A Reluctant Courtship Page 3

  “Marriage settlement indeed.” She flung open her bedchamber door.

  Miss Morrow, as straight and flat as a boy in her dove-gray round gown, emerged from the dressing room with an armful of Honore’s gowns from her London Season. “There you are. I was thinking, now that it is time you can start wearing colors again, that we could refurbish these, perhaps set in a colored overskirt or two, and not be rid of them altogether. What do you—” She stopped on a gasp, her soft blue-gray eyes widening. “What . . . happened to you? Why are you wearing a man’s coat?”

  “It is a terribly long story.” Honore threw herself onto a wingback chair by the cold grate. “All I’ve worn for the past nine months since I came out of blacks for Papa is white and gray, and I am thoroughly weary of both. Go ahead and tell me your thoughts on those gowns.”

  “Oh, I think not now.” Miss Morrow laid the gowns on the stool to the dressing table and crossed the room with her gliding walk to stand over Honore. “What scrape have you gotten yourself into this time? Do I need to send for Lady Whittaker or Madame de Meuse?”

  “You are leaving out my brother and Mama,” Honore said with more than a hint of asperity.

  “Not at all.” Miss Morrow, related to Honore and the Bainbridges distantly through the marriage of the middle Bainbridge daughter, Cassandra, perched on the edge of another wingback chair and fixed her deceptively gentle gaze on Honore. “I know as well as you that your brother is more interested in his seat in Parliament than he is in his sisters, and Lady Bainbridge is unwell.”

  Indeed, for all she was never quite well, Mama seemed genuinely in a dangerous state of poor health since Papa’s death from apoplexy. She had collapsed upon learning of her husband’s demise, and deteriorated from there until two different doctors recommended the waters at Bath as a possible cure. She and her companion, Barbara, had resided in Bath ever since, one reason why Honore was now in Devonshire instead of enjoying the less frenetic entertainments of the Little Season in London.

  A legitimate reason, but one as distant as Miss Morrow’s relationship to her. The other reasons were just too humiliating to consider.

  Honore tucked her head against one of the chair’s wings and closed her eyes. “My sisters cannot come here any more than I could stay with them. Well, I could have stayed, but they thought I should not.”

  Of course they had. Lydia, married just over a year, was expecting her first child any day now, and she did not want her unmarried sister nearby without her to manage her social engagements in the neighborhood, no matter that Lydia’s mother-in-law was perfectly capable of doing so, or so Honore believed. Lydia thought not, citing something about her husband’s younger sister being unmanageable.

  Farther north in Lancashire, Honore’s middle sister, Cassandra, after barely ten months of marriage, was also expecting her confinement any day. Considering what had happened on the Whittaker estate the previous autumn, Honore did not wish to go there even if she were welcome, which she was certain she was not. Someone needed to manage Bainbridge, so she took it upon herself to return to Devonshire with one of her brother-in-law’s spinster cousins for a chaperone and companion. Nothing horrible would happen to her in the splendid isolation of the main seat of Lord Bainbridge.

  Except it had. She had nearly died from a terrible fall. She had nearly died from mortification over Lord Ashmoor’s claim that Papa had come within moments of signing a marriage contract for her with an American. Whatever his claim to the Ashmoor title and fortune, he was the enemy. Worse, perhaps, his father had fled the country under a cloud of scandal. Given the choice between her father’s near contract for her marriage to a Yankee and dangling off the cliff, she would dangle off the cliff.

  Except Papa had wanted the man for her.

  “It’s too, too awful.” Honore’s eyes burned. She squeezed them shut. She would not—would absolutely not—weep again that day.

  “Would you like me to ring for tea?” Miss Morrow asked.

  As if tea could help anything.

  “Yes,” Honore said on a sigh. “And hot water for a bath.”

  “In the middle of the afternoon?”

  “In the middle of the afternoon. I am beginning to ache all over and have several cuts and scrapes and—never you mind. I simply need a hot bath and perhaps some macaroons before I can even think about talking.”

