A Reluctant Courtship

by Laurie Alice Eakes

  But that was nonsense. No one would have stayed once he heard the women arrive. No one would stay there anyway. The dower house was empty and sheltered from the rest of the property by walls and trees, but it was not isolated. To fear an intruder was foolishness, and she had work to do. If the coal supply was low, she needed to ensure it was filled immediately. Her brother could arrive as soon as Saturday and no later than Monday, according to his letter. That gave her precious little time to clean and get the dower house set up for her and Miss Morrow to reside in. She must move her clothes and books, her writing materials and foodstuff. She could not afford delays by imaginary interlopers.

  Gripping a cleaning brush in one hand and the candle tightly enough in the other hand to soften the wax beneath her fingers, she marched forward along the line of footprints. Halfway down the passage, she paused to see where they led. If they did indeed lead to the cellar, she would not venture below stairs on her own. Someone could hide there regardless of how many people invaded the house. The cellar possessed numerous nooks and crannies of storage rooms from the days when the house had been inhabited for years on end, not temporarily, as was Honore’s expectation.

  The footprints did not lead to the cellar. They led from the back entrance to the door through which she had stepped into the passageway. From there, she would never work out where they led, as too many of them had trampled over the floorboards.

  But no one had been upstairs yet.

  No one from their cleaning party.

  Candle flame flickering and creating weird shadows on the walls, Honore left the passageway and moved to the foot of the steps. No carpet ran down the center of the oak treads. Polished, they would be slippery and dangerous. But the same thick layer of dust lying over the wood assured Honore no one had climbed the steps in months, or even years. The outdoor man would have used the back steps to inspect the upper floor for roof leaks. And those footprints had definitely led toward the front.

  “Miss Bainbridge?” Miss Morrow exited the parlor, a pile of holland covers over one arm, a cobweb trailing over one shoulder. “Is something amiss? I saw Mavis running across the garden.”

  “I sent her for one of the men.” Honore gripped the newel post. “Someone—” No, she must not alarm her companion. “Someone else can inspect the coal room,” she concluded in speech and decision.

  “Of course. And I think we need more maids to help us. This house has been sorely neglected. If I may be bold enough to say so, perhaps it should have been rented out to someone, a gentlewoman in straightened circumstances.”

  “Mama always wanted it kept free for a relative, or if one of her children needed it. But it should have been cleaned more regularly so when one of us . . . does . . . need . . .” Honore’s chest heaved with a sudden desire to repeat her mortifying display of weeping from the other night. She spun away. “I wish to see what sorts of reading materials are in the library and what I should bring over here.”

  She bolted around the steps and into the book room, her candle extinguished, trailing smoke and the stench of burned wax behind her. Mavis had lighted several candles in that room too, and Honore leaned her back against the door, blinking against surprising brightness and the halo of tears around each light. She should not need this place to live either. Should not. Bainbridge was her home, not the dower house. She had made mistakes, but not something too terrible other than falling under the influence of unscrupulous—all right, criminal—men. She had not helped them, not like that Miss Irving, who had let herself be a pawn out of family loyalty. She had not given up her virtue to them. She had even asked for God’s forgiveness for her folly. Yet everyone still blamed her, from Papa increasing her dowry nearly half again as much in order to catch her a husband, to that man rejecting her because of her reputation, to her own brother banishing her from the presence of his fiancée. For all she knew, Cassandra and Lydia wanted her gone for fear she would taint their precious offspring.

  “Hypocrites, all of them!” Honore cried.

  She flung the scrubbing brush across the room. It struck a pile of books stacked upon a table. They crashed to the floor with a resounding and satisfying bang and a ring of metal striking wood.

  Metal striking wood?

  Honore ran across the room and dropped to her knees beside the books. Their jackets appeared surprisingly clear of grime for tomes that should have been sitting on that table for years. Their gilt titles flashed up at her, nothing she would have expected her grandmother to have read, though perhaps that great-aunt had left them behind. They were books printed the previous century—Fielding, Smollett, and Walpole. None of them should have chimed like a coin.

