to Sonia, who promptly launched herself into his lap. “Ooph, poppet, you’re getting too big for your poor old da. And you are surely too old to be in such scrapes. Why, you are all of ten now—” “Nearly eleven.” “And country-bred. You know what happens when a, uh, ram and a ewe get together.” “Yes, Papa, but you didn’t tell me that Belle was feeling motherly like you say about the ewes and the mares and the sows and the hens and—” “All right, Sunny, I should have—” “And I didn’t know Jack was feeling frisky like you say when the stallion—” “Enough! Here, blow your nose.” She took the handkerchief he held out to her, snuffled into it a few times, then squirmed around to look up at him, blue eyes shining despite the tear streaks, dimpled grin showing a missing tooth. “Papa, can I keep one?” * Squire Randolph was still saying “No” some two months later. “You know you cannot have one, poppet. They just wouldn’t make good house dogs. They’d be too big, too wild. I’ll buy you a puppy, love, see if I don’t. What would you think of a little pug you can carry around? You know, with those cute little squashed-in faces? Or a Pekingese you can comb and brush and put ribbons in its hair. You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Sunny?” Sunny stamped her foot. She wouldn’t like a lap dog at all. She was too old for dolls. “No matter, the pups’ll likely be sickly anyway.” And she was too old not to know what happened to unwanted puppies and kittens. Someone would tell her the babies were sickly, and the next day they’d disappear. Not this time, she vowed. The men in the stables were like jackstraws under the weight of Miss Sonia’s desperate coaxings: they crumpled immediately. So she managed to be on the scene for the grand event and could see for herself that all three of the pups were strong and shiny, suckling avidly. Her eyes big with wonder, Sonia turned to share this marvel of new life with her father, and intercepted his signal to the head kennelman, Tom. Squire jerked his head once to the side, and Tom nodded. Sonia ran to her father and clutched his hand. “No, Papa! No!” she cried in a pathetic little voice. Randolph stroked her gold braids, tumbled, as usual, out of their ribbons. “I’m sorry, Sunny, but the bast—babies are neither fish nor fowl. You know they’re no good for anything.” “No, I don’t know that, Papa, and you don’t either! You can’t yet. Why, that would be like deciding someone was guilty before you heard the evidence. And you wouldn’t do that, Papa, I know. Everyone says you are the fairest man in the shire. They made you magistrate, didn’t they? You didn’t even send Eddie Spears away when everyone knew he was poaching. No evidence. That’s what you said, Papa. So you have to give Belle’s puppies a chance, too.” * The pups were weaned young, though not for lack of attention, despite Squire’s best efforts. He wanted to avoid future disappointments and heart-wrenching scenes. But no governess or nanny or nursemaid had yet kept Miss Sonia from where she wanted to be, so she knew Tom’s report before he gave it to her father. “Very well, Sunny, we’ll keep the blondish pup for now. Tom says she follows a scent right smartly for such a young bitch, and sticks to it. She won’t look so out of place with the pack, either. But she’s not a pet, mind, and if she doesn’t work out, she’s gone. Now, let that be the end of it and these other two wretched whelps. I don’t want to see them around here anymore.” Sonia patted his knee. “Of course not, Papa. Mr. Kemp will make sheepdogs out of them.” * “I’ll keep the spotted bitch, sir, Miss Sonia. Seems to take to the sheep. Quiet-like an’ gentle with ’em.” Kemp not-so-gently nudged the last pup, the only male, away from chewing on his heavy boot. “Not like this fool. Barked in their faces, he did, then ran the silly beasts in circles till we could catch ’em, and him no bigger’n a minute. I got no time for a dog what only wants to play.” The mostly black dog had noticed Squire’s riding crop, tap-tapping against Randolph’s thigh, and was lunging at it, trailing mud and straw and other stable debris down the well-clad leg. Squire kicked him away. Ferocious infant growls turned to a soft whimper as the squire nodded sagely. “My man Tom had no better luck with him. He wouldn’t stay on a scent, just hared off in twenty directions at once. Wouldn’t bring a stick back, so he’d never make a retriever, and he sure as Hades isn’t quiet enough to go on point.” Squire turned to his daughter to make his final, sad ruling in the case. And there she was, his baby, his heart’s ease, sitting cross-legged on the stable floor amid the muck, with a miserable mutt on its back in her muddied lap, teething on one of her blasted braids! “I’m sorry, poppet, but there you are. No one wants this one.” She looked up at him, his angel, with that smile so like her mother’s, and his eyes almost watered. Then she declared, in a tone of voice also reminiscent of Allison Harkness Randolph: “I do.” She set the dog on his white feet and ruffled his shaggy black coat, pulled straw out of the arched and plumed tail with its white tip. She bent over and kissed the puppy right between his clownish gold eyebrows. “But, Sunny,” her poor father tried one last time, the same as he’d tried to convince Allison her sons did not need to be sent to boarding school, or that fox hunting was pious enough for a Sunday. “But, Sunny, he’s not good for anything!” “He’s good enough for me.” * And that is how I, Fitz the dog, by Jack out of Belle, came to share my life with Miss Sonia Randolph. Chapter Two They named me Fitz, which in ancient times was used to denote a blot on the family escutcheon, the old bar sinister, a product of an unsanctioned joining. A bastard. Human persons seemed to care a lot about cat dirt like that. I didn’t. After all, wasn’t everyone always praising both my parents? What more could a body ask? My sire was the finest sheepdog between here and Canis Major; He could think like a sheep, they said. Then again, a rock could think like a sheep. Jack could think for a sheep, for a whole flock of sheep and for the shepherds, too. And my dam never lost a fox. A few horses, their riders, the master of the hunt, but never the fox. No, I had nothing to be ashamed of in my forebears. In fact, I wanted to be just like them. But sheep? Moving them from place to place to place, when all they talked about was grass and grass and grass, just to let the harebrained shepherd lose them for you? That made no sense to me, no more than fox hunting did. You kill the foxes and what do you get? More rats. And everyone knows what you get then, and it’s not just the bubonic plague. Still, I yearned to fulfill the promise of my breeding, to go beyond mere existence toward excellence. I looked around and there she was, Miss Sonia Randolph. I knew right away—they say it’s like that with true vocations—that I had found my calling. I was going to be a companion! Not just any companion; I was going to be the best companion since Hector was a pup. Please note that I consider myself a companion, not a pet to be pampered and sheltered, smothered and caged for another’s pleasure. I accept my soft bed, my regular meals, but I work for them, training Miss Sonia. There were no more tantrums. Miss Sonia soon learned that I would be banished to the stables for her misbehavior. There were no more missed sessions in the schoolroom either, and no more unfinished lessons. If Miss Merkle was pleased in the mornings, Miss Sonia quickly deduced, then Papa was pleased at luncheon, and we were free to do as we pleased for the afternoon. No one ever needed to worry about us when we were out and about. Where I was, she was. Where she was, I was. No one had to feel guilty that there were no other children for Miss Sonia to play with, or had to take a groom away from his chores just to shadow her about. No one had to worry about the eggs disappearing from the henhouse or the vegetable garden being torn up, either. I was a responsible dog now; people trusted me. They knew that, like my mother, I would never get us lost and, like my father, I would defend Miss Sonia to the death. We went everywhere. We knew every bird nest, every new foal, every gingerbread baker and sausage maker for as far as we could go and still get home in time for supper. We never missed supper. It was a time to learn, a time to talk. We had discussions with birds, beasts, bugs, even bats. Socrates’ cave had nothing on theirs! As time went on, we were more on our own. Miss Catherine completed her schooling and her Season with honors: a ring from Lord Martin Backhurst, marquess, from Bath. Master George left university to study the bachelor life in London; Master Hugh became Lieutenant Hugh Randolph, posted to Portsmouth. And we expanded our horizons. The pianoforte, watercolors, the reins of a pony cart, the reins of the household, it was all the same. We knew which groom to chivy, what new tweeny needed a kitten in her bed so she wouldn’t be homesick, where the sun cast the prettiest shadows, and when Papa liked to hear “Cherry Ripe.” We kept growing, learning. I even stopped teasing Deer Park’s tame deer. They were too easy. Squire Randolph was happy. He threw into the trash Lady Atterbury’s letters demanding that he send Sonia away to school before the provincial hoyden was permanently freckled. The neighbors were happy that there was a real lady at Deer Park, and Miss Sonia was happy. Why not? Everyone loved her. I loved her, but I was not happy. I was five years old. Five is not old for a dog; sixteen is not old for a human person like Miss Sonia. But I worried. We were no longer ignorant children. I, at least, had learned from everyone around me—sparrows and sows, milkmaids and meadow mice—that there is a higher purpose beyond mere survival, beyond even personal success. We each have another calling, a universal―dare I say divine?—raison d’être. Succession. We must carry on. Sirius knows I was doing my share, and so were those maids out behind the barn, but Miss Sonia was sixteen, and playing chess with her father. But enough of teleology. I once knew a badger who fancied himself a philosopher. Fellow could bore the fleas off a ferret. I decided to take matters into my own paws. As soon as the family returned from London, I was going to start holding up carriages. * The heir was getting married. George Randolph was taking in holy matrimony the hand of Miss Jennifer Corwith, and he was doing it with all pomp and glory at St. George’s, Hanover Square, in full view of half the ton. According to Squire Randolph, smug in the first pew, the boy hadn’t done half-bad for himself. Miss Corwith was a handsome enough female with a more-than-handsome dowry. She came from a good family—her mother’s people were distantly related to royalty, but not so uppity that they could look down on George’s ancestors. Squire scowled at Lady Almeria Atterbury seated next to him, looking more like a jewelry shop mannequin than a dowager duchess. Uppity didn’t half describe his mother-in-law. He turned back to the ceremony. The bishop was still spouting incomprehensible eloquence. The Corwiths were doing themselves up proud. Of course, this affair wasn’t nearly as grand as the bash Squire threw for his Catherine’s wedding. Then again, Catherine married the Marquess of Backhurst. The Sheltonford chapel in Berkshire had been laughingly dismissed, and a simple ceremony at Atterbury House was out of the question. Balls, breakfasts, bride clothes, Lady Almeria spared no expense. Why should she, when Elvin Randolph was paying? Roses were not good enough; she wanted orchids. A handful of attendants was paltry; every classmate of Catherine’s at Miss Meadow’s Select Academy became a bridesmaid, it seemed, with every gown, slipper, and hairpiece added to Squire’s account. And the reception after, well, the food could have fed every dirt-poor tenant in Berkshire for a year, if the wealthy members of society hadn’t devoured it all in a matter of hours. He frowned again, this time encompassing the whole congregation of overfed, overdressed jackaninnies. Then his brow cleared. It had all been worth it, to show the ton that Backhurst wasn’t marrying down, by Jupiter, and to show Lady Almeria Atterbury that Elvin Randolph was no countrified coin clutcher. Mostly, though, it had been worth all the blunt, and the time and botheration, just to see his girls walk down that long aisle. He didn’t actually see Sonia, naturally, for as flower girl, she went before him and Catherine. And his Sunny didn’t quite manage to walk down that white-carpeted path; she skipped. Flowers twisted into her hair, a gap-toothed grin for the bishop, the minx turned and winked at her brothers. Lady Atterbury clutched her vinaigrette the whole time. Then came Squire’s turn, with Catherine. He would never forget the joy on her face nor the hushed awe in the vast cathedral as he led to the altar the most beautiful bride in decades. Not since her mother, they whispered, and tears came to his eyes even now, at quite a different wedding, just remembering. He took out his handkerchief and blew his nose. The dowager poked a bony finger in his ribs. “It’s they who ought to be crying, you twit,” she hissed, nodding across the aisle to the bride’s family, “not you.” His collar was starched too high for him to look. He nodded, barely. “My goddaughter heard that silly Corwith chit didn’t want anyone to compare her wedding with Catherine’s—gel can’t hold a candle to our Lady Backhurst—so she just picked two attendants. No chance of being cast in the shadow on her day in the sun that way, especially with Catherine stuck in Bath in her condition.” “You know what Backhurst said,” the squire whispered back. “Maybe this time, if she stays quiet…” Lady Atterbury twitched her scrawny body a hairbreadth away on the cushioned seat. “My granddaughter, sir, is not a barnyard creature whose breeding is subject to one of your interminable speculations.” Squire mopped his forehead with the linen he still clenched. “Sorry,” he muttered. The dowager nodded and edged closer so she could continue her conversation. There was nothing Lady Atterbury liked better than a good gossip, unless it was baiting her son-in-law, especially in church, where he couldn’t raise his voice or flee to the stables. “Vain as a peahen, that Corwith girl,” the old lady confided. “So she chose her spinster stepsister from Corwith’s first marriage as maid of honor. Leah’s a plain, shy old ape-leader who never took. And for bridesmaid, Jennifer picked George’s harum-scarum little shire-bred sister. Heh heh.”