A Reluctant Courtship Read online

  That wasn’t fashionable, of course. “No couple should live in one another’s pockets,” Chilcott had explained. “It is vulgar.”

  Meric didn’t understand a society that tolerated a husband’s unfaithfulness sooner than a husband who fawned on his wife. Not the society or the life he wanted. But for the sake of his family’s future, it was the one he accepted as God’s provision. He viewed Miss Devenish the same. She possessed all the qualifications he needed, just not a few he wanted.

  “But God says He will supply all our needs, not all our wants,” he reminded himself as the few still burning lights of Clovelly came into view around a curve in the road. “My needs are being met. I won’t ask for more.”

  But he would call on Miss Bainbridge on Wednesday.

  Meanwhile, an early country dinner at the vicarage and duty called to him. He dragged Philo along with him. Chilcott had insisted that he must ride down to Ashmoor to inspect the storage house for the apples. It couldn’t wait another day.

  “Actually, I will be gone for several days,” Chilcott had explained. “This is a busy time of year on the estate.”

  “Then I should come,” Meric offered.

  “Do you know about farming, my lord?” Chilcott asked.

  Meric just stared at the man.

  “There is a difference between twenty acres and twenty thousand acres,” Philo pointed out.

  “We own more than twenty acres in New York,” Meric said. Then he laughed. “Half of it is still stumps.”

  “Half of it here is sheep.” Chilcott relented. “But your uncle hired me to oversee the farms, and that is what I will do. You will increase your social standing in the county.”

  And do everything he could to discover who might have wanted his father to take the blame for a crime he had not committed.

  So Meric and Philo strode down the hill to the vicarage. Even before they reached the front door, savory aromas of roasting chickens and potatoes wafted into the yard.

  “If it tastes half as good as it smells,” Philo whispered, “I’ll endure a lot of boredom.”

  “If we can get Mr. Stanbury to talk about Father, it won’t be boring.”

  But Mr. Stanbury wanted to talk about Miss Bainbridge.

  Halfway through the meal, with the soup and fish courses removed and two glistening and crisp fowl perched upon their platters in the center of the table, Stanbury set his fork across his plate and leaned toward Meric. “Since you are the highest-ranked gentleman in my parish, though the late Lord Bainbridge gave me my living, I do wish to ask for your advice.”

  “I doubt I’m qualified to give you advice on anything, sir.” Meric set his own fork across his plate.

  Miss Stanbury and Philo continued eating with the doggedness of two people not expecting another fine meal for weeks.

  “You are a man of the world.” Stanbury sat back, his hands folded on his lap.

  Meric suppressed a sigh. He had been enjoying his roasted hen. Until the vicar resumed eating, however, he could scarcely continue himself.

  Stanbury took a deep breath. “What do you think of my courting Miss Bainbridge?”

  Philo stopped eating too. Miss Stanbury forked another bite of peas into her mouth.

  It’s a terrible idea, Meric considered shouting.

  “Mr. Stanbury, that is your decision to make.” He tried to smile. “Miss Bainbridge comes from a good family, and her brother holds the living, I understand.”

  “And she’s beautiful,” Philo murmured.

  “She is pretty,” Meric agreed.

  The image of hair turning pale gold by a quarter moon rippled through his mind. Hair that felt as soft as the silk stockings Huntley insisted he wear when calling.

  “I am concerned about the state of her soul,” Stanbury said. “All that outer beauty should not cover an unrepentant heart.”

  The man talked as though he were sixty-five, not thirty-five.

  Since Miss Stanbury continued to eat with mechanical regularity, Meric quite deliberately carved himself a chunk of fowl so he need not speak for several moments.

  “I wanted to court her before she went off for her Season,” Stanbury continued. “But his lordship, her father then, told me to wait until she saw a little bit of the world. Alas, she seems to have seen too much of the world. Still, my feelings for her have not changed.”

  Miss Stanbury paused eating long enough to remark, “And she has a fine dowry.”

