Rules for an Unmarried Lady

by Wilma Counts

  Another was a blistering expose of the use of child labor, children as young as four or five set to sorting coal, for instance. Besides deploring the sheer waste of talent and ability of the nation’s youth, she leveled a scathing attack on those who would knowingly and willfully enrich themselves on the backbreaking labor of innocent children.

  Finally, she aimed her pen at the run-down, overcrowded living conditions of mill workers, miners, and other factory workers. Apartment buildings, often owned by the owners of the mills or mines, not only housed twice as many human bodies as they should, but saw little or no upkeep. Garbage and sewage were often strewn about the streets and alleys awaiting a good rainstorm to take some of it away. Communal toilets behind the buildings were as overflowing as the dwellings themselves. Basement apartments sometimes had only bare earth as flooring and became tracts of mud during storms. Was it any wonder so many perished of consumption?

  While the series of articles were actually written over a period of weeks that extended from even before the visit to the mills, their publication was to be spread over the early weeks of autumn and beyond. In fact, Harriet feared one or two of them might appear in print during the weeks of Lady Margaret’s house party. This might be unfortunate, but there was nothing she could do about it now. In any event, the Lady Senator’s identity, though not a secret, was not widely known, was it?

  * * * *

  Still not entirely sure of Phillip’s state of mind, Harriet kept rather a close watch on him, though she tried to do so unobtrusively. In those first days, he was largely confined to his room and the nursery wing. She made a point of visiting him after her morning ride, sometimes then having breakfast with him and his siblings. She encouraged Maria and the other children to spend time with him, and saw to it that he was taken outdoors and allowed ample exercise. The young man relished showing off his expertise on his crutches.

  Phillip and Maria’s nocturnal visits to Harriet’s chambers were replaced by Maria and Harriet’s visiting him. These get-togethers often started now with the twins and Sarah joining as well after the two youngest were put to bed and included guessing games and the usual pleas for “just one more chapter” of the current bedtime reading. Harriet detected in Phillip no sign of the depression or melancholy she had observed earlier. Had it really been all about school? she wondered.

  On the evening of the fifth day after the accident, the story time finished, Harriet had just sent the twins and Sarah off to their beds when there was a knock at the door. Maria, being nearest the door, answered it.

  “Good evening,” Quint said. “I hope I am not intruding?”

  “No, not at all,” Maria and Harriet replied in unison.

  “Good evening, sir,” Phillip said.

  Quint drew up a straight-backed chair, turned it back toward the bed, and straddled it, resting his arms on the back of it and his chin on his arms. He gazed at Phillip. “So? How fares the invalid? The crutches working out all right?”

  “Yes, sir. I’ve fallen only once, but luckily Heller was there to catch me.”

  “What are footmen for, eh?”

  “Uncle Quint, do you think I might go riding soon—perhaps tomorrow? On Etna, not Lucifer!” he added hastily with a laugh. “Aunt Harriet said I should ask you as you had had experience with leg injuries and would know.”

  Quint smiled at Harriet. “Oh, she did, eh? We should probably ask the doctor when he comes tomorrow, but I am sure we can find some way to get you mounted again sooner rather than later.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  There was a moment of quiet, then Quint addressed Maria and Phillip. “We have missed you two in the dining room at meal times these last few days. Do you think the two of you might quit lurking about the nursery and rejoin us there?”

  They looked at each other, then at Harriet, who smiled and nodded at them.

  “Yes, sir,” Phillip said. “I am managing quite well on my crutches now.”

  “Of course we will,” Maria said.

  Later, when she and Quint had seen Maria to her room and they were in the hall outside her own rooms, Harriet paused and asked, “Had you an ulterior motive in your visit to Phillip’s room this evening?”

  He leaned close. “A couple of them. Invite me in, and I will explain.”

