by M. C. Beaton
He gave an impatient little exclamation and pulled her into his arms. She made a muffled protest as his mouth came down on hers. It was meant to be a light, teasing kiss, but no sooner did the earl taste the warmth of her mouth and feel her bosom pressing against his chest than he lost his senses and kissed her with all the passion he had never known he could hold for any woman.
He was brought to his senses by Henrietta’s little hands beating frantically against his shoulders.
“Forgive me,” he said huskily.
“No,” said Henrietta crossly, moving away from him. “You would not have behaved thus with a lady.”
“I have never been so bewitched in my life before,” he said. “Oh, Henrietta, come driving with me on Sunday—alone.”
“My dinner party.”
“To the deuce with it. Who are these people who are so important?”
Henrietta longed to tell him, but he might grow hard and angry again—and he might try to ruin her business.
“No one of importance,” she said, hanging her head.
Miss Hissop awoke with a start. Henrietta rose to her feet, saying she must leave, the hour was late, and she had work to do.
The earl longed for another moment with Henrietta so that he might try to find out the names of her dinner party guests. Why had she not invited him, damn it, he thought furiously, forgetting that only a short time ago he would have considered Miss Bascombe to be addled in her wits if she had issued such an invitation.
Henrietta was silent on the road home, wrestling with uncomfortable thoughts. She had wanted the earl to go on kissing her, and surely no lady entertained ideas such as that.
But her eyes were soft, and her face was glowing as she stepped into the shop. Sadly Esau watched her. Unless he thought of something, and quickly, then Henrietta would be leaving him to get married.
The earl met his friend, Guy Clifford, in Gentleman Jackson’s Boxing Saloon on Saturday afternoon. “There’s a prizefight in Cobham on Sunday,” said the earl. “Care to come along?”
“I can’t,” said Mr. Clifford, turning away. “Have a most important engagement.”
“Where?”
“I don’t need to tell you everything,” said Mr. Clifford. “You ain’t my father.”
The earl let the subject drop, although his mind began to race.
He stayed for a bout with the famous Jackson and then strolled homeward. His younger brother was just leaving as he arrived at Upper Brook Street. “Off to Bascombe’s again?” asked the earl sweetly.
“Go there too much,” said Lord Charles airily. “Get a bit tired of seeing nothing but females. Taking myself off to the club for a rubber.”
“Learning sense in your old age,” grinned the earl. “There’s a prizefight at Cobham tomorrow. Care to accompany me?”
“No, no,” said Lord Charles hurriedly. “Doing something else. Forget what. But definitely something else.”
He hurried down the street and left the earl looking suspiciously after him. “Now,” thought the Earl of Carrisdowne, stroking his chin. “I wonder. I just wonder…”
Henrietta’s dinner party was a delightfully informal affair. It was served at the country hour of four in the afternoon. Charlotte and Josephine were looking their prettiest.
Lord Charles was amazed when Miss Hissop told him that she and Henrietta had been to Upper Brook Street for dinner. “What a sly fox Rupert is,” said Lord Charles. “I was away that evening at a play and then a rout. He said nothing to me.”
“Well, seems he can’t say anything about us socializing,” said Mr. Clifford cheerfully.
Both gentlemen suggested they take Josephine and Charlotte out driving. Henrietta was closing the shop during the last week in Lent to get in extra supplies for the Season. Mr. Clifford proposed they should all go for a picnic if the weather should prove fine, “and no doubt Rupert will want to go with us.”
“I should not say anything… just yet,” advised Henrietta.
“But he can’t ask you to dinner and then forbid us to take out Mrs. Webster and Miss Archer,” protested Lord Charles.
“He just might,” said Henrietta. “Which is why I did not tell him you were both coming here today. Oh, do not look so downcast! Let us not talk about the Earl of Carrisdowne.”
The dinner proceeded merrily until at last Lord Charles and Mr. Clifford rose to take their leave. Henrietta waved to them from the step.
From the corner of Half Moon Street, Jean, the earl’s devoted Swiss valet, watched them go. Some ten minutes later he was standing before his master in the earl’s study.
“Yes?” said the earl curtly. He was feeling rather grubby. It had seemed a good idea when he had sent Jean to spy on Bascombe’s. Now he was so sure Henrietta’s dinner guests would turn out to be a mere gaggle of females and leave him with all the guilt of having been suspicious of her.
The Swiss looked at the cornice. “Lord Charles and Mr. Clifford were the guests,” he said. “Miss Bascombe herself waved good-bye to them. They appeared to be on the best of terms.”
“Thank you,” said the earl quietly. “You may go. I need not remind you, I trust, to be discreet?”
“I am always discreet,” said Jean, adding with the license of an old and trusted servant, “as you have reason to know.”
When he had left, the earl sat glaring at the wall opposite, consumed with rage. Henrietta Bascombe was not an innocent. She was devious and scheming. The very fact that she had not told him the names of her guests showed that she wished to entrap one of them for herself. When she might have had you, jeered a little voice in his head. “I was never, at any time, in danger of allying my great name with that of a shopgirl,” he told the uncaring serried ranks of books above his desk.
He tried to force himself into a calmer frame of mind. To rail at Guy and Charles might give Henrietta the added luster of forbidden fruit. What was she playing at? I shall ask her, he thought.
And so Henrietta, who was helping the others to wash and put away the dinner dishes, was startled at the sound of loud knocking at the door.
Religious Esau had gone to evening service.
She went to the shop door, raised the blind, and looked through the glass—and reeled backward before the angry glare of the Earl of Carrisdowne, who was standing on the step outside.
She knew, instinctively, that somehow he had found out about the visit of Lord Charles and Mr. Clifford.
She signaled to him to wait and, without telling the others anything, ran upstairs to fetch her bonnet and cloak. Anything the Earl of Carrisdowne had to say to her, he could say out of the hearing of the others. Josephine and Charlotte must not have their splendid day spoiled.
The earl was just raising his hand to knock again when he saw Henrietta on the other side of the glass, unlocking the door.
She put a finger to her lips as he would have burst into angry speech there and then. “Walk with me a little, my lord,” said Henrietta. “I do not wish to upset the others with an angry scene.”
“And just how do you know it is going to be an angry scene, Miss Shopkeeper?”
“Because you are breathing fire and brimstone,” said Henrietta calmly. “Hold your fire until we get to the Green Park.”
“I do not think I want to walk about a damp park in the darkness,” he said.
“You have no choice, my lord,” replied Henrietta, “for I am not going to have a verbal boxing match with you in the street.”
They entered the park and walked a little way under the trees. Finally she stopped and turned to face him. “I surmise you have discovered my guests today were Lord Charles Worsley and Mr. Clifford.”
“Yes.”
“And why should that make you so very angry?”
“I warned you, madam, that I would do my utmost to protect my brother and friend from making unsuitable alliances.”
“Then, perhaps you should set a better example. Inviting me to dinner encouraged both to believe they might have your
approval.”
“Don’t play Miss Innocent with me,” he said, his voice low and intense. “You refused to name your guests. That shows a guilty conscience.”
“You did not tell either Lord Charles or Mr. Clifford that I had been your guest.”
“That is different.”
“I see no difference.”
“You are mocking me,” he raged, “because you have managed to enslave my friend and my brother.”
“No!” exclaimed Henrietta, too surprised to do other than tell the truth. “Mr. Clifford favors Miss Archer and Lord Charles, Mrs. Webster. Now Charlotte, Mrs. Webster, has been married before, but that is all to the good. She has a certain wisdom and maturity beyond her years that balances Lord Charles’s lack of both.”
“How dare you criticize my brother!”
Henrietta spoke in a weary little voice. “It is of no use. You are determined to find us all socially unacceptable. But think, might Lord Charles not be better with a lady of gentle birth who works in a shop than some debutante who will marry him for his money and title and then will probably be unfaithful to him after marriage, like so many of the married women in society. And Miss Archer—Josephine—what is there so monstrous about her to merit your censure? She is not bold, nor vulgar. But all this is a mere waste of time. I will not apologize to you for inviting Mr. Clifford and Lord Charles, neither will I apologize for not telling you that they were to be my guests. You are every bit as angry and unreasonable as I expected you to be.”