  Careful to ensure none of their pages or spines were bent, she returned the books to the table also rather clear of dust and inspected the floor around the table. Seeing nothing, she rose and started for the candle lighted atop the mantel.

  And her toe struck something wedged between wooden floorboards and stone hearth. It chinked against the rock. She bent, retrieved it, and held it up to the light.

  It was half of a button. Half of an ornate silver button, a large silver button, such as a gentleman would wear on a fine coat. Embossed upon the silver, along with the feet of three figures, was part of a word—égalit.

  Égalité? As in Liberté, égalité, fraternité?

  She could not begin to comprehend why half of a French button lay in the book room of the Bainbridge dower house. Yet something about the button looked familiar, as though she had seen it or something like it recently, which was highly unlikely. Men rarely wore ornate buttons anymore, and they certainly did not wear them in the country. Even more, Englishmen did not wear buttons with French revolutionary words upon them. Besides that, no man other than a servant should have been inside the dower house.

  Feeling as though several spiders crawled over her skin, Honore dropped the piece of button into her apron pocket, rose, and retrieved her brush. Voices in the entry hall told her Mavis had returned with one of the gardeners, and Honore must resume her role as mistress of the house.

  She opened the library door. “Ah, Riggs, will you inspect the cellar? I fear we may have had an intruder.”

  In the doorway to the dining room across the hall, Miss Morrow gasped.

  “Nothing were disturbed when I come here a month ago, Miss Bainbridge,” Riggs said. “But if anybody still be here, I’ll send him packing.”

  He was of less than average height, but burly. Honore recalled something about him winning wrestling competitions at the county fair. He probably could send anyone packing. Yet sending him down alone was not quite right of her.

  “I will go with you,” she announced.

  “Miss Bainbridge, you should not,” Miss Morrow protested.

  “I can go with him, miss,” Mavis offered.

  “I would rather you begin work on the book room, Mavis.” Honore smiled at her companion. “I will be quite all right. I cannot imagine anyone would have remained here with us banging about. Where is Bets?”

  “Here, miss.” The girl’s cap appeared in the morning room doorway. “’Tis frightfully dusty in he—hechoo!” She apologized and sneezed again.

  “I’ll help her first,” Mavis said. “The dusting makes her sneeze something worse than usual.”

  “No one should have sent her here to clean then, if she cannot be around a great deal of dust.” Grinding her teeth against the senseless action of the housekeeper, Honore started after Riggs.

  “Miss Bainbridge.” Miss Morrow stretched out a hand as though she intended to stop Honore.

  Honore slipped past her. “I need to see for myself if anyone has been here. And there is still the matter of the coal. Riggs, take a candle and light mine.”

  The outdoor man did as she bade and led the way down the back passageway. He too paused and studied the footprints for a moment, shook his head without saying anything, and continued to the narrow doorway leading to the cellar steps.

  If possible, they were
narrower and steeper than the passage above, leading down and down into a blackness worse than a cloudy night, darkness that seemed to swallow the light from the candles. Somehow she must get her heroine into a cellar like this, perhaps without so much as a candle.

  “This is like a cave,” Honore said.

  “Aye, miss, mebbe it were a cave. Lots of them about.”

  “Not deep enough in the cliff.” She knew all too well how high the cliffs were here. “Do you know which way the coal room is?”

  “Aye, miss, ’tis across here so’s the coal can be loaded from outside the garden wall.” He crossed the rough stone floor of the cellar and opened a door set a yard or so above the ground. Light from his candle vanished, then reappeared as a winking yellow eye in the darkness. “You’ll be needing a load, miss. Not much left.”

  “Will you—do you see to that?” Her cheeks burned over the notion she even needed to ask such a question.

  “No, miss, but I’ll see it gets done.”