  “You are a devil,” she said softly, but she stepped into the room and motioned for him to follow. He closed the door firmly and immediately took her in his arms and kissed her quite thoroughly. He had one hand behind her head as the other caressed her back from her shoulders to the round of her buttocks. Nor was her response any less thorough as she slipped her arms around his neck and pressed her body ever closer to his.

  Finally, in a husky whisper he said, “Yes. That was, indeed, one of my motives.” He kissed her again. “And if I am a devil, you, my love, are a most alluring temptress.”

  “Neither of us is behaving properly.” She and moved toward her favorite chair, pointing him toward the blue settee.

  “Oh, no.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her down next to him, pinning her there with his arm about her shoulders. Even when he buried his face against her neck, she refused to pretend to protest; just being close to him, feeling his warmth, smelling him—it was all so comfortable, so perfect somehow.

  “You said that was one motive,” she prodded.

  “Hmm?” His breath on her bare skin was doing wild things elsewhere in her body.

  She spoke more firmly. “What did you have in mind with that business of Phillip and Maria being more of a presence in the dining room?”

  He pulled away slightly and turned to face her more directly. “Just that: ‘more of a presence.’ I know that Phillip is quite young—Maria too—but he is the Earl of Sedwick. With this infernal house party coming up, I want it very clear to all and sundry that, young as he is, Phillip is head of all that is Sedwick. We may as well set the pattern early on.”

  “But it is your mother’s party, is it not?”

  “Essentially. But before the first guests have arrived, I intend that she understand that while she is the hostess of this grand affair, Phillip is the host, broken leg or no. Maria and I will assist. It should work, should it not? Especially as the first guests to arrive will likely be his grandparents?”

  Harriet felt tears in her eyes. She moved closer to him, slipped her arms around his neck again, and kissed him. “Oh, Quint, I think it is wonderful.” She paused. “But your mother will not like it.”

  “I know,” he said glumly. “But it must be done. I think.” He brightened and tightened his hold on her, his hands caressing wherever they managed to touch, his mouth and tongue doing marvelous things to hers. After a bit of this bliss, he whispered, “Does this mean you will invite me into your bed to discover those other qualities of the wondrous Miss Mayfield?”

  She drew back, but only slightly, feeling a little dazed. Her gaze locked with his, her eyes searching, seeking. Finally, she said, “You know, I think I will. Yes! I will.”

  She stood, extended her hand, and led him into her bedroom.

  Chapter 17

  Harriet had thought about this moment for days—ever since that kiss in the abbey ruins. Well, all right. At first it had been in the vague nature of idle musing: what would it be like to make love with a man like Quinton Burnes? Not that she had first-hand knowledge of the act with any man as yet. However, at twenty-seven she was ready for such, was she not? Lately, whenever he had been near—merely in the same room—her mind would drift to a kiss or a touch and her body would respond. Then it was no longer “a man like…” Instead her desire focused on him and tonight she could not, would not deny it any longer.

  Was she in love with him?

  This thought had crossed her mind often enough in the last few weeks, but she invariably tried to put it aside as irrelevant. It was simply out of the question for Harriet Mayfield to lose
her heart to Quinton Burnes. That was not in the plan at all.

  “Are you having second thoughts?” Quint asked softly as he closed door between her sitting room and the bedroom. “It is all right if you wish to,” he said, pausing in the act of shrugging out of his coat.

  “No. Are you?” She had turned up the lamp on her bedside stand and it spread a soft glow over the entire room.

  He tossed the coat on a bench at the foot of the bed and, closing the distance between them, slipped his arms inside her robe to fondle her breasts through the thin fabric of her nightgown as he kissed his way from the hollow of her throat to her lips. Her hands tugged at his neckcloth and shirt buttons.

  “Your maid?” he asked.

  “Dismissed before I went up to Phillip’s room.”

  As she often did, she had prepared for bed before joining the children to bid them good night with their bedtime stories, prayers, and good night hugs and kisses. She relished these evening rituals with the children more than ever now. So she had appeared in Phillip’s room with her hair already in its long, loose night-time plait, held in place by a single blue ribbon. She wore a lacy cotton nightgown, over which she had donned a blue silk robe, tied at the waist. She had been surprised and embarrassed at having Quint see her in such dishabille, but what could she do—other than brazen it through? Now it had come to this.

  “I would not have you the object of gossip, Harriet.”

  “I thank you for that, kind sir,” she whispered, sincerely moved by his consideration. “I think we are safe this night.”

  “May I?” he asked, lifting her braid off her shoulder and loosening the ribbon that bound it. He ran his hands gently through her hair and bent his head to drink in the smell and feel of it. He slipped the robe off her shoulders and it pooled at her feet. She heard his sharp intake of breath and saw sheer hunger in his eyes as he gazed at the way her breasts mounded under the fabric of her gown, the nipples clearly outlined. He reached to cup them in his hands, his thumbs tweaking the nipples and sending bursts of feeling flooding through her.

  She struggled to pull his shirt free of his trousers, desperate to feel, to touch the warm bare skin beneath. “You have me at a disadvantage, sir,” she muttered.

  “One moment.” He quickly ripped the shirt tails loose and then tossed the shirt over his head and on top of his coat.

  Marveling at the expanse of golden muscle and a dark V of hair in the lamplight, she could not resist repeated caresses from his waist to his shoulders.

  “And now who has whom at a disadvantage, my dear?” he breathed against her ear as he shimmied the hem of her gown over her rump, pulling her closer, so that she felt the full evidence of his need pressing into her belly. She fumbled ineptly with the buttons on the fall of his buckskins.

  “Allow me, love,” he said. Having effectively rid her of the nightgown, he deftly stepped out of his shoes and pulled off the buckskins.

  They stood simply staring at each other for a moment.

  “My God, but you are beautiful,” he whispered.

  “You are not so bad yourself, my lord,” she said with a soft laugh. “I am thinking a Greek hero comes to mind.”

  “Come, my little bluestocking—into the bed.” He tossed back the covers and nudged her onto the bed, but before joining her, he stepped across the room to the washbasin, where he grabbed up a towel. Returning, he pulled her close and effectively demonstrated that previous kisses were but a sampling of what this man was capable of.

  With his hand, magic fingers, tantalizing lips and tongue, and words of encouragement, he not only played her body like a finely tuned musical instrument, but he led her into triumphs of ecstasy in playing his. Somewhat to her chagrin when she thought about it afterward, in the end she had been reduced to a begging mass of incoherence.

  “Please, Quint. Yes! I want— I want…I need—”

  And when he entered her, she welcomed him eagerly, lifting her pelvis to give him better leverage, losing herself to everything but this act and this man. Then, suddenly, he stilled. He just stopped.

  “No.” She wanted to scream, but it came out a whimper. “No, Quint. Don’t stop. Please.”

  Slowly, he pushed into her again, watching her face closely as he did so, kissing her tenderly as he picked up the pace again. Then it was she who stilled as she felt a short burst of pain.

  “Sh. Hang on, my love,” he murmured, moving gently until she was writhing beneath him and demanding more from both of them. Suddenly she felt an explosion of bliss within herself. A few moments later, she felt him go rigid, and, to her surprise and regret, she felt him withdrawing from her. A split second later she realized he was spilling his seed into the towel.

  He rolled to her side and they lay entwined, both spent, for several moments.

  Finally, he said, “That was amazing.”

  “Yes. It was. I had no idea it would be so wonderful.”

  He rose on one elbow and glared at her. “Good God, Harriet, you might have told me!”

  “Told you what?”

  “That you were a virgin.”

  “Why on earth would I tell you such a thing as that?”

  “A man likes to know these things when he beds a woman.”

  “Well, now you know,” she said, gazing at him open-eyed.

  He sighed. “Now I—Ahah! I knew it!” he exulted.

  “Knew what?” she asked, bewildered.

  “Your eyes. They are blue. Really, really blue. Not gray. I knew they would change color when you made love.”