  And she needed to think before talking.

  “All right, but I insist on a full explanation as to why you look like you do and—” Miss Morrow halted on her way to the bell pull. “You are only wearing one shoe.”

  “I am.”

  “Where is the other one?”

  “Halfway to Wales on the ebb tide, I expect.” Honore managed a tight smile. “Along with my hat and my pride.”

  No, her pride had blown across the moor on the sea wind the instant the man calling himself Lord Ashmoor announced her father’s intentions for her.

  “Papa, Papa, Papa, how could you?” She pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes.

  A Yankee. The son of a criminal. A man who had himself been in prison under suspicion of spying. Papa wanted him for her husband?

  The urge to wail like an abandoned infant rose inside her so profoundly she sprang from the chair and tried to pace around the room. Her cut heel throbbed. Her shoulders tensed as though her arms weighed tenfold their unsubstantial weight. Her heart . . . it ached worst of all.

  Papa had betrayed her.

  She buried her face in her hands, but she had apparently wept out all her tears near the pasture wall. That was one more humiliation of the day. She had howled like a bawling calf in front of that Yankee stranger.

  “He compared me to a calf.” She yanked off her scarred and lone slipper and tossed it into the grate.

  Miss Morrow retrieved it and smoothed down the once pretty cream satin ankle ribbons, as though all the shoe needed to repair it was a little ironing. “Who called you a calf, Miss Bainbridge?”

  Honore jumped. “I, um, did not mean to say anything about it.”

  “Perhaps you should say a great deal more.” Miss Morrow held her gaze.

  Honore shook her head. “Not now. Not yet.”

  Not ever.

  She liked Miss Morrow’s calm practicality and knew the spinster, aging at somewhere around thirty, appreciated the work. At the same time, Honore had known her for only a few weeks. Miss Morrow had come to Shropshire to be Honore’s companion when Lydia grew too advanced in her condition to entertain—look after—her youngest sister. Gentle nudges from Lydia’s oh-so-kind and diplomatic husband, along with their brother’s announcement that he intended to remain in London where he had been since their father’s death, sent Honore back to Devonshire. She, apparently, was the only Bainbridge who cared about managing the estate.

  Miss Morrow suited well enough as a companion. She played chess, loved the same Gothic novels Honore adored, and, despite her plain, invariably dove-gray or walnut-brown gowns, possessed a fine eye for fashion. But she was still a stranger. Honore wanted one of her sisters. They would scold her about walking alone even on the estate. They would reprimand her for being rude to a stranger. They would let her cry on their shoulders and remind her that Papa had always held the best interests of his daughters in his mind and heart, even if he tended to be high-handed about it.

  Honore shot to her feet. “If you do not plan to order that bath and tea, I shall. I am feeling worse by the mome—” She took a step and came down hard on her cut heel. A squeaking gasp burst from her lips.

  “You are injured.” Miss Morrow reached Honore’s side in a flash and slipped her arm around the younger lady’s waist. “Come sit down again. I’ll fetch tea and macaroons myself and order up the bath. When you wish to talk”—she offered Honore a shy smile—“if you wish to talk, you can tell me what happened.”

  Of course she would talk. Of course she would tell her paid companion about the near tumble into the sea. Of course she would confide about the new Lord Ashmoor and
his outrageous claims.

  Except they were not outrageous.

  While Miss Morrow departed to fetch tea and cakes and order up a bath, Honore spread the two halves of the marriage papers on her dressing table and read them through. Most of the language made little sense to her, especially the Latin bits. Dead languages were Cassandra’s forte. The message came through loud and clear anyway—Lord Bainbridge would pay Lord Ashmoor ten thousand pounds to marry his youngest daughter.

  “Ten thousand?” Honore stared at the number printed in the precise hand of her father’s secretary.

  Despite the jagged tear between the words ten and thousand, they were still legible, clear, nauseating in the clarity of their message. Papa had felt the need to offer even a suspicious stranger three thousand pounds more to marry Honore than he had granted as a dowry to Lord Whittaker when he married Cassandra, even though they had eloped to the Scottish border in order to marry before Advent.