  Meric tried to swallow too quickly and grabbed up his glass of water to stop himself from choking to death.

  Lord Bainbridge had nearly allied himself to the vicar? Not Miss Bainbridge. She would make a terrible vicar’s wife. She was too . . . alive for a vicarage existence.

  Meric managed to swallow and face the vicar, a gentler approach to the truth on his lips. “Mr. Stanbury, Miss Bainbridge is still mourning her father. I think waiting is your best course of action.”

  “Wise counsel, I am sure. I do so think it is time to wed, though.” Stanbury scooped up a mouthful of pickled onion but did not carry them to his mouth. “Jane, you will be forced to remain here awhile longer.”

  “And who would manage the organ if I did not remain?” Miss Stanbury demanded. She rose. “I will fetch coffee for you gentlemen.”

  When the door swung shut behind his sister, Stanbury said, “She has been betrothed to a widower with five children for five years, but she will not leave me until I wed, no matter how many times I tell her I can hire a housekeeper and anyone can learn to play the barrel organ. So you see why I wish for a wife quickly.”

  “And Miss Bainbridge is available.” Philo flashed a grin at Meric. “My brother needs a wife quickly too. I refuse to be his heir much longer.”

  “You do not have any choice until he has heirs in sons,” Stanbury began, and then launched into a lecture on the duties of those who held titles and vast land holdings. Miss Bainbridge slipped into the background.

  At least she slipped into the vicar’s background of conversation. No one mentioned her name again until Stanbury suggested he should call on her the following day.

  “I happen to know she’s occupied tomorrow,” Meric said.

  He wanted no interruptions from the vicar. He didn’t want to compete with the vicar for her attention.

  The realization robbed him of appetite. He was courting an appropriate miss. Sweet, dull, and proper Miss Devenish, who, fortunately, liked riding a mare as docile as she was. He should not wish for time alone with Miss Bainbridge. The truth was, however, that he did want time alone with her.

  He wrestled with that wanting for most of the evening and too much of the night. In the end, he decided not to call on Wednesday. His conscience prompted him to send a note to the vicar to inform him that Miss Bainbridge would not be occupied after all, but he did not obey.

  She did not want to share any secrets or distresses in front of Lord Ashmoor. Nearly two days’ time and the cold light of day gave her more sense than to think she should confide in his lordship. If he did not wish to wed her because of her reputation, then telling him about her brother’s rejection of her because of her reputation would not aid in her efforts to persuade him that he would regret rejecting her and repaying her father for all he had done for the new Lord Ashmoor. At the same time, he probably needed some explanation for her wandering about the cliff at midnight and her subsequent, not to mention revolting, imitation of a watering pot. No, worse, more like a demonstration of a fountain with hiccups.

  Wednesday dawned cold and gray but dry, and Miss Morrow suggested they needed to clean out the dower house. “I understand it has not been used for years, so it will be beyond dirty.”

  “Grandmama died ten years ago. She was the last person to live there.” Honore pushed open her bedroom window and leaned out far enough to catch a glimpse of the peaked roof beyond a row of conifers separating the house from the gardens. “My grandfather built it for his mother fifty years ago, but she died before it was finished. Then his si
ster lived there after she was disappointed in love and vowed to never marry. Grandmama lived there the longest.” Her chest went tight. “It is a house where people go to die.”

  “Honore—Miss Bainbridge.” Miss Morrow slipped her arm around Honore’s shoulders. “You are just turned twenty. I scarcely think you are going there to die.”

  “No, just be forgotten like a—like a—oh, I cannot believe Bainbridge is doing this to me.” Honore slammed the window hard enough to rattle the panes of glass in their frame. “Is there no forgiveness?”

  “Miss Morrow, we have a dozen maids in this house eating their heads off with little work to keep them occupied. Why do we not send them over to do the cleaning?”

  “Because they are doing the cleaning here in preparation for the royal visit. I mean—” Miss Morrow’s eyes widened, and she clapped her hand to her lips.