  “That is ridiculous.”

  “Harriet, my sweet, are you not aware that your eyes change color with your emotions? Rather like the weather, really. The grayer, the more foreboding; the bluer, well—”

  “Ridiculous,” she said again, but not so forcefully this time.

  “I’m sure the children know this—probably instinctively. I’ve seen them studying your face for how they should react to something you’ve said.”

  “Well, of course. That is how real human beings interact,” she said, “not like soldiers who behave like automatons—all that ‘yes, sir, no, sir’ stiffness.”

  “And you know this from your vast experience of army life, I take it?” He tickled her ribs, thus bringing her fully and reluctantly out of the afterglow of their lovemaking. He flicked off the covers, saying, “I’d best not be discovered in your rooms in the morning, let alone in your bed.”

  “Goodness, no,” she agreed.

  He then totally surprised her. She watched as he went, stark naked, across the room to the washbasin, where he proceeded to dampen a cloth and unashamedly clean himself. He then dampened another cloth and returned to her, where he gently and thoroughly cleaned away from her body any perceivable residue of their night’s activity. She lay in silent wonder as he performed these ablutions, but he did them with such tenderness and care that later, when she thought about it, she knew that it was at that moment that she knew—yes! she was in love with him.

  “Move over,” he said, nudging her. “Remove your ever-so-loveable self from the middle of this bed. Let us see the damage.”

  “Wha-a—?” she cried, but she moved.

  “Harriet, I told you I would not have you the object of gossip. Not in this house. What happens when the maid sees blood on your sheet?”

  “Blood on my sheet?” she asked blankly. But there it was: two bloody smudges against the whiteness of the bedsheet. “Oh.”

  “Oh, indeed. That is what happens when one deflowers a virgin. If I’d known—”

  She sighed and grabbed the damp cloth from him. “Do save the lecture. Get another wet cloth and a dry towel too. I doubt any male of the species knows how to clean properly.”

  He rolled his eyes at her and did as she instructed as she began scrubbing furiously at the small bloody spots on the sheet.

/>   When he came back, he leaned over and kissed her soundly. “I did not do such a bad job on you, did I?”

  Embarrassed, she squeaked out a “No,” and kissed him back, equally soundly.

  “Here now. That could keep us here ’til noon—and caught for sure.” He set about helping her scrub.

  “I think it will dry completely by morning,” she finally said, pulling on her nightgown. “Thank you for helping me.”

  “The pleasure was all mine,” he said, pulling on his buckskins. “In my next life, I shall be a washerwoman.”

  “What a waste that would be,” she said, admiring the way the muscles of his upper torso worked as he donned his shirt.

  “Good night, Harriet.” He lifted her chin with a finger to kiss her softly. “Or is it morning?”

  “Morning.”

  “I hope you will not be harboring regrets about this.” He sounded unsure of himself as he stood at the door.

  “No, I will not,” she said firmly. “However, it would never do for this to become a habit, would it?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” he said, grinning, but when she cuffed his shoulder, he added, “No, no. You are right, of course. Still—”

  “Incorrigible,” she muttered and closed the door, then stood leaning her head against it for several moments. “What have you done, Harriet Augusta?” she whispered aloud. “It was all right—sinful, perhaps, but inconsequential—for an unmarried woman to dream of such, but you broke the rules.”

  As she turned back to her bed, she spotted his neckcloth lying on the bench. She grabbed it up and pressed it to her face, savoring the smell. Careful to avoid the damp spot in the middle of the bed, she lay cradling the piece of cloth that still held a bit of the essence of him, the smell helping her recall—happily—nuances of what had just transpired. She fell asleep smiling.

  * * * *

  Quint too went to sleep with a smile on his face, but the next morning he awoke thinking, How stupid was that, Burnes? And here at Sedwick too, where it had always been not just a rule, but almost a sacred law: no taking advantage of female employees. Well, Harriet was not an employee, was she? But he knew that was splitting hairs.