  “And Ashmoor does not need the money.” Honore started to close her hands around the papers, crumpling them more than she had already done.

  She smoothed them out instead. She must keep these. She could even repair them, glue them onto another sheet of paper to put the halves back together. They would encourage her to continue writing her Gothic novel so she could acquire her own income as a famous authoress. No man would buy and sell her like—like—

  “A calf.” She snatched up a brush and began to yank it through her hair.

  She was attempting to disentangle the boar’s bristles from a hopeless knot in her tresses when Miss Morrow returned. She bore a tray complete with a teapot, steam billowing from its spout, a jug of warm milk, and a plate of macaroons bristly with slivered almonds. She passed Honore on her way to the low table before the grate, and the tannic sharpness of the Bohea teased Honore’s nostrils.

  She cast the brush onto the dressing table and rose. “I believe I am thirsty.”

  “I expect you are, after your ordeal.” Miss Morrow poured tea into a delicate china cup, added a dash of milk, and gave the drink to Honore.

  Honore gave her a smiled thank-you and sipped before asking, “What makes you believe I have had an ordeal?”

  “At our level of society, Miss Bainbridge, one rarely keeps a secret for long.” Miss Morrow smiled as she seated herself with a cup of tea. “And a young man named Philemon Poole came seeking his brother.”

  Honore jumped, spilling tea onto her already ruined gown. She said nothing. She dared not. She simply stared at her companion.

  “Seems like his brother—Meric, I believe he called him?—intended to call here,” Miss Morrow continued in her quiet, placid voice. “The young Mr. Poole was quite agitated because he knew his brother was coming along the cliff path, and he saw a fresh scar where that path had broken away. He is afraid his brother has fallen into the sea. I took the liberty of giving him and Mr. Chilcott, his steward, permission to use the Bainbridge boat to search on the seaward side if they feel the need. But I expect they’ll find him safe and sound on land, if he is missing his coat.”

  That missing coat still wrapped around her, Honore grew hot from hem to hairline. She stared into the swirling amber depths of her tea. “I suppose it is no use to dissemble, is it?”

  “You can, but I do not know why you would want to. If . . . hmm, there is reason for the man to be brought to justice . . .”

  “Brought to justice?” Honore stared at her companion. “Why would he need that?”

  Miss Morrow turned the delicate pink of sea foam at dawn. “He, um, did not harm you in any way, did he?”

  “How would he have—oh, gracious, no.” Honore felt light-headed.

  Miss Morrow heaved a gusty sigh. “That’s all right then. You did not act like a young lady who had had her virtue insulted, but I am concerned about your reluctance to tell me why you are in such déshabillé.”

  “That is because—because it is all too awful. And humiliating and—”

  A knock sounded on the door.

  Miss Morrow rose to answer it, and Honore tiptoed her way into the dressing room. She peeked through the door at the arrivals. Two footmen, identical in their crimson livery and old-fashioned powdered wigs, entered bearing cans of steaming water. A third followed with the bath. No one spoke while the footmen set up the tub before the hearth, and a maid scurried in to light a fire. Once screens stood around the tub for modesty and to keep the heat around the bath, Honore emerged from her hiding place and moved toward the steaming water smelling of woodbine and lavender. The lavender oil would soothe her bruises and scrapes. The woodbine would soothe her senses.

  “Perhaps now that there is a screen between us,” Miss Morrow said from somewhere in the room, “you will tell me how you came to be wearing Lord Ashmoor’s coat.”

  How long could a body hold her breath under water and not drown? Probably not long enough for Miss Morrow to grow bored and go away.

  Honore rubbed lavender oil into her scraped knees as though it took all her concentration. “He saved my life and then dealt me an insult too great to be forgiven.” Her conscience pricked her, and she added, “Well, to be forgiven without the grace of God.”

