A Reluctant Courtship

by Laurie Alice Eakes

  “Manners,” Miss Morrow murmured.

  Honore held her ground. “I should think now is the least of appropriate times for you to call.”

  “Not at all.” Miss Dunbar halted halfway between door and chairs. “Mama is resting after dinner, and Bainbridge is in his study and thinks I am resting also.”

  “And would not approve of you calling on me any more than does your mama.” Honore clasped her hands behind her back to stop herself from reaching out and drawing this fragile creature to the heat of the fire. She could not be kind to the reason for her exile, for the final humiliation of being denied a ride to church.

  “What Mama does not know keeps her from killing all of us.” Miss Dunbar giggled.

  And Honore melted. The giggle, the absurd remark, the flash of light in those silvery eyes announced that Miss Deborah Dunbar only appeared frail. That flash was likely the bar of steel running through her.

  “Then come here and get warm.” Honore stepped aside so Deborah could have her chair, the one closest to the warmth. “Lord Ashmoor, let me present Miss Deborah Dunbar, my brother’s fiancée.”

  She curtsied. He bowed. He gave Honore a look of concern.

  “I will tell no one you are here, my lord,” Deborah said. “I do hate to hear Mama acting like the cit she is and haranguing Bainbridge about his disreputable family. If she goes on too long, he just might change his mind about marrying me, since he scarce needs my dowry.”

  “And that would break your heart.” Honore was about to turn into a puddle at this young lady’s feet. As apparently her brother had already become. And no wonder. She was not exactly pretty, but her ethereal looks and sweet yet direct manner held a body captive.

  “Of course it would break my heart. I’ve adored Bainbridge since he came home from school with my brother for the first time five years ago.”

  Ah, the connection.

  “Then why have I never met you?” Honore asked.

  “I never made my come-out. First Grandpapa died, and then my younger sister, and then Papa. But my brother is sitting in the Commons now, so we finally went to London last year.” Deborah grimaced. “But I am far too old for all the trappings of a first Season.”

  She looked about sixteen.

  “I am three and twenty.” She seized Honore’s hand in a surprisingly strong grip. “So please be patient. As soon as we are wed, your brother will be able to stop fearing Mama will withhold her consent and make me wed horrible Mr. Chumley back in Worcestershire.”

  Honore shook her head and caught Ashmoor’s eyes. They were dancing with amusement, the rogue.

  “I think,” he said, “I should be on my way. Pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Dunbar. I’m certain we will meet again.”

  “I am certain we will.” She curtsied again. “Mama told Bainbridge he must invite you to dinner soon.”

  “I’m not surprised.” Ashmoor’s tone was sardonic. His lips twitched. “Titles cover a multitude of sins.”

  “Then I should find one for myself,” Honore snapped. “Do you think I can be knighted for a service to the Crown and then be respectable in spite of my misdeeds?” The words sounded bitter. They tasted bitter.

  The other three in the room stared at her.

  “Do sit down, Miss Dunbar.” Honore suppressed a weary sigh. “I will see his lordship out, since Mavis is occupied making more tea.” She marched to the door and yanked it open.

  Ashmoor preceded her into the hall, then stopped and faced her. “I think you’ve just heard a promise of restoration from your brother, so why are you crying?”

  “I am not.”

  “No?” With a fingertip, he traced the track of a tear down her cheek.

  “One tear is of no consequence.”

  “And your lip is quivering.” He brushed her lower lip with the pad of his thumb.

  All of her quivered right down to her toes.

  “We’ll get this all sorted out, Honore.” His voice rumbled over her ears like velvet against her skin. “And you’ll get your respectable life and a title if you want it.”

  “Of course. I am simply unworthy before I do something important.” Turning her back on him, she flung herself at the front door and yanked it open. A gust of wind and icy rain swept into the entryway. “Try not to catch a chill, my lord. You have not yet set up your nursery.”

  “Honore . . . um, Miss Bainbridge—”

  “Do not fret, my lord. I will still assist you in locating your father’s men, if any are left alive. But right now, I have a guest awaiting me.”

