by Kelly Bowen
“Twelve more miles, then,” Henrietta said, smiling despite the cold, despite everything. “But no farther.”
* * *
“How many more years will we be coming here for a weekly dinner, listening to Papa’s pontifications and making our wives and children listen to them as well?” Philip Whitlow kept his voice down, because he stood on the squire’s very doorstep.
Thaddeus turned to shield the bundle in his arms from the winter breeze. “I promised Isabel that after the baby came, we’d invite Papa to our table rather than keep trooping over here every Sunday, but the child is nearly six months old, and here we are. Again.”
Thaddeus’s wife had presented him with a daughter over the summer, and Philip acknowledged a pang of envy. Dicken and Alexander were dear, and he’d gladly give his life for either boy, but Beatrice longed for a daughter.
“Papa gets worse as the holidays approach.” As the oldest sibling, Philip expected a certain diplomacy of himself, but at some point, that diplomacy had shaded closer to cowardice.
“Because Henrietta insists on visiting,” Thad replied. “She hasn’t met her namesake. I expect they’ll get on famously.”
The infant in Thad’s arms was Isabella Henrietta. Her mother called her Izzy. Her father referred to her as his little red hen, owing to her mop of ginger hair.
Unfortunate, that. Both of Philip’s boys were red-haired, but they were boys. “Beatrice says we must do more to make Henrietta welcome.”
Thad left off fussing with the blankets enveloping his daughter. “Beatrice says? I thought Bea had no patience with straying women.”
Bea had no patience with families who couldn’t get on with being families. “I might have misread her, somewhat.” Or hidden behind her skirts, as it were, or betrayed a sibling for the sake of keeping peace with a parent.
“Isabel said if I ever treat our daughter the way Papa has treated Henrietta, she’ll disown me. I do not favor the prospect of being disowned by my dearest spouse.”
“If you wrap the child up any more tightly, she’ll expire for want of air.” How many times had Bea offered Philip the same warning when the boys were small?
Thad rubbed noses with his daughter, which set her to squirming and cooing. “Who looked after Henrietta, Philip? Having a daughter sets a man to wondering. Henrietta was six when Mama died, and my earliest memory is of Henrietta reading to me. I have no memory of our mother, but I can’t forget that when Papa was too grief-stricken to recall he had children, Henrietta read to me every night.”
Philip came the rest of the way down the steps. “Henrietta was a good girl. That’s part of what makes Papa so angry with her.”
“He’s not angry, he’s ashamed. Time he got over it, I say.”
Thad was the family optimist, and in part because Henrietta had been such a devoted sister, his recollections of the years following their mother’s death were sad but benign. Squire Whitlow’s grief had expressed itself in temper and discipline with his two older children.
“People don’t get over a hurt because we say so, Thad, but for what it’s worth, Beatrice and I agree with you. Henrietta asks nothing of us but some hospitality at Christmas, and she always offers to help if we need it.”
Their wives emerged from the manor house, chattering volubly despite being wrapped up in scarves and cloaks.
“I wondered if Henrietta’s generosity extended to you as well. I’ve never had to ask for help, but I’d ask her before I’d ask Papa.”
“So would I.” Though Philip hadn’t realized that truth until he’d spoken it aloud.
“I suppose we’ll see you next week,” Thad said, taking Isabel’s hand. “Unless Henrietta’s come to visit.”
Beatrice took the place at Philip’s side. “Where have the boys got off to?”
“The stable, last I saw them.”
“Where they will get their best clothes filthy. Come along, Philip, and prepare to be stern.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Thad smirked, Isabel took the baby from him, and Philip wished the holidays weren’t bearing down on them all like a runaway team on a muddy road.
* * *
One did not kiss an innocent woman and then steal from her, not if one had any honor.
Michael accounted himself in possession of a modest store of honor, and yet, he’d kissed Henrietta Whitlow, or started to kiss her. That chaste little gesture in the inn yard barely qualified as a kiss, especially when offered to a woman whose affections had been coveted by kings and princes.
And yet that kiss had been enough to set Michael to wondering.
What would kissing Henrietta passionately be like? Holding her through a long and lazy night? Waking to see that red hair in glorious disarray? What would she feel like wrapped around him, half mad with desire?
As the coach jostled along the increasingly snowy road, Michael set aside those speculations. He could sleep with any number of women, make love to many more, and hair was hair. What bothered him was that he wanted to know more about her, and not simply so he could steal from her with less risk of discovery.
What books did Henrietta Whitlow treasure most dearly?
Did she ever stay up all night reading?
What holiday token would make her smile the way she’d smiled at the serving maid?
How did she like to be kissed, if she cared for it at all?
“You’ve grown quiet,” Miss Whitlow said. “You needn’t worry for Lucille’s slumbers. I’ve seen her sleep through a gale.”
Indeed, the stalwart Lucille had fortified herself with two cups of tea at the last inn and was now wedged against the opposite squabs, a lap blanket tucked beneath her chin, her snoring a counterpoint to the rhythm of the horses’ hooves.
“My former employer had the same ability to sleep any time,” Michael replied, “though Heathgate limited himself to naps and delighted in making me think he was asleep when he was in truth eavesdropping.”
“You miss him.”
Michael missed his sisters. Did they ever miss him? “Heathgate and I became a good team. Ten years ago, I was the shy Irish lad willing to do anything to better myself. Heathgate was a fundamentally decent man trying to impersonate a jaded rogue. I had the better classical education and stronger organizational skills, while Heathgate had business intuition and daring. He took a modest fortune and made it enormous, if you’ll excuse a vulgar reference to commercial matters.”
Miss Whitlow rustled about on the bench beside Michael, tucking the lap robe around her hip.
“Patch leaf,” he murmured.
Her fussing paused. “I beg your pardon?”
“The scent you wear. It reminds me of the patch leaf used to keep the moths away from Kashmir shawls. I couldn’t place it and have never come across its like on a woman before.”
She extended her left arm beneath his nose. “I have it made up specially. At first I was simply storing my clothing with the leaves used to protect the shawls, but then my Parisian perfumer found a way to capture the scent.”
Michael turned her wrist and sniffed translucent skin. Blue veins ran from her forearm to her palm, and a single tendon stood out.
“It’s different,” he said, resisting the urge to taste her pulse. “Unusual.”
“I don’t care for it. Too exotic, too… loud. I no longer have to be loud or exotic, and what a relief that is.” Her fleeting glance asked if her admission offended him, though her idea of loud was probably a healthy man’s notion of a seductive whisper.
“What scent do you prefer?” he asked.
“My favorite scents are green tea and freshly scythed grass, but those would hardly do for a fragrance. My mother hung lavender sachets all about the house, from the bedposts, in the linen closets, in the wardrobes, and among the dry-goods pantries. In the new year, I will wear proper English lavender.”
On her, that common herb would smell anything but proper. “Why wait until next month?”
“I am determined on
an objective, my lord. I expect to fail, but I must try. My success will depend on remaining very much the woman in possession of herself, rather than the meek girl who left Amblebank ten years ago.”
The coach lurched sideways, then righted itself. Logan was a first-rate coachman, and thus when he slowed the team to a more cautious pace, Michael didn’t countermand his judgment.
And yet, these conversations with Miss Whitlow were driving him barmy. He wanted to kiss her, though his job was to betray her, to the extent purloining one book was a betrayal. To blazes with Beltram, favors owed, and Yuletide travