Diana Sensational Spinster's Society (The Spinster’s Society) (A Regency Romance Book)

by Charlotte Stone

  "Oh, I know when I can stop, Sam! I can stop in March, On my birthday. Then it will all be fine. I'll go home, and I'll be... I'll be myself. I'll be a countess."

  "Will you? That sounds like a rather large claim."

  Marilee laughed drowsily. Sam decided that picking his favorite laugh of hers was impossible. When she was sweet and laughing with joy, they were all his favorite.

  "I know it is, but it is true. My stepfather... Marshall Whitting. He's meant to... to hold it for me. Mother says he means well, but... but I just don't like him, do I? I don't... I don't like him."

  "That's a shame."

  "It is! Mother loved him, and he's all the family I have left. He's... I wish he were different, that's all."

  Marilee dropped her head against his shoulder, and Sam carried her to her room, his head whirling.

  Once there, he made her drink a cup of water, and after helping her unfasten her gown, she sent him out.

  "I may be half-seas over, but I am not so far gone that I will let you watch me undress."

  "Of course, Marilee. just as long as you get safely to bed without breaking your head open."

  She waved him off with a cheerful grin, which he hoped she got to keep as she might be very sorry for the night's drinking in the morning.

  It would be dawn in a few hours, but Sam wasn't sure he had ever felt less like sleeping. He roamed the halls of Huntingdon like one of the ghosts the hall was reputed to have, and when the sun was finally peeping over the edge of the world, he had come to a decision. The snow was still heavy on the ground, but when one had enough money, there were ways of getting things done.

  He sat at his desk and penned a letter, hesitating for a moment before signing it with a flourish. The grooms were already up and about, and he singled out one likely looking lad to ride to London, not sparing the horse if he needed the speed.

  "I would like a response as soon as possible, and of course, I will bear the expense."

  When he saw the lad off, Sam returned to the house. Everything was going to change, he realized.

  Good.

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  13

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  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

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  Marilee awoke just before noon with a slight headache and the feeling that her tongue had somehow sprouted fur late in the night. She sat up blearily and was startled to see a tray set next to the bed. The pitcher of ice-cold water looked like heaven, and the tray of bread and hardy country cheese made her hungry instead of nauseated.

  She drank two glasses of water and eaten a small lump of bread before she realized that there was a note.

  With any luck, you will not need much of this, but I cannot think it will go amiss. When you've finished and you are feeling up to it, perhaps you will join me in the garden?

  Marilee blinked.

  The garden? At this time of year?

  Her memories of the night before were slightly mortifying. She remembered growing sleepier and sleepier, and finally having to be carried to her bed as if she were a child who’d stayed up too late.

  As she bathed herself in the basin of water the maids brought, she wondered about the confessions she had received from Sam. Some part of her glowed at knowing him just a little better, but the confession about falling in love made a deep pit open in her stomach.

  When she thought about Sam in love with a woman, it made her feel like crying and raging all at once. It could not be true, except for the fact that she had looked into his eyes as he said it, and she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt it was.

  She was still worrying at the issue as she went to join Sam in the garden. She couldn't help but wonder who it was. It must be a woman who shone like the very sun herself if Sam loved her. Had she loved him? Was it a matter of simply not being able to be together for duty? Her mind automatically went to the crossed lovers plots she had read about in her mother's novels, the ones she wasn't meant to be reading at her age.

  When she saw Sam in the garden, however, a vivid red scarf around his neck and his shoulders broad and strong under his black wool coat, some of her apprehension fell away. He offered her his arm, and she took it as naturally as she breathed.

  “How are you this morning? Hopefully, your head is not so very sore?”

  “No. Well, maybe it was when I first woke up, but it's fine now. And yours?”

  Sam chuckled. “I have had far more experience drinking than you, I would wager. I'm fit as a fiddle.”

  “That's good. I thought that the fresh air might be good for the both of us this morning.”

  They walked in silence for a few moments, and Marilee found herself wondering what the gardens would look like when summer came, and they were in full bloom. Even in the wintertime, she could see the scope of them, the careful design and the painstaking effort it took to make them so lovely. She found herself wondering if it was a woman's touch she saw in the garden, and she glanced sidelong at Sam only to find that he was already looking at her.

  “What are you thinking, Marilee?”

  “I suppose I'm just wondering who designed the garden. Was it... someone close to you?”