  Mouth grim, he stepped over the threshold, then turned back, rain streaming off his hair and face. “If I were the only one who mattered in this—”

  “I have a guest waiting for me.” She slammed the door and shot the bolt. For several moments, she remained by the portal, half expecting him to knock. When he did not, she retraced her steps to the book room just as Mavis emerged from the kitchen passage.

  “I will take the tea in. And Mavis, do not tell a soul of Miss Dunbar’s or Lord Ashmoor’s visits.”

  “No, miss.” Mavis’s green eyes sparkled. “This is exciting doings here. But I’ll keep mum.”

  Honore took the tray from the maid and entered the book room. Miss Morrow and Deborah glanced up but did not cease their dialogue about some people they both knew. Both ladies sat back in their chairs, relaxed and calm, their lips curved up, companionable and comfortable.

  “Do either of you want tea?” Honore managed to ask during a lull in their dialogue, her tone a little too bland.

  “I am sorry, Miss Bainbridge.” Miss Morrow sprang to her feet and took the tray. “It seems that Miss Dunbar’s eldest sister is married to my sister’s husband’s brother.”

  “I think I followed that.” Honore sat, a fresh cup of tea in her hands, her gaze on her soon-to-be sister-in-law. “So to what honor do I owe this secret call, Miss Dunbar?”

  Deborah looked surprised. “Why, who better than you to introduce me to the tenant farmers’ wives?”

  “My brother?”

  “Bainbridge has scarcely spent any time here between school and university,” Deborah pointed out. “I doubt he knows the tenants, let alone their wives, as you must.”

  How many of the tenant farmers’ wives did Honore know? She had spent too little of her time visiting those who labored on Bainbridge land since her return to Bainbridge, but she had known them all before she left for London. She should have been spending more of her hours calling on the sick or old and infirm, and ensuring those with children had all they needed. Many of those wives and mothers had been her childhood playmates, exploring the caves, stealing apples from the orchard, and playing games of tag upon the cliffs. She should not neglect them simply because she was now Miss Bainbridge. From their shy, friendly smiles at church, they had not forgotten those youthful bonds, and neither should she. They were proving kinder than her peers.

  “I will do my best to introduce you,” Honore said. “I have met all of them at one time or another, except perhaps some wives brought here since I left for London last year. But how will you keep that from your mother?”

  “She spends two hours resting every afternoon.” Deborah smiled. “She is really reading novels but does not wish me to know she indulges in them, so we pretend she needs the rest. And as for Bainbridge . . . ” She shrugged. “I will be in my room resting too.”

  Not certain this act of deception was a good way for her brother’s fiancée to begin a relationship, Honore still hesitated.

  Then Miss Morrow caught her eye across the teacups. “What a fine way for you to reacquaint yourself with the people who live here, especially those who have been here for nearly thirty years or more.”

  Honore stared. Miss Morrow was speaking nonsense. Most of the families of the tenants had been there for more than three hundred years, let alone nearly thirty.

  Nearly thirty . . . As in twenty-eight.

  Honore nodded. “All right. We will go Tuesday, I thi
nk. Tomorrow will be washing day, so that is not good. But Tuesday is ironing, so we can visit without disrupting their work.”

  “Lovely. Do we walk?” Deborah looked a bit dubious.

  Honore smiled. “I see no other choice.”

  They discussed how they might get out a pair of horses or even a dogcart. But Bainbridge’s carriage house did not contain the little two-wheeled vehicles any lady could drive on her own, and a groom would insist on accompanying them with horses. In the end, Deborah conceded that Honore was right, and they arranged to rendezvous there at the dower house.

  “Trouble there.” That was Miss Morrow’s observation after Deborah’s departure. “She has a will like yours.”

  “Then perhaps my brother likes me after all, if he likes females with strong wills.”

  “Stronger than his own, if I may say so.” Miss Morrow’s chilled tone suggested she did not care in the least if Honore minded her criticism of Beau Bainbridge.

  Honore did not. Deborah might claim her mother would loosen her hold once they were wed, but Honore doubted it. Lady John would get her way in all things unless Deborah chose to disagree.