“I… am… never… unreasonable,” he grated.
“Then, you might appreciate the reason in this. Since it is obvious you will never leave us in peace, I shall tell Josephine and Charlotte that they must never see either your brother or Mr. Clifford again.
“You, my reasonable lord, must also understand that I never want to see you again. Just leave my business alone.” Her voice broke on a sob as she added, “I am so very tired, you know, and… and… there is so much work to be done. I have neither the time nor the energy to cross words with you.”
She turned and began to walk slowly away from him across the grass, a dim figure under the trees.
“Wait!” he cried. “Please wait, Miss Bascombe.”
One thing she had said burst upon his brain like a skyrocket. Neither Charles nor Guy were interested in her. She had merely been trying to do the best for her friends.
He must not lose her.
“What is it now?” demanded Henrietta in a tired little voice.
The great attraction she held for him battled with his pride. Attraction won.
“Forgive me,” he said. “I have been autocratic… bullying… hasty. There has been much care and responsibility put on me since the death of my father. I spoke rashly. I shall not stand in the way of either Charles or Guy. There! Please smile and say you will let me take you driving. Or to the theater.”
Henrietta’s spirits rose from the depths to the heavens in one bound. She could not stay angry with him. Was he smiling? She wished it were not so dark so that she might see his face.
“I should like that very much,” she said, and the bewitched earl felt he had never before heard such beautiful words in his life. “Only wait until the shop is closed during the last week in Lent. Then I shall have some free time.
“In fact, Mr. Clifford and Lord Charles plan to take Mrs. Webster and Miss Archer on a picnic during that week. Perhaps we could go with them.”
“Of course.” He wanted to pull her into his arms, but something held him back. Not knowing that that something was the first little step toward marriage, the Earl of Carrisdowne drew Henrietta’s arm through his and, in a companionable silence, they walked slowly together, back to the shop on Half Moon Street.
Chapter 8
Before the great day of the picnic, Lord Charles Worsley met Mr. Guy Clifford on New Bond Street. It was Lord Charles who had now become the intimate of Mr. Clifford, the earl being immersed in various business ventures on the stock exchange. Gentlemen could gamble on the stock exchange. That was not sullied by the name of “trade.” The two had been drawn together by their love for the ladies of the bakery.
They did not know of the earl’s increasing fondness for Henrietta, only that, somehow, he had found out about that dinner party and had surprised them by appearing amused rather than angry. He had next amazed them by saying he planned to be present at the famous picnic. After much debate and decision, a journey to the Surrey fields was settled on.
“Where are you bound, Guy?” asked Lord Charles.
“I am going into labor,” said Mr. Clifford.
Lord Charles pursed his lips in a soundless whistle. “Going into labor” meant being fitted into a new pair of leather breeches. Mr. Clifford must be very much in love to elect to go through such an agonizing performance.
“I’ll come with you and be in at the birth,” said Lord Charles.
They turned in at the breeches maker—this personage was never called a tailor; breeches makers working in leather were considered of a higher order.
Mr. Clifford groaned in anticipation as the new leather breeches of pale leather were produced.
The breeches maker summoned four sturdy assistants, and Mr. Clifford lay on a blanket on the shop floor.
Lord Charles lent a hand and all pulled and tugged and strained to fit the skintight breeches up over Mr. Clifford’s thighs and bottom.
“Wriggle a bit,” said Lord Charles. “Try a bit harder. We’re nearly there.”
A final massive pull and the breeches were safely up around Mr. Clifford’s waist. A special instrument had to be produced to button them.
Then, stiff as a board, Mr. Clifford was lifted and propped upright. He had to be supported while he kicked out with one leg and then the other to ease the stiffness of the leather.