  He shrugged. “The garden was a bit of a mania of my grandmother's, I believe. She designed them over the course of her life and had them installed. I don't know much about it, but I do keep them up. It seems as if it would be a waste not to, doesn't it?”

  I really don't know what I was expecting. Sam's hardly the type to go into an impassioned monologue about the woman he loved and lost in the middle of the garden.

  Sam was looking at her shrewdly, and he nudged her arm. “What are you thinking, Marilee? I can tell it isn't gardens that are on your mind.”

  It was on the tip of her tongue to brush him off, but instead, she turned to him.

  “Who was the woman you told me about last night?”

  “What woman?”

  “I've found that I like liars as little as you do, Sam. Don't pretend.”

  “I genuinely don't… Oh. Yes, I suppose I did, didn't I?”

  “You said that you fell in love with the wrong woman.”

  Sam never moved, but suddenly it felt as if he were a dozen miles away. His dark eyes were as black as hell, and his lips took on a hard line, as if cut into granite.

  “That is what I told you, yes.”

  “Are you telling me it's a lie now?” She almost hoped he would say it was, but from the look on his face and the way the air between them seemed to grow even more chilly, she knew that he would not.

  “No.”

  “Then—”

  “Stop.”

  Marilee drew back at the raw tearing sound in Sam's voice. For just a moment, she saw a darkness in him she had never guessed at, and then it was covered up again.

  “Sam?”

  “I will not speak of it. Even to you.”

  “And yet you demand to know my secrets.” Marilee couldn't quite keep the bitterness from her voice. To her surprise, however, Sam took her hand again, He turned it over and kissed her palm, sending that lightning sweetness through her again.

  “I will not ask you again, Marilee. I promise. I am done digging for what you do not want to give me.”

  She blinked at that, and he smiled at her.

  “I don't want to fight. And I do not want you running away again. I think that entire escapade took a dozen years off my life. Shall we be friends and go back to our prior agreement?”

  Marilee felt a tide of relief wash over her. It didn't matter that she didn't know what was going to happen next, that she might not make it to Neptune's Chariot. All that mattered right now was that Sam was smiling at her, and it felt that summer had come in the middle of winter.

  “Yes. I would like that.”

  “Good. I would not like for us to be angry with one another. And please. Foot or no. You are allowed to say at Hunt
ingdon for however long you want.”

  Marilee felt as if a great weight had been rolled off her chest. That meant she could stay at Huntingdon, hidden until March, until all things would be made right. She threw herself into Sam's arms, hugging him tight.

  “Thank you. Thank you so much. I cannot even tell you what this means.”

  As she held him, however, she wondered if there was something still distant in him, something he would not allow her to touch, even like this.

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  14

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  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

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  A calm had fallen over Huntingdon in the last few days. His time in the country had always been quiet, but now he could feel a kind of peace there as well, something he had never looked for but now left him feeling oddly complete.

  He hadn't realized how tense Marilee had been the entire time she had been with him. Now that he had told her she could stay as long as she wanted, however, it was as if a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. She smiled like the sun, and he could feel the warmth of summer in her gorgeous eyes.

  He had his duties, of course. He tended to business from London, he researched new ventures for his ships, he tended his household, but now that Marilee was with him, he felt as if he were stretching out. There was more to life than work or even the pleasure of riding and roaming the land.

  He wasn't alone any longer, and the warmth that flowed through him when she laughed or smiled had turned the world into something foreign but wonderful.

  And soon, there will be nothing keeping us apart at all. The truth will be out, and we can simply move on with who and what we are to each other.

  Sam wondered if he was being naive, but the foibles of his youth had never felt farther away. He knew now that what he had gone through all those years ago, all that pain, all that grief, was nothing compared to what he felt now for Marilee.

  Abruptly, he realized she was watching him from her seat by the fire as he worked at the library desk. There was a contemplative expression on her face, and he tilted an eyebrow at her.

  “Are you staring at me?”

  “Why shouldn't I? You are making the most fascinating faces.”

  Sam scowled. “I am not.”

  “You most certainly are. Here I thought you were just putting together the accounts for the coming year. Instead, I look over and I find that you are frowning most ferociously at nothing at all.”

  “First, I was not making faces, and second, I was not scowling.”

  “If you say so, Sam.”

  To Sam's pleasure, she left her reading on the seat and came around his desk to stand close to him. There was still some part of him that was almost anxious when she came close, like if he moved a single inch or made some kind of untoward noise, she would simply flutter away. He said nothing when she hoisted herself up to sit on the edge of his desk, craning her neck to look at the papers he was working on.

  “Are you bored, Marilee? I cannot imagine it is the most interesting thing in the world watching me work.”

  She grinned at him. “If I say I am bored, will you take me out for something fun? We could go walking, or perhaps riding. The snow is beginning to melt a little, and surely that means that the roads are passable again.”

  The roads had been passable for a few days now, something that Sam was very well aware of.

  He only smiled at her.

  “I have an appointment in just a little while that I must be here for.”

  “Oh. Well, unless you send me off, I would very much like to keep you company until then. I promise, I will be as quiet as a mouse. You won't even know I am here.”

  “Somehow, I find that very difficult to believe.”

  Marilee started to say something tart about that and Sam sat up straight, curling his hand around the back of her neck and tugging her down for a kiss. She melted into him instantly, and the taste and the sweetness of her could undo him.

  “God, but you are too tempting, pretty one.”

  “You think I'm the one tempting you? I'm almost certain it is the other way around, my lord.”

  He nipped at her full lower lip, making her squeak a little in surprise and then moan when he sucked on it lightly. “Unfair, Sam!”

  “Then don't call me your lord. It's terrible when you say it. As if you are mocking me behind your words every time.”

  “Well, I can certainly do that anyway, no matter what I call you.”

  Sam started to respond, but then there was a discreet knock at the door. Marilee uttered a small yelp and hopped off the desk, hands flying to smooth out her dress and calm her hair. When she was presentable again, Sam called for the knocker to enter.

  “My lord, your visitors from London are here. Shall I show them in?”

  “Yes, do.”

  The footman turned to follow Sam's orders, and with his heart beating suddenly hard in his chest, Sam turned to Marilee.

  “Would you like me to leave? I certainly don't mind if you have business, though I might insist on you having dinner with me.”

  “Marilee.”

  Something in his voice must have given him away because she looked up at him, frowning slightly.

  “This is for the best. I don't want there to be any secrets between us.

  “Sam, what do you—”

  She was interrupted by the footman's return, and behind him were two well-dressed gentlemen, tall and somewhat hulking.

  “My lord, may I present Mr. Marshall Whitting and Mr. Steven Whitting.”

  Sam had thought he would be braced for whatever Marilee's reaction would be, whether it was anger or heartbreak. He hadn't expected her face to go white with fear. She spared barely a glance for the men in the doorway.

  Instead, her eyes flew to Sam's.

  “Sam, no. Please, please, no, don't let this happen.”

  To his surprise, she took his hand in front of her stepfather and step-uncle, and the look in her eyes was frankly pleading.

  “Marilee, everything is fine, I swear to you. They have explained everything to me. It will be well, I promise, it will all be well.”

  His mistake, of course, was turning his back on two men who seemed to terrify Marilee so very much. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw one of the men step forward, hand forward as if to shake, but then that hand was sweeping up and coming down with terrible force, right on the back of Sam's head.

  Sam's world went black as he dropped like a bag of rocks, and the last thing he saw was Marilee's horrified face.

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  15

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  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

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  “Well, girl, don't you have anything to say for yourself?”

  Marilee didn't bother giving her stepfather Marshall a single word in reply. She opened her mouth to scream even as she dashed around him. She missed her stepfather's grab for her, but that drove her straight toward her step-uncle Steven, whose large hands closed around her shoulders. She shuddered when he gave her a cold look, like a wolf might give its prey.

  “Stop that right now, Marilee. If you don't, I'll hit this one again, and who knows what might happen?”

  “You cannot do this to him. He is an earl. There will be consequences—”

  She gasped as Steven cuffed her on the side of her head, making her vision swim for a moment.

  Marshall snorted. “No one cares about this one. We read up on him before we left town. The last earl, or some nonsense. No one will miss him, and besides, it'll be his word against ours, and when Steven here marries you, won't he stand equal to this toff?”

  Marilee couldn't stop a frightened whimper from escaping her lips, and then she shut it up immediately as Steven gave her a shak
e.

  “Now, no crying, girlie. You ran us on a long chase, and we're none too pleased with you as it is.”