  It did not bode well for Honore’s future.

  All the more reason to accomplish something that would either create a scandal powerful enough to obliterate her escapades or set Ashmoor free to marry her.

  “Except he is always free to marry me.” Honore came to the conclusion Monday night as she brushed out her hair before her dressing table mirror. “He is simply choosing not to.”

  She flung the silver, enamel-backed brush onto the table and propped her chin in her hands. He claimed he had to keep himself above reproach for the sake of his family, but in truth, the revenue officers would have to find a great deal of proof against a peer of the realm—as in catching him in the act of treason—to do anything about him. Of course, someone could lay information against him and he might be carried off to London for questioning by the House of Lords, but surely his assets would not be seized until he was decided guilty. That could take months, even years. In the meantime, he could have smuggled enough money and other valuables out of England to set up his family for life.

  So of course he had just been toying with her, dallying with her. She was a passably pretty girl with a reputation for being flirtatious, so why not kiss her in the moonlight? He even told her he loved her so she would not feel bad about acting so recklessly.

  “A test. It was a test, God, and I failed.”

  She dropped her face onto her folded arms, suddenly too weary to braid her hair or even get up and go to bed. For the third time, she was making a fool of herself over a man who was unworthy of her regard.

  Or at least she said he was. Perhaps she was the one unworthy—unworthy to be loved, to be respected, to be a part of the lives of good and decent people.

  Self-pity is unbecoming. Miss Morrow may as well have been in the room speaking the words in Honore’s ear, so clear did her brisk tones come across.

  “I am going to indulge for a while anyway.” Honore spoke aloud. No one was near enough to hear her.

  Yet she heard another voice, Cassandra’s quiet tones, reminding her that God loved her, that He accepted her with all her flaws. If anyone understood being loved despite flaws, that person was Cassandra. Honore’s head knew the truth of God’s acceptance. She could recite many Scriptures referring to God’s love. She had even accepted it in her heart once. Now, however, after a year of her being rejected by Society, her own family, and a man she wanted to be worthy of her love, her certainty of being loved had vaporized and left behind a hollow in her heart that seemed to grow larger that night.

  She did not cry. She fell asleep sitting on the dressing table stool. Sometime in the night, the barking of a dog woke her. She stumbled to the window and stared over the wall to the orchard and sea beyond. Nothing stirred. Even the tree branches hovered motionless in the night, so she crawled into bed despite cold and damp-feeling sheets.

  Not until morning did she wonder how she had heard a dog barking. As far as she knew, no one close enough for the animal to be heard owned a dog. So someone had walked by in the night. It meant nothing. She was seeing shadows and suspicious movements everywhere. Now she would meet her future sister-in-law with her eyes puffy from lack of sleep.

  “And I will learn nothing.” She grumbled over her state to Miss Morrow across the breakfast table. “This is a hopeless wild goose chase for a man who does not love me.”

  Miss Morrow gave her a sympathetic smile. “I wish I could assure you that he does, but I would think he could perhaps be a bit more forthcoming.”

  “Like caring about me more than his reputation? Perhaps he has no reputation to protect.”

  There. She had spoken her fears aloud.

  But Miss Morrow showed no surprise. “The notion has occurred to me.”

  “That he is as much a roué as the others I’ve lost my reason to?” Honore set down her coffee cup before she smashed it against the farthest wall. “We say that someone had to know this and know that, and of course it could easily be him. Which means I am once again a dupe being used for someone else’s gain.”

  “Or a scapegoat.”

  “You are so comforting.” Honore made no attempt to hide the sarcasm in her tone.

  Miss Morrow rose, pressed Honore’s shoulder, then left the room without another word. She did not reappear until moments before Deborah knocked on the dower house door and Mavis let her in. Then Miss Morrow descended to the entryway with cloaks over her arm.

  “It is clear but cold out. You will need this, Miss Honore.”

  “Miss Honore?” Honore stared at her. “When—? Well, I suppose it is better than ‘dishonor.’” She snorted at her own jest.