  Honore giggled. “You read that tone into the letter too? And did a separate one arrive for the butler and housekeeper?”

  “Instructions that everything should be polished to within an inch of its existence, which means every crystal on every chandelier and every globe on every wall sconce, every carpet taken out and beaten, every—”

  “In short, they will get to us when they have time, which they likely will not.”

  “Or may not.” Miss Morrow pulled a faded blue frock from the clothespress. “Your estimable housekeeper assures me that the dower house should be in fine repair. Someone inspects it every quarter to ensure the roof is not leaking and mice have not taken over the furniture.”

  “And no birds nested in the chimneys, I hope?”

  “She did not mention that. But we shall look before laying any fires.”

  “Laying fires?” Honore stared at her companion. “Surely we get at least one maid? And what about food? We are not expected to cook for ourselves, are we?”

  “We get two maids, and the scullion will bring over food from the Bainbridge kitchen.”

  “Cold.” Honore sat on a trunk filled with shawls and fans and gloves. “If you wish to resign your position, Miss Morrow, I will understand. You were promised comfort, not servants’ work and cold meals.”

  Miss Morrow clutched Honore’s dress in her arms and stared into space for several moments before focusing on her employer again. “Do you know that verse in Proverbs?”

  “‘As a jewel of gold in a swine’s snout, so is a fair woman which is without discretion’?” Honore asked.

  Miss Morrow laughed. “No, no. ‘It is better to dwell in a corner of the housetop, than with a brawling woman and in a wide house.’”

  “We do not know if Miss Dunbar is brawling.”

  “Of course we do not, but I was thinking, were the dower house half the size and not so fine, I would prefer it to returning to living with my cousins. Oh, I could live with Geoffrey—Whittaker, that is. He and your sister would welcome me in an instant, and I could likely be a help with the baby when it comes. But they would feel obligated to have me to table for dinner, and I would feel like such an intruder.”

  “Do I not know that?” Honore’s cheeks warmed. “They are rather embarrassing to be around sometimes.” She picked at a loose thread on the front seam of her skirt. “Though I suppose they are fortunate in one another.”

  If she tugged on that thread, her seam would unravel and the skirt of her gown would fall into two pieces in front, exposing her petticoat. That was how looking at Cassandra and Whittaker made her feel—as though one tug at her heart would divide it into two pieces, revealing her longing to be loved like that.

  She sprang to her feet. “I cannot clean today. Lord Ashmoor is coming to call. And that means I must change into another gown. This one needs repairs.”

  Feeling like dancing with the prospect of the call, she bounded to her wardrobe and began to riffle through it for something demure and complimentary to her looks.

  10

  By four of the clock Honore decided Ashmoor was not coming to call. There in the country, a visitor that late would expect an invitation to the early dinner served outside town so he could return home before the night grew too dark. Ashmoor might not know all the ways of English life, but he had been in the country long enough to learn the niceties of when calling was appropriate.

  Heart heavy yet a surge of restlessness racing through her limbs, Honore ran upstairs and changed into the faded muslin gown she had owned for at least two and perhaps more years. The last time she had donned it, she had gone sailing with her brother before her Season.

  “It is tight.” Honore gestured to her front. “Am I getting fat?”

  Miss Morrow laughed. “No, child, you have a charming figure, but perhaps we should tuck in a scarf.” She pulled one from a chest and draped it around Honore’s shoulders.

  She tucked it into the straining neckline. “I would give this to one of the maids, but it is scarcely fit for more than rags.”

  “I doubt one of the maids would see it that way. It can be dyed.”

  Honore looked at Miss Morrow’s faded gray dress, not one donned merely for cleaning but worn more than once, and then glanced at her overflowing clothespress. “You are smaller than I am. Taller, but smaller. Would I insult you by offering you things that are too tight for me?”

  “I would appreciate some variety.” Miss Morrow turned a pretty shade of peony.

  “And nothing like a new gown to attract a handsome gentleman.” Honore grinned.