  “Thank you, I—”

  Need not explain her ignorance to him. She had already demonstrated it enough, the neglect of a lesson her mother should have taught her had she not been so sickly these past four years.

  She swallowed. “Should we look into the other rooms?”

  “Aye, miss. I’ll be looking. You stay here by the steps.”

  Good. She could run for help if anything untoward occurred.

  She positioned herself at the bottom of the flight, listening to Riggs open doors, watching his candle disappear and reappear. From upstairs, more doors opened and closed. Footfalls clattered over floorboards. Voices rang out, the high, clear voices of the three other females at work, and—

  “Riggs, I am going up. Someone is here.”

  She gathered her skirts in one hand and raced up the steps, down the passageway, and through the door into the front hall. Not until she saw Lord Ashmoor standing just over the threshold did she think how foolish her mad dash had been. But the thought came too late for her to back through the doorway and vanish into what now seemed the welcoming cellar. He had already seen her.

  11

  If not for the golden hair peeking from beneath her frilled cap and the startlingly blue eyes growing wide with horror from a smudged face, Meric might not have recognized Miss Honore Bainbridge. Her gown was a fright of dust, grime, and faded cloth stretched too tight where he had no business looking. A cobweb adorned her cap like a trailing ribbon. And she wielded a long-handled brush as though it were a sword. In short, she was possibly the most adorable lady he had ever seen.

  And in that moment, a corner of his heart belonged to the dishonorable Miss Honore Bainbridge. He knew it. He couldn’t stop it, not even with the notion he was supposed to court Miss Devenish. He could not be so rude as to spin on his heel and flee. He was already hours later than he should have been, pacing around his cottage arguing with himself, trying to convince himself he had no business calling on her.

  He’d failed at the conviction. He’d failed at staying away. He’d failed partially at not succumbing to the feelings he’d suspected might descend upon him when he was at the vicarage.

  He bowed to her as though she wore a fine ball gown and pearls. “Miss Bainbridge, I fear I have called at an inconvenient moment.”

  “Most inconvenient.” She started to drop him a curtsy, glanced at her scrubbing brush, and merely bobbed her head. “We expected you hours ago.”

  A not-so-subtle rebuke.

  A glance at her companion, the other part of “we” and not something spoken imperiously, presumably. “It is nigh on five of the clock.”

  Her poise in the face of her dishevelment left him speechless. At the social events he had attended, females shrieked and vanished like smoke against a gray sky if they so much as pulled a button from a glove. Then again, he had seen Miss Bainbridge slightly more than disheveled after her disaster on the cliff.

  “Now that you are here,” the companion said, “you may as well come into the parlor. I have finished with all but the floors, but the men will have to do that in the morning if the weather is fine.”

  “I am not fit to sit on the cushions.” Miss Bainbridge swiped at her skirt with the cleaning brush. A cloud of dust wafted into the air around her. “I expect I am not fit to be receiving a gentleman.” She glanced from the companion—Miss Morrow, that was it—to the two gawping maids. “Mavis, Bets, carry on here until it is time for your supper. Make certain you extinguish all the candles and lock the door. Tomorrow we will begin again bright and early, except for you, Bets. You will be assigned to the kitchen at Bainbridge and another housemaid sent over.”

  “But miss, I cannot.” The girl wrung her hands. “I’ll be dismissed for not being able to carry out my duties.”

  “Nonsense. His lordship has placed me in charge of the household staff, and that means I can make the assignments.”

  “Thank you, miss.” Tears trickled down the maid’s cheeks. “I do like working in the kitchen.”

  Meric stared, that softened corner of his heart stretching a little bit further. Thus far, he had yet to see a lady treat a housemaid with such consideration.

  Then Miss Bainbridge turned back to him, and her eyes held no warmth, displayed none of the warmth for him he was experiencing toward her. “We delayed our cleaning for hours because you said you would call.”

  “Miss Bainbridge,” Miss Morrow protested in an undertone.

  “Now we shall have to invite you for dinner, and I am not at all certain that is proper.”

