“Thank you, but no.”
“Thank you, but no,” he echoed, irked by her determined rebuff. “Is that how you put off everyone who tries to be nice to you?”
“I don’t put off everyone.”
“Ah. So it’s just me you put off with that prissy ”Thank you, but no.“ Now I understand.”
Hester wanted to stamp her foot and shout, No, you do not understand at all! But of course, she could hardly explain such a thing to him.
From the first moment she’d seen Mr. Hawke, she’d recognized his appeal for what it was: pure animal magnetism. Virile male, exceedingly dangerous, and completely forbidden to most young ladies. Or he should be.
Dulcie’s interest in him was understandable. But he was a mature man; Dulcie and all the eligible misses were still girls. Added to that, he did not strike her as the sort seriously searching for a wife.
Now she had to contend with this mess between him and George Bennett.
That was not the worst of it though. The worst part was the way he disturbed her. Normally she was not affected by men; she did not allow herself to be. Long ago she had learned to keep her emotions above it all and observe the men she came into contact with for what they were: insincere, greedy, and shallow. In short, most men did not affect her in the least.
But Adrian Hawke did.
The past three days she’d fought that annoying buzz of awareness he provoked in her. She’d fought it and had almost convinced herself that she’d won the battle. If she did feel anything for the man, it was only because he was a curiosity among the rest of society.
But now she knew differently. Though surrounded by the crush of people in the Dresdens’ noisy ballroom, she felt completely alone with him. First their clash. Then his unexpected apology. Now this awkward conversation and their silent companionship. Somehow he’d created a distressing sort of intimacy between them which increased her unwonted awareness to an alarming degree.
This would never do. He would never do, not for Dulcie or for herself. As Hester watched the dancers finish their set, she kept her gaze strictly away from Adrian Hawke. But the whole time she racked her brain for the date of Catherine Hawke’s wedding. Two weeks from tomorrow? Or three? Whichever, God willing, Adrian Hawke would depart immediately after the ceremony. If he did not, there was no telling what havoc he might wreak.
Then, as if matters were not already awful enough, who should she see heading directly toward her but Horace Vasterling. At once her unsettled emotions turned to utter panic. First Adrian Hawke. Now her brother. Had Horace finally discovered who she was? Did he mean to confront her?
She licked her suddenly dry lips. “If you will excuse me?” she muttered to Mr. Hawke. Then with pounding heart and sweating palms, she turned and fled.
Adrian frowned at Hester Poitevant’s departing backside. What in blazes was that all about? He’d been polite. He’d apologized for his previous behavior. He’d asked her to dance. Then he’d accepted her refusal with what he considered good grace. So why was she stalking away as if he’d just insulted her?
Damnation, but English women were an annoying lot!
“I say, Hawke,” Catherine’s beau said, coming up on Adrian’s other side. “Thought you might like to meet an old school chum of mine. Horace Vasterling. Adrian Hawke. Been telling him about your new business venture, Hawke. He runs a goodly sized flock of his own, you know.”
Adrian shook Vasterling’s hand. A decent grip, he decided, firmer than the man’s soft, somewhat slovenly appearance would indicate.
“Glad to meet you, Hawke,” the man said. “Glad to meet you. The gossips say nothing but good about you. Nothing but good.”
“I’m relieved to hear it,” Adrian said, pushing any lingering thoughts about Mrs. Hoity-toity Poitevant to the back of his mind. English women might be incomprehensible, but the men were like men everywhere, at least in one regard: they all wanted to strike a better deal than the next fellow did. This Vasterling was no different. “So you raise sheep,” Adrian said. “Where are your holdings?”
“Cumbria. We’ve got a flock of nearly four hundred. Though we could double that amount with the acreage we have.”
“So why haven’t you?”
A faint wash of color rose in Vasterling’s face and it occurred to Adrian that he ought to introduce the man to the blushing Miss Bennett. Then the two of them could raise a brood of blushing little Vasterlings.