  Miss Morrow stuck her nose in the air. “It seems, Miss Bainbridge, that we have been abandoned by our beaux.”

  “Not that they were beaux. Well then, let us get to cleaning our new abode while we have light.”

  Armed with brushes and piles of rags, buckets, and strong soap, Honore, Miss Morrow, and two housemaids crossed the garden to the row of pine trees trimmed to symmetrical perfection inside a white painted fence. Beyond them, a tiny garden fanned out on either side of a flagstone path. That path led to the front door set in the exact center with four windows on either side—two upstairs and two on the ground floor. Even in the gray light, the rosy brick and white trim glowed. Uninhabited or not, the house was well taken care of.

  Honore fitted the key in the lock and the door swung inward with a gentle creak. “Mavis, tell one of the outdoor men to come oil all the hinges and ensure the windows all open.”

  “Yes, miss.” Mavis set down her load of cleaning materials and took a strike-a-light from her apron pocket. “I’ll just be lighting some candles, if you please.”

  “I please. Thank you.” Honore stepped into the room to the left of the front door. Her nose twitched from the quantity of dust layered over tables, mirrors, and holland covers for the furniture. She sniffed, seeking a hint of mice or dampness, but other than the dust, the house seemed all right. It did not even smell as musty as she might have thought a building that had been shut up for all but a few days out of the past ten years would have smelled.

  “Where do we begin?” Miss Morrow asked.

  “Take off the covers first and remove the carpets.” Honore glanced outside. “No, those will have to wait until morning. Remove the covers and dust all the surfaces. No sense in working on the floor until the rest is cleaned. Bets,” she addressed the other maid, “take a broom and knock down all the cobwebs you can find, then inspect the chimneys for nests and the like. When Mavis returns, have her—ah, there you are. Come to the cellar with me. I wish to inspect our coal supply.”

  Three more rooms opened off the entry hall. Beneath the steps, a fifth inside door opened into the kitchen and servants’ area, the passage far too dark.

  “I’ll fetch another candle, miss.” Mavis darted into the entryway and returned with a candle from one of the wall sconces. “We’ll need to be supplying this house, I expect. No one would have left them for fear the mice would get to them.”

  “I would think mice would want only the tallow ones, not wax, but they seem to eat anything.” Honore held out her hand. “I will lead the way. This will like
ly be unpleasant.”

  She held the flickering light at arm’s length in front of her as though it were a shield against the darkness and cobwebs. Her heart sank lower and her stomach twisted into nausea with each step.

  All two steps she took into the narrow passageway. Two was all she needed to have the light illuminate a ceiling free of spider housing and a floor clear of dust in regular patterns.

  “Mavis?” Honore faced the maid. “You did not come back here yet?”

  “No, miss.” Mavis shook her head, her cap ribbons fluttering. Her face was white. “Those be too big for my feet anyhow.” She stuck one foot out from beneath her black dress. In its sturdy clog of wood and leather, her foot appeared small enough for two of them, perhaps three, to fit into one of the prints before them.

  “Did you—” Honore took a deep breath to steady her voice. “Did you notice any footprints when you were lighting candles in the other rooms?”

  “No, miss. I weren’t looking at me feet. I were looking at the sconces and the dust over all and the spiderwebs and . . .” She began to back toward the door. “There’s been a body in here, Miss Bainbridge.”

  “Yes, I am afraid there has been. But it might have been one of the outdoor men. I was told they came to inspect things a month ago.”

  In a month, dust would have accumulated in the footprints. Cobwebs would have grown, especially as the days grew colder and even insects chose to live indoors rather than out. In short, no footprints would have stood out that clearly.

  “Go ask anyway,” Honore commanded more sharply than she intended.

  “Yes, miss.” Mavis spun on her heel and fled, the wooden soles of her clogs ringing on the wooden floorboards of the entryway.

  Honore slammed the door to the back passage and wished for a key to lock it. She would have preferred to vacate the house altogether in the event someone was still inside, hiding in the pantry or cellar.