  Deborah giggled.

  Miss Morrow flushed. “I should not be so presumptive. You are my employer. I forgot myself.”

  “Do not be absurd, Miss Morrow. I am weary of this ‘Miss this’ and ‘Miss that.’ You are like one of my elder sisters now.” Honore frowned. “Better than they. You have stayed in contact with me.”

  “But your sisters have written!” Deborah exclaimed. “Did no one bring over the letters?”

  Honore stiffened. “No. When?”

  “They were on the hall table Saturday morning. Your sisters are both delivered of healthy baby boys just two days apart.”

  “Saturday.” Honore’s head felt about to explode. “I did not know.” And no one had thought to tell her. “I will write them, if Bainbridge will frank the letters,” Honore murmured.

  “Whittaker will frank them at his end if you send them there first.” Miss Morrow squeezed Honore’s hand. “Do not see malice in all actions, my dear. Sometimes people are simply forgetful.”

  “Of course.” Honore compressed her lips and started for the door.

  If they walked around the dower house and exited the garden through a side gate, they could leave the walled grounds and emerge onto the lane without anyone from the house seeing them. They moved quietly, as though someone might hear them if they did not creep. Her own words stuck in her throat, but she must let that go, swallow down the hurt and frustration for the sake of meeting the tenants again, gaining their trust, garnering information. Perhaps she could not gain a title or knighthood for her efforts, but she could possibly gain the approval of society.

  Society, not Lord Ashmoor. If he could not love her tarnished and all, then he was not worthy of her love in return. She was weary of being good enough for clandestine alliances, a secret companion and friend, or a lady to be kissed in the shadows. She would be courted in public or nothing.

  Marching along the lane to the road and cottages beyond, she practiced her smile, the phrases of introduction she would utter. She would make note of any repairs needed to cottages or any sickness in the houses. Tuckfield had always been good about repairing houses and other buildings on the estate. Honore had received no complaints from anyone since her arrival, and the dwellings she had seen ap
peared sound. If she found want anywhere, she would find a way to fulfill it. For all his ill treatment of her, her brother would surely follow in their father’s footsteps and authorize repairs and other assistance to the tenants. And if she took care of the tenants, if she found out who was smuggling French prisoners out of England, if she even discovered who had really murdered the revenue officer, then perhaps she would be acceptable, her past sins forgotten, if not forgiven. Apparently they would never be forgiven.

  By the time they reached the first cottage, Honore had schooled her features into a warm smile. Once they were inside the spotlessly clean house smelling of hot irons and some kind of simmering stew, her smile became natural. The wife, a newcomer from Cornwall who had married one of Honore’s childhood cohorts, appeared genuinely happy to see them, and a child of perhaps three or four peeked out from beneath the kitchen table with brown eyes wide and a thumb in his mouth. While Deborah spoke with the wife, Honore crouched down and tried to persuade the toddler out. She vowed to send—no, bring—some boiled sweets in the near future.

  The next house belonged to a couple whose children had married and moved elsewhere. The wife moved with a stiffness suggesting arthritis, and Honore made a note to dig up liniment from the Bainbridge apothecary stores. The stillroom had been neglected since Cassandra abandoned chemistry for Plato a few years earlier, and Mama never made medicaments, preferring to purchase hers, but Honore expected the housekeeper made a few things for the servants’ needs.

  They returned to Bainbridge, not wanting to be too long, but promised more visits on Thursday.

  “Bainbridge will be off to Exeter for some business,” Deborah explained. “We can stay out a bit longer then.”

  “And tomorrow?” Honore asked.

  Deborah turned away, muttering something about other occupations. They were occupations that brought a dozen carriages to the house in the afternoon, an at-home to introduce Deborah in a more informal setting than a ball or dinner party.

  “I am tempted to walk in on them,” Honore told Miss Morrow. “But I like Deborah, so I will refrain.” She wondered if Ashmoor came to call, then kicked herself for caring. “Saturday we shall go into Clovelly to the market so I can buy sweets for the children and perhaps bulbs for the wives to plant flowers around their front doors.”