“Very nice,” commented Lord Charles. “Like the ladies’ muslins, they leave little to the imagination. Now, we’ll all need to take a deep breath and get ’em off again.”
“No,” said Mr. Clifford, “Leave ’em on, for pity’s sake. I’ll sleep in them if need be.”
“Yes, but you do have a tendency to creak,” protested Lord Charles as they strolled out of the shop—or rather Lord Charles strolled while Mr. Clifford took painful mincing steps.
“What color d’ye call that?” demanded Lord Charles, leveling his quizzing glass at the breeches. “Mud of Paris,” said Mr. Clifford. “It was a choice between that or Emperor’s Eye.”
“Horrible names they have for colors,” sighed Lord Charles. “Slaves of fashion, that’s what we are. Now take these pantaloons of mine. Don’t like the color. But my tailor tells me I must have pantaloons of a reddish color. ‘All on the reds, now, my lord,’ he says, and so red it is. We are tyrannized by this street.” He waved his quizzing glass at New Bond Street. “One week it’s one thing and the next, t’other. Do you remember a couple of years back when all our boots had to have leather wrinkled on the insole and all that did was to retain the dirt and baffle the shoe-black. As for the ladies—twenty years ago they all had waists and hoops. Now that they’ve started casting off their clothes, they don’t know where to stop. You’re never wearing those torture chambers of breeches to the picnic?”
“Of course I am. They will have eased out by then.”
Perhaps if Mr. Clifford had worn the breeches during the days before the picnic, they might have become more comfortable but, having got them off that night, he found himself very reluctant to put them on again.
But love gave him the courage to suffer and, when the great day dawned, bright and sunny, he was crammed back into them by his valet, his cook, and his knife boy.
They set out in procession from the bakery, the Earl of Carrisdowne driving Henrietta and Miss Hissop, Lord Charles in his carriage driving Charlotte and Josephine and Guy Clifford and, behind that, the earl’s fourgon with his servants and enough food and drink to feed a detachment of dragoons.
Although the earl was supplying food
and servants for the outing, Mr. Clifford was the one who had chosen the spot for the picnic. To his dismay, when they arrived at the chosen spot, he found it occupied by a band of evil-looking Gypsies.
The earl, who was chatting to Henrietta and Miss Hissop about a play he had seen the previous week, was content to leave it to Mr. Clifford to find somewhere else.
Mr. Clifford, thrown into a fever of anxiety and wanting only the best for Josephine, directed Lord Charles’s carriage to lead the way, and then hung on to the guardrail, shouting from time to time, “Stop! No… that will not do. Try farther on.”
At last the earl became aware that he was very hungry and that they had been traveling for quite a long time, and called sharply to Mr. Clifford to find somewhere, or they would all find themselves in the Channel.
Josephine said timidly that she was feeling very hungry, too, and alarmed that he should cause his beloved the slightest distress, Mr. Clifford picked the first lane that led to the nearest field and declared it was just the thing.
Stiffly they all climbed down from the carriages and looked about them. It was a square field bordered by a high thorn hedge, nothing more. No stream, no trees, no pretty prospect.
Above, the blue of the sky had changed to a milky color, and a scudding, irritating little wind had got up, snatching at hats and bonnets.
The servants spread rugs and cushions on the grass and began to unload all the impedimenta of spirit stove, hampers, and bottles.
The wind grew stronger. The earl suggested that they move everything to the edge of the field so that they might gain some shelter from the hedge. But Mr. Clifford, exhilarated with being in command for once, pooh-poohed the idea and said they were all to sharp-set to fuss.
Conversation grew desultory as bits of grass blew into glasses of wine, and the increasing chill of the wind cut through the muslins of the ladies.
“It will not do,” said Miss Hissop at last. “I am sure the damp from the ground is seeping through this rug. I shall catch the ague. Woe is me! Oh, that I must be snatched from this earth before my moment of glory!”
“What moment of glory?” demanded the earl, eyeing the steadily darkening sky uneasily. They had traveled in open carriages and he was now worried they would be soaked before they could reach London again.