  “Perhaps if we serve it as mere refreshments before the parlor fire,” Miss Morrow suggested, “no one would object to that.”

  “I hadn’t thought about dinner.” Meric’s ears heated. “I can call tomorrow instead.”

  Miss Bainbridge marched toward the front door. “No, you cannot come tomorrow. We will be occupied cleaning here, as you can see. This house has been neglected for years and must be habitable by Saturday.”

  “You’re having guests you banish to this—this—cottage?” He posed the question before realizing asking was impolite and the answer none of his concern.

  “Not a guest.” Miss Bainbridge dropped her brush beside the door and faced him. For a heartbeat, lightning flashed through her sky-blue eyes. “Me.” Ungrammatical answer delivered, she spun on her heel and stalked down the three fan-shaped steps and onto the flagstone path.

  Meric caught up with her before she reached the gate, Miss Morrow discreetly in his wake. “Are you closing up Bainbridge House?”

  “Only to me, my lord.” Her voice held no emotion. The tautness of her delicate jaw shouted volumes.

  “And asking what that means is rude, I suppose.” He smiled at her.

  She turned her face away. “You already asked Monday night.”

  More like Tuesday morning, but this was not the time to quibble over dates. He understood the message. Somehow the cleaning of the little house in the garden and her bout of weeping as though her heart were broken were connected to one another. Something the size of a broadsword pricked his conscience.

  “I am sorry I didn’t come to call sooner today.” His mouth felt dry all of a sudden. “And after I told the vicar you would be occupied today.”

  “The vicar?” She stopped beneath the branches of a conifer trimmed and trained to arch over the path like a gate head. “Why would you tell the vicar that?”

  “Because he wanted to call.”

  “To discuss the plight of my immortal soul over my miscreant behavior?”

  “No, Miss Bainbridge, to court you.”

  “The vicar wants to court me? Mr. Stanbury, Mr. Holiness himself, wants me with my tarnished reputation? Oh my.” She threw back her head and laughed. “I am not good enough for the earl of Ashmoor, but a dear country vicar does not find me beyond the pale of acceptability. Oh my.” She laughed again. Her cap fell to the ground, and twin tracks of tears showed the extent of grime on her face.

  He handed her a handk
erchief, then retrieved her cap. As he straightened, Miss Morrow hastened forward to take it from him.

  “I will get her upstairs, my lord. Do go into the parlor and Soames will bring you something to drink while you wait.”

  “Perhaps I should leave?” He made the offer as a question because he didn’t want to go.

  The companion shook her head. “I think your company will do her good. But you should not have come alone this late, my lord. The road home might be unsafe after dark.”

  “Indeed.” He remembered this pretty spinster and his steward casting longing glances at one another across the church, and added, “Next time I will bring my steward along.”

  Miss Morrow blushed. Even in her dirt and rumpled clothes, she looked rather pretty with color in her cheeks.

  He smiled at her. “You should blush around Mr. Chilcott, Miss Morrow.”

  She blushed an even deeper shade of pink and hastened to fall into step beside Miss Bainbridge.

  A wife for Chilcott would do him good. He spent too much time poring over estate accounts or writing letters. And Miss Morrow seemed like an admirable female. Then again, if she wed, Miss Bainbridge would be left alone.

  In that separate house.

  “Do you have a name for it?” he asked, coming up behind the ladies.

  “For what?” they asked in unison.

  “That little house. It is even smaller than the one you call a cottage in Clovelly.”

  “That is a dower house,” Miss Bainbridge explained. “It is intended for the wife of the deceased baron. My grandmother lived there, as well as my great-aunt, whose sweetheart died in one of these endless wars with . . . Fra-ance . . .” She trailed off.

  Meric waited for an explanation, but they reached the side of the house, and the ladies stopped.

  “Go around to the front door,” Miss Bainbridge directed. “Tell Soames to serve you whatever you would like to drink. We will be with you shortly.”