Rules for an Unmarried Lady

by Wilma Counts

  He found Humphreys standing gazing at a small tapestry hanging on one side of the fireplace, depicting a unicorn in an idealized forest scene. Humphreys was dressed in a bottle green coat over a silver embroidered waistcoat and black trousers—all of which stretched slightly at the seams. His neckcloth was tied in an intricate pattern such as a man of perhaps a third of his middle years would sport.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting,” Quint apologized, indicating they should sit in the wing chairs flanking the fireplace.

  “Quite all right.” Humphreys jerked a thumb at the tapestry. “Just trying to recall all that symbolism.”

  “I never got beyond the purity of the unicorn myself,” Quint admitted. “My brother was the medievalist.” He offered the man a drink, which Humphreys politely declined, so Quint merely waited for the other man to state his business.

  Humphreys cleared his throat. “I think you know that your father and I were quite good friends.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And, of course, you know that we enjoyed gambling quite a bit.” Humphreys chuckled self-consciously.

  “Yes, sir. I knew that too.”

  “Then I am quite sure you know that, when he died, I held substantial notes on the Sedwick Mills.”

  “If you are here today to collect on those—”

  Humphreys put up a hand. “No. No. Hear me out. I later used those notes as collateral on a bank loan. Recently, I learned another party had bought them from the bank. I assume that party was not you.”

  “No, it was not, though I am not sure at this point why that should matter to you, sir.”

  “To tell you the truth, I was on the verge of buying back those notes when this other bloke beat me to it. I have people trying to identify him now so that I might buy them back from that person.”

  “Why? If I may be so bold as to ask,” Quint said.

  “It has long been a dream of mine to combine my mills with those of Sedwick to create an enterprise that might truly be competitive with Manchester mills. That is why I loaned your father that blunt to start with. I was negotiating with your brother when that unfortunate accident occurred, but he was reluctant to sell.”

  “So—you want me to sell you Sedwick Mills?”

  “Yes. It is my understanding that, as the young earl’s guardian, you have full authorization to do so. I should like to buy out your remaining interest in the two Sedwick Mills—that will give me sufficient leverage, I believe, to deal with this person who now holds those notes.” He sat forward in his chair and splayed his pudgy hands on his knees. “I am prepared to pay enough that you may find it helpful in dealing with other aspects of Sedwick affairs.”

  He named a sum that, had Quint not been on guard, would have taken his breath away. As it was, he merely raised an eyebrow and said, “You seem to know—or think you know—a prodigious amount about the affairs of this estate.”

  “I make it a point of staying aware where my business interests are concerned.” Humphreys stood. “I shall give you time to consider my offer. I know you have a great deal going on here in the next few weeks.”

  “Yes, we have,” Quint said. “However, I can tell you right now that I am no more inclined to diminish my nephew’s inheritance by any substantive degree than his father was.”

  “I understand your ‘inclination,’ sir, but sometimes necessity dictates otherwise, eh? My offer is good, should you wish to think it over some more.” He offered his hand, which Quint shook perfunctorily.

  He was eager to discuss this development with Chet, but it also crossed Quint’s mind to bring it up with Hawthorne and his son too. After all, the two were reputed to be very astute businessmen, were they not? But not just yet perhaps…

  He turned his thoughts to a much more pleasant, though equally perplexing subject—Harriet. Clearly, she had been avoiding him. Well, to be fair, she had not so much avoided him as merely sidestepped his subtle and not-so-subtle attempts to be alone with her. She was friendly and amiable enough with him in company. And with the arrival of her relatives, there had been plenty of company. Not to mention the usual intermittent presence of seven children. Why had he not noticed their excessive demands on Aunt Harriet for this or Aunt Harriet for that before? Good job we did hire a governess, he groused to himself.

  It was in this frame of mind that he started to return to the game room for perhaps another round of billiards. Passing by the slightly opened door of the music room, he heard a soft melancholy tune on the piano. He peeked in. Harriet! And she was alone! He entered the room silently, closed the door firmly, and hurried over to kiss her on the nape of her neck before she could miss a note.

  “Wha—?” she called out as he slid onto the bench beside her. “You rascal.”

  “Perhaps.” He slipped an arm around her waist, noting happily that she did not object or move away. “You have been avoiding me,” he challenged.

  “No, I haven’t.” She reached for the sheet of music from which she had been playing.

  He stayed her hand. “Look me in the eye and say that again.”

  She gazed at him directly and smiled sheepishly. “All right. I have. A little. I do not trust myself around you, Colonel Burnes, sir.”

  “Ahah!” He lowered his mouth to hers, his lips and tongue eliciting precisely the response his body desired. He lifted his head to murmur, “My God, Harriet, I want you so much!”

  Allowing only another moment of such promising bliss, she gently pushed him away. “Obviously, I have reason to distrust myself with you, Quint. Enough, my darling.”

  “Never,” he insisted, going for another kiss.

  She pushed at him harder. “Quint! Do behave.”

  “Oh, all right.” He knew he sounded like one of the twins denied a treat. “I shall come to your rooms tonight.”