“My father is old-fashioned,” the man responded. “Our weaving sheds can support only a certain amount of wool production, and he will not expand either the sheds or the flocks.”
“But you wish to?”
“I do,” Vasterling said with a firmness that matched his grip.
“I see,” said Adrian. “Then perhaps we can do some business, for at present I’m more interested in raw wool than I am in finished cloth. That’s the whole point of the textile venture I’ve designed.”
They went off together to the smoking room, unaware of the avid gaze which followed them until they disappeared. Only then did Hester let loose the breath she’d not even known she was holding.
Horace Vasterling hadn’t been coming to speak to her after all. He didn’t know who she was. Relief came in a cool, hard rush, followed almost at once by an unreasoning spurt of anger. He did not know who she was, his own sister. His only sibling! How could he be so woefully ignorant of his own family history?
For a moment she allowed herself to fantasize. What if she made the four-day journey to her father’s estate in Cumbria? What if she presented herself to her father as his long-missing child? Would he welcome her into the bosom of his family? Would he weep over her, so glad to have her returned to him after almost twenty-five years?
A painful feeling welled up, as she considered the sort of man her father was. Of course he wouldn’t welcome her back. Nor did she want him to, unless of course it was so she could soundly reject him.
How satisfying it would be to arrive there in her own carriage with a finely matched pair, a driver, and a footman. To address her father in his own parlor, and then berate him for everything she’d suffered due to his indifference. For despite her mother’s inconstancy, Hester had not been the one at fault. She’d been a mere child, caught between two parents whose differences her mother had regularly complained of.
Edgar Vasterling was too cold. Too disapproving. Parsimonious. Inflexible. A pinchpenny. Boring. Fixed in his thinking. And tightfisted with his money as well. That had been the crux of her mother’s discontent, Hester now could see. Her mother had found her father stingy, and so had left him for a more generous fellow. It had been painful for Hester to accept that her beautiful mother’s flight from her marriage had been utterly selfish. Utterly foolish. She should have found a way to do her duty as a wife and mother to both her children.
But that did not absolve Hester’s father from his responsibility to his daughter.
If Hester had been a boy he would have pursued her. A man’s heir, even the second or third in line, would never be given up without a fierce fight. But then, that’s why her mother had chosen to leave when she did. She had delivered her husband his son and heir, and figured rightly that he wouldn’t care about the older girl-child she took away with her.
But he should have cared.
Hester blinked at the sudden dampness in her eyes. Oh, no. She would not cry over her coldhearted father’s perfidy. Nor over her mother’s. She’d spent far too much of her childhood crying over them. She was not about to waste any of her adult years in so useless an activity.
So she drew herself up and tamped her emotions down. Horace Vasterling seemed a harmless sort. She doubted he knew anything about a sister gone missing or, probably, the true story of his mother’s defection. Certainly he would not know the name Poitevant, his maternal grandmother’s maiden name. Should she ever find herself face to face with her brother, Hester vowed to treat him no differently than she would any other innocuous gentleman. She would give him h
er cool, aloof smile, and refrain from any conversation but the mundane. She would do the same with Mr. Hawke as well, she decided when she spied Dulcie hurrying her way.
“Where is he?” the girl whispered, her face the perfect picture of youthful agony. “You let him get away?”
Hester just raised one brow. “Subtlety, Dulcie. Subtlety. It serves you ill to chase a man until he is ready to be caught. And Mr. Hawke is hardly ready for that. Besides, he’s not likely to forget about your dance.”
“You’re certain? He didn’t leave for the evening, did he?”
“Of course not.”
From agony to joy to a fearful sort of hopelessness, the evolution of Dulcie’s emotions showed in every aspect of her bearing. “He only asked me to dance because he’s a gentleman, didn’t he? Not to single me out. Oh, this isn’t going to work at all. I’m far too silly and stupid for a man like him.”
“You are not.” It took all of Hester’s efforts to bolster Dulcie’s flagging self-confidence. But only for the duration of her dance with Mr. Hawke was the girl content. The next day when he did not attend the festive matinee Dulcie was invited to, she was once again in the doldrums. On the following evening at an elaborate dinner party it took every bit of Hester’s encouragement to keep the heartsick girl’s spirits up. So when Hester arrived home in the early hours of the following Friday, she was exhausted beyond telling.
She’d been sent home in the Ainsleys’ smaller coach, an accommodation she insisted on when she knew the evening would be a long one. No need for Mr. Dobbs to wait around with her conveyance all night. As it was, Mrs. Dobbs, her housekeeper, often waited up for her, no matter the hour.
And so it was tonight. Mrs. Dobbs pushed up from her rocking chair beside the hearth in the spotless kitchen, straightening her faded nightcap and her high-necked wrapper. “Ooh, it’s late you are, miss. Have you had a proper supper?”
Hester smiled at the stout little woman, then bent down to reassure her aging pets that she was indeed home. “There you go, Peg,” she said, scratching her old three-legged hound. “There you go. And you, Fifi.” She picked up the nervous little poodle. “Yes, Mrs. Dobbs. I’ve had my supper. You needn’t wait for me every time I come in late.”
“Pish, child. I’m a light sleeper and that’s the whole of it. Not like Mr. Dobbs. That one could sleep straight through the fire of London, he could.”
Again Hester smiled. They had this conversation almost every night. “So. How’s our patient doing?” Hester combed her fingers gently through Fifi’s shorn curls. “She looks a little better.”
“She’s not scratching so much. I noticed that. It appears that smelly concoction is working. Mind now, you might stain your gloves.”
Hester set the little dog down. She was an ugly thing, with her back all blotchy due to great clumps of missing hair. But in spite of that she was the dearest creature, so grateful for her new home and regular meals that she had endured the shearing and subsequent application of the apothecary’s recipe with trembling patience.
“And what of our nighttime visitors?”
Mrs. Dobbs frowned. “The food is gone—though why you insist on feeding those nasty street cats is beyond me.”
Another familiar conversation.
Mrs. Dobbs went on, shaking her head. “You’ll never be rid of them, you know. Then they’ll all end up having litters in the woodshed.”
“Not all of them.” Hester smiled. “Not the toms, anyway.”
“Huh. In my experience all cats is female. All of them. And they all have litters, one after the other. By feedin” even a few of them, you take the chance that we’ll soon be swimmin‘ in cats. Female cats.“
Hester smiled. “At least we won’t have any vermin to contend with. You go on now. Go to bed. I can manage without you.”
Mrs. Dobbs yawned and turned to comply. “Any proposals yet for our young ladies?”
“No. Not yet. But they’re all three doing very well.”
“They’s nice girls,” the woman said, trundling away. “They’ll make good wives someday, thanks to you.”
Hester sighed. Thanks to her? If only she could do as she truly wished and help her girls make lives for themselves independent of becoming anyone’s wife. If only every well-born girl wasn’t raised to think marriage and motherhood the only choices available to her.
Unfortunately, unless a girl was independently wealthy, or else willing to live under her parents’ or other relatives’ rule, there really were no other options. Except for going into trade, of course. As she’d done.
She sighed once more, then started up the straight run of gleaming stairs. She supposed she was lucky. She earned a living as a tradeswoman might. But because her product was in essence the girls she worked with, she did not suffer the same taint of “being in trade” that a seamstress would, or a milliner or a cobbler. She retained the status of gentlewoman, for what that was worth. Widowed gentlewoman.
The dogs had come up the stairs behind her, Peg thumping up every step with her odd, off-centered gait. Now the two of them sat, watching with cocked heads as she shed gloves and shawl, then shoes and hose. The spruce-green dress came next, and her various petticoats and shift.
She put everything away, draping the dress and petticoats over the armoire door to air. Somber colors, simple patterns. Sometimes Hester hated the appearance she felt necessary to the success of her academy. Despite her ripe old age of twenty-eight, she knew she looked younger. That’s why she wore the spectacles and such unbecoming hairstyles and clothes. Her dresses were all well made and of the finest fabrics, but unbecoming all the same. Still, since she functioned as a glorified sort of governess, and was supposedly a widow, she had to dress the part.
But only when she worked. The rest of the time—her time—she could dress as she pleased. So, smiling, she pulled a pale aqua-green night rail and wrapper from the armoire. She’d sewn them herself from nine yards of the most expensive India cloth Mr. Connair’s dry goods store had ever carried. It was downy soft with a fluid hand, a luxury to be sure. But worth every penny, she thought each night when she put it on. After a long evening in somber green, a night spent in airy aqua with silk embroidered flowers, delicate pin tucks, and cunningly drawn threads seemed only fair.
She let down her hair and massaged her fingertips along the sore spots of her scalp where the pins had pulled too tightly. Ah, that felt good. She’d been working awfully long hours with three demanding families. But not tomorrow. Tomorrow was her day off, and she would dress as she pleased. She would visit the booksellers and the apothecary shop. And the sweet shop. Mr. Dobbs’s birthday was next week and he had a weakness for chocolate and peppermints.
Fifi hopped up onto the bed. “Oh, no you don’t,” Hester said, and promptly lifted her down. The petite creature ignored her and hopped right back up. They repeated that scenario three more times before Hester gave up. Then, of course, she could not bear poor Peg’s long face and had to heft her up onto the bed too.
She found a space between the two dogs and slipped beneath the cool sheets, perfectly content, she told herself. Between her sweet little house, her loyal servants, her adoring pets, and her work at her popular academy, she had everything an independent-minded woman could want.
But when she slept and when she dreamed, it was not of contentment or of young girls successfully shaped into suitable young brides. She dreamed instead of an aqua-green ball gown and dancing every dance with a succession of handsome, admiring men. And if all of them were tall with wide shoulders and thick black hair—and a broad American accent flavored faintly of the Scottish countryside—well, it was only a dream.
To his surprise, Adrian actually liked Horace Vasterling. They’d met twice now since their introduction, and he was impressed with the man’s practical intelligence.
Though he looked a soft, muddle-headed sort of fellow, it was a false impression. It was only his aging father that Vasterling seemed unable to manage—a common problem for fir
st sons waiting to inherit. Still, like him or not, if the man could not get his father to agree to Adrian’s proposal, the Vasterlings would not be able to participate in Adrian’s textile cooperative.
They exited Vasterling’s club, an unpretentious place just off Aldersgate Street in Cheapside. “As the figures show, it could take three years to build your flocks if you decide not to purchase outside stock,” Adrian said. “During that time you’ll lose the profit on mutton. Once you have sufficient wool production to join our cooperative, you’ll more than make up for the first few years’ losses. But if you could purchase the additional breeding stock now, the amount of time till you turn a profit will be considerably reduced.”
“Hmm. Yes, I see,” Vasterling said. “Fortunately we had a very good lambing season. Well. I shall present these figures to Father next week.”
“You’re not staying in London for the duration of the season?”
The man coughed. “I have been honest with you about my financial picture, so you will understand why I am not presently on anyone’s list of the most eligible bachelors. My father expects me to marry a girl with a generous dowry. My mother had very little, you see. But he is sadly out of touch with the realities of the marriage mart. Families with those sorts of fortunes want more impressive titles or more impressive estates for their investments. I’ve been firmly reminded more than once that when I marry it will have to be a younger daughter of a lesser lord, or else someone who loves me for other than the great fortune I do not possess.” He gave a wry grin. “Of course, I could wait another three years until my profits come in. Perhaps then I could snag a well-fixed bride my father could approve of.”
“When your profits come in you won’t need a well-fixed bride with a big dowry.” Adrian shook his head, not understanding this English system of strategic marriages. “Besides, would it be so bad to marry a woman for love, one who actually loves you as well? Not one of these fashion plates whose marriages are contracted with no more emotion than you and I conduct our business dealings.”
The Bridemaker Page 7
