Page 9 of The Baronet’s Bartered Bride

CHAPTER THREE

Asixteen-year-old Reuben stood above the dog at the edge of the coppice of beech and buckthorn. The hound lay prone at his feet as Joseph, panting slightly from exertion, caught up to them. At first he thought red currants from the bush must have dropped along the dog’s head and body; winded from the run, and not ever having been witness to violence in the course of his quiet life, Joseph didn’t at first understand what he saw.

“You lazy beast! You cost me that hare!”

Reuben snarled at the animal and raised the butt of the shotgun. Joseph comprehended, his mind ticking along with irritating slowness, that Reuben had struck the animal down, and meant to strike again.

“Reuben! Desist,” Joseph said sharply.

“He let the jack get away!” Reuben looked as if he might turn the blow on Joseph. “He’s a cursed slow mongrel, and why m’father saddled me with him, I’ll never know.” The older boy sneered. “Much like yourself.”

Joseph shook off the barb. His grandfather the baronet had made it out to be an insult when his second son fell in love with and married the daughter of a tradesman, and his uncle, the current baronet, had inherited this sense of superiority. Joseph was more concerned about the hurt dog.

The Southern Hound lay on its side, panting after his run, its brown eyes wide and frightened. Though blood seeped from the wound on its skull, the animal tried to rise, paws scrabbling through the layer of fallen nuts and yellow leaves cloaking the ground. The hound had been bred to hunt and work, and even injured, instinct called it.

“The hare is fast, and the chase is the point.” Joseph looked around and spotted where the brown hare had gone to ground, finding a form to huddle in at the edge of the barley field. The hare’s bright brown eyes watched Reuben with an alert sense of danger that Joseph was beginning to understand. Something feral and wrong seemed to have taken possession of his cousin, who was prone to temper on his best days.

“You’re such a sally. We’re not here for the chase but for the kill.” Reuben’s lip curled back. He kicked the fallen hound. “Up, you cur! Let the jack escape, and I’ll never hear the end of it.”

The baronet’s booming shout startled both boys. “What is the meaning of this?”

Swiftly Reuben pointed at Joseph. “He attacked my dog! The hare escaped, and Joseph said Wolfe was too slow, and struck him.”

Joseph’s eyes strained wide with surprise. His uncle’s glare sent him a step backward, clutching his gun and stammering. “I-I never. I didn’t hurt your dog, sir.”

The baronet scowled, his spleen sharpened by Joseph’s whimper, but he wasn’t misled by his son’s false claim. The glare he swung back to Reuben suggested he was as familiar with his son’s lies as with his hot-headedness. Moreover, a betraying streak of crimson smeared the stock of Reuben’s gun.

“You’ve cost me my favorite hound, you arrogant jackanapes. Alive or dead, his hide is worth more than yours.”

Reuben flushed brick red, his look turning sullen. “He lost the scent! The hare sprang, and the doltish mutt brought us here rather than after it.”

“So you struck the dog? In anger?” Joseph’s father joined them. The quiet question in his voice lacked accusation; he was seasoned at resolving disputes. But his mild voice stirred both his brother and his nephew to greater ire.

“Stay out this, Jonas,” the baronet snapped. “I won’t have you rating my son when your own is a puling, lily-livered rabbit. Where’s my keeper?”

“Sir?” The gamekeeper came up, another hound at his heels, the as-yet-empty game bag slung over his shoulder. His eyes widened as he took in the scene, but Joseph noticed he did not seem surprised.

The baronet gestured toward the animal on the ground. “Take care of this.”

“Sir?” Joseph didn’t miss the look of contempt that the keeper sent Reuben, nor the look of tender sorrow on the man’s face as he regarded the injured animal. The man had tended this dog, raised and trained and fed it, and now would see it destroyed because of a temperamental and spiteful boy.

“I will do it,” Joseph’s father said.

Joseph held back a cry. He had never seen his father kill an animal. His mother couldn’t even wring the neck of a chicken; she asked her housekeeper to do it. His father, the gentle vicar of St. Cleer, patted the heads of lambs in the meadow and called Joseph and Amaranthe from the house when he discovered a den of fox kits.

The baronet had already walked on but turned to call back to Joseph. “Are you coming with, or will you stay here to puke up your guts?”

“Give him a moment, Josiah,” his father said, and his tone was harder than Joseph was accustomed to hearing from his mild-mannered sire. “This is his first hunt.”

“You’ve raised a mewling whelp,” the baronet sneered. “You need to toughen that boy, Jonas. You’ll turn him into a molly with your coddling.”

“I’d rather a boy with a soft heart than a bully,” Jonas answered swiftly.

Reuben watched with a greedy, nearly sickening expression as Jonas raised and sighted his flintlock.

“Look away, lad,” Jonas said sharply. “Go with your father.”

“Why does he get to watch?” Reuben groused, throwing a glare at Joseph.