  “No!” she said in alarm. “You know my family are in the very next rooms in that hall! You could be caught. You said ‘no gossip’—remember?”

  “You do not want me to come to you?”

  She closed her eyes and sighed. “I do not want you to be caught, embarrassed.”

  He gave her a quick kiss. “I won’t be. I shall come well after the witching hour—say, two o’clock? Surely, the whole house will be sleep by then. Just be sure to leave your doors unlocked.”

  “You are impossible,” she said with a laugh, but she kissed him back. And she had not said “No,” had she?

  He whistled a merry tune all the way to the game room.

  * * * *

  Two o’clock. Two o’clock. Two o’clock. The time danced through Harriet’s mind frequently during the rest of the afternoon and evening. When Quint’s gaze occasionally met hers during the gatherings in the drawing room before and after supper, “two o’clock” seemed an almost palpable message. Surely others were aware? But apparently not. Conversations flowed at their usual pace and, surprisingly enough, she was able to take a lively part in them. Well, why not? Harriet Mayfield was rarely at a loss for words. Unfortunately, at the dining table she sat across the table from Quint; it was hard not to feast her eyes on him. At one point, she was sure the dowager had darted a piercing look from Quint to her. Thereafter, Harriet concentrated on her food.

  With the London relatives visiting, the good nights to the children had taken on something of a festive atmosphere. Through choruses of “I’m not sleepy yet” and “Just one more story,” Harriet led the way from the youngest to the eldest two, for as usual, Maria was sitting at Phillip’s bedside. Tonight, Quint was there too.

  “Uncle Quint says I can go riding tomorrow if the weather allows us,” Phillip said eagerly. “He says Dolan has fixed a stirrup to accommodate my leg and I can actually ride!”

  “That is wonderful news,” his great-grandmother said.

  “But remember: absolutely no jumping!” Quint warned. “A really hard jolt would not on
ly hurt like the very devil, but it could do real damage.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  After some discussion of the proposed morning ride, Quint excused himself and the others too made their good nights. As Harriet and her relatives reached her door, her grandmother and Aunt Elizabeth shooed their husbands on ahead—they intended to stop for a few minutes for some “girl talk” with Harriet.

  “Well, Father,” Charles said, “that puts us in our place. I suppose they are cooking up some scheme that we will be expected to pay for eventually.”

  “Count on it,” his father replied.

  Harriet was puzzled, but welcomed the two women into her sitting room. They shared the blue settee and seemed slightly uneasy, then her grandmother spoke.

  “We are wondering, Harriet, if you feel as comfortable here at Sedwick as you have always seemed to be in the past?”

  Caught off guard by the question, Harriet fidgeted in her favorite chair and hesitated in her response. “I-I am not sure how to answer that, Nana. I love the children—now more than ever, perhaps.”

  Elizabeth explained. “It is just that this evening your grandmother and I remarked to Lady Margaret about how lovely our rooms were with that splendid view of the lake and all. She replied, ‘Oh, yes, is it not? That view is one reason I am having that entire wing remodeled when Harriet removes to London permanently after the party.’ We had no idea you were planning to remove to London permanently, so we hardly knew how to respond to her.”

  Harriet drew in a deep breath. “I cannot say that I ‘had no idea’—I have had some broad hints that perhaps my welcome of late was less than wholly warm in that quarter—but I had made no definite plans as yet. Perhaps I should have. Telling the children will be so difficult.”

  “Lady Margaret also made a point of mentioning that what with her son in residence here, this is essentially a bachelor establishment,” Harriet’s grandmother added.

  “But, Nana,” Harriet protested, “she herself moved in here within three weeks of Anne’s passing! Locked up the dower house completely and moved her belongings and her companion into the Hall. It is hardly the conventional ‘bachelor household’—not with such a formidable chaperone.”

  “I know,” her grandmother replied placatingly. “It is a bit of hairsplitting on her part. Lady Margaret has always been one to use the rules of social propriety to suit whatever purposes she has in mind. I do not know what it is, but I am sure she has something in mind, and that it will in the end, redound to her favor.”

  “Gran!” Elizabeth said. “I do not ever remember hearing you so—so suspicious of another person.”

  “Just remember that I have known Lady Margaret for nearly fifty years. Society and family obligations have often thrown us together, but we have never been what one might remotely term bosom friends.”

  “I would not think you would be,” Harriet said. “The two of you have very little in common.”

  “Except those children upstairs,” the older lady said sadly, pointing at the ceiling.

  “Yes, there is that,” Harriet said and Elizabeth nodded.

  The other two rose to take their leave. Harriet stood as well and said, “Thank you for sharing that tidbit with me. I must confess that I have been vacillating, but I will set my maid to packing my things and be ready to accompany you when you return to London. It will be easier for me to leave now that Miss Clarkson is in residence.”

  “Selfishly, I look forward to having you in London,” Elizabeth said.

  “I, too,” Harriet’s grandmother said.

  Harriet hugged them both tightly, and said good night with tears in her eyes.

  She rang for her maid to prepare for bed. She informed Collins of the plan to remove to London, but asked her to do the packing quietly and not to make mention of the plan below stairs. Harriet did not want the children to know of her leaving until she could explain it to them herself.

  When Collins left, Harriet recalled Quint’s undoing her nighttime braid and running his fingers through her hair. She loosened the braid herself, brushed out her hair and checked that both the hall door and one between her sitting room and bedroom were unlocked before crawling into bed. She lay awake staring at the round glow of the lamp on the ceiling, but she must have slept, for the next things she knew were a warm hand on her shoulder and soft lips against her cheek.

  “What time is it?” she asked with a yawn.

  “Not yet two. I could wait no longer.” He quickly kicked off his slippers and shed his shirt and trousers to slip in beside her. He pulled her close to kiss her hungrily and run a hand the length of her body. “What is this, milady?” he said with a bunch of cloth in his fist.

  “My nightgown, I would guess.”

  “That will not do. I want to touch you, feel you.” He demonstrated by reaching beneath the gown to perform slow, seductive caresses. “Your body and mine. Skin to skin.” His voice was a husky whisper.

  “Picky, picky.” She sat up and pulled the garment over her head.

  He gathered her close, burying his face in her hair against her neck, one hand roaming freely. “That’s more like it,” he said. “I’ve dreamed of this for two full days.”

  Her own hands by no means idle, she said, “Is it terribly wanton of me to admit that I have too?”

  “Probably, but I love it that you are.” He proceeded to show her just much he did love her wantonness as he urged her to more and more of it.

  Afterward, they lay together, bodies intertwined, just talking. Harriet could not remember such a sense of pure sharing with another human being—not even with her beloved friends did she feel so utterly peaceful. They talked of many things: their shared nieces and nephews, of course; their own childhoods; her article on abandoned soldiers that had just been published; his initial positive impressions of the tutor and governess; along with little murmurs of appreciation of this or that aspect of the other’s anatomy. Ultimately, they made slow, wonderful love again and Quint took his reluctant leave of her.

  “What would you say if you got caught?” she teased as he was dressing.

  “That I was taking the servants’ stairs down to the kitchen for a snack because I was hungry,” he said. “The servants’ stairs is just outside your door, you know.”

  “Clever,” she said.

  He bent over the bed and kissed her. “Get some sleep. Remember we are riding in about four hours.”

  But before she slept, she put her nightgown back on and rebraided her hair. Then she reveled in reliving much of the last couple of hours and realized that that they had made love twice this night and both times Quint had taken precautions as he had that first time to ensure she not end up with child. She wondered how many other men under such circumstances would be so considerate.

  Chapter 19

  The next day all of Sedwick Hall seemed to hold its collective breath as the young earl went riding for the first time since his accident. In fact, it was a large party of riders—a dozen or so what with a couple grooms along “just in case.” Harriet was pleased to see that William Knightly, despite a crippled leg, welcomed the opportunity to join in the ride. Phillip would not want for a riding companion when she left. She thought this day signified some sort of milestone for Phillip. He was more cheerful and optimistic than she had seen him in a long time—maybe since before the loss of his parents.

  Because there were so many riders, they were scattered over a great deal of Sedwick real estate, not always within sight of one another. At one point Maria had ridden off with Elizabeth to show her a favorite view, leaving Harriet alone except for a groom. But not for long. Quint appeared at her side on the always overactive Lucifer, but Quint seemed to have the stallion well in hand. The groom moved off.

  “Well, what do you think?” Quint asked her. “Were we wise to allow Phillip to ride so soon?”

  She smiled, liking that he
said “we” just as though she had had any say in the matter. “It has been a long while since I have seen him so happy.”

  “He should be happy,” Quint said bluntly. “He has his little corner of the world arranged exactly as he wants it. Not all of us can do that so easily.”

  “I know.” She allowed her worry to show as she held his gaze. “I should hate for any of Anne’s children to be as crassly manipulative as that sounds.”

  “That broken leg should temper any self-satisfaction at merely getting his own way. That was a high price to pay.”

  “There is that,” she conceded.

  “In any event, I am sure you and I will be able to remind the noble Seventh Earl from time to time that he has feet of clay.”

  “You,” she said. “You will remind him. I shall not be here.”

  “Not be—what are you saying?”

  “I am returning to London with my grandparents after the party. Did your mother not tell you?”

  “No. No, she did not.” He sounded annoyed and would have pursued the subject, but just then Phillip and Charles approached them.

  “I think our boy has about had the course for his first day out,” Charles said.

  “Is that so, Phillip?” Quint asked.

  “Afraid so, sir. The leg aches something fierce all of a sudden.”

  “Still, you did very well to stay out so long,” Harriet assured him. “I shall go back with Phillip,” she said to Quint and Charles. “You two continue the outing.” She signaled the groom to accompany her and Phillip back to the stable.

  That afternoon the rest of Lady Margaret’s guests began to arrive and within the next few days the hallways and public rooms of Sedwick Hall were abuzz with such of England’s finest as her ladyship had been able to collect in this rather peculiar year. During a gathering in the drawing room before the evening meal, she pronounced herself—in a small conversational group—as quite satisfied that no one had sent his or her regrets this year.