  Miss Morrow said nothing. A gust of wind rattled the window in its frame, portending rain in the near future. From the grate, a puff of smoke burned Honore’s nostrils, and the flames bowed from a downdraft. Otherwise, the room lay too quiet and too still.

  “Are you still there?” she asked in a small voice.

  “I am. Simply waiting for your tale of adventure.”

  “Scarcely an adventure I would like to repeat.” Though she could do something of the like to her heroine.

  Miss Morrow said nothing yet again.

  Honore sighed, laid her head against the rim of the bath, and began to talk. The silence grew so heavy she might have been speaking to an empty room. Not so much as a chair creak, the sharpness of an indrawn breath, or the rustle of fabric indicated that the companion remained present.

  “And worst of all, I blubbered like a baby once I was safe,” Honore completed in a small voice. “If you can believe I did such a thing.”

  “Of course I can believe it,” Miss Morrow said. And then she sniffed.

  Honore stood in the bath and peered over the top of the screen. “Miss Morrow, are you weeping too?”

  “You are such a brave child.” Miss Morrow mopped her streaming eyes. “And to have a handsome and strong young man come along to save your life—why, it is better than any novel I have read.”

  “Who says he’s handsome?” Honore plopped down into the water again, found it was not quite warm anymore, and decided she needed to emerge and dress for the evening in the event that someone like the vicar called. “Or young?”

  “His brother is both. Such beautiful eyes.”

  “Humph.”

  “And fine thick hair.”

  “Humph.”

  “And those shoulders.”

  “Miss Morrow.”

  “Did I say something improper?” The companion sounded too innocent.

  Honore giggled and wrapped her dressing gown around herself. “All right, yes, he is a passable-looking gentleman with impressive shoulders. But if I never see him again, it will be too soon.”

  Miss Morrow clucked her tongue. “Even after he saved your life? I should think you would have an entire plot of love and marriage written out in your head.”

  “Perhaps under other circumstances I would have.” Honore emerged from behind the screen and snatched up the torn pieces of the marriage contract. “This is the rest of my mortification.” She waved the scraps of paper in the air. “Papa wanted me to marry this man so badly he was willing to pay three thousand pounds more to be rid of me than he was willing to pay for my sisters’ dowries. Ten thousand pounds altogether, and this—this Yankee Lord Ashmoor gave me back the contract because he has no intention of carrying through.”

  “Indeed?” Miss Morrow straightened her already erect posture even further, a
nd a gleam shone in her blue-gray eyes.

  “Papa thought enough of this Yankee—”

  “I beg your pardon, Miss Bainbridge, but if he is a peer of the realm, he is not an American, is he?”

  “He talks like it, and he has not lived anywhere else.” Honore picked up her hairbrush and dragged it through her hair.

  Miss Morrow took it from her and nudged her toward the dressing table stool. “You are making amok of it. Do, please, continue with your impressions of Lord Ashmoor.”

  “I think . . . I think . . .” Honore closed her eyes so she could not see the grief in the face of the young lady in the mirror. “Papa told me he had found a husband for me, and I thought it all right considering I have done worse at choosing suitors than I have at brushing my hair. But this man is surely not up to snuff for a Bainbridge.”

  “A Poole of Ashmoor and a substantial income? I think that makes up for a number of faults in the area of manners. After all, manners can be taught. Titles and incomes cannot.”

  “True, but he was scarcely out of prison for three months when Papa suggested the contract. And he offered to pay him more.” Honore opened her eyes and twisted up her face as though smelling something terrible. She drew a handkerchief from her dressing gown pocket and began to shred the lace edging the fine cambric. “He does not wish to wed me even with ten thousand. You know my brother would have honored the contract, especially with Papa’s signature on these papers. But this man does not think I am good enough for him.”

  “Hmm.” Miss Morrow tapped the hairbrush against her chin and held Honore’s gaze in the mirror. “So what distresses you most? Is it that he is an American or that he does not wish to marry you even for ten thousand pounds in a dowry?”

  Honore stiffened. “That he is an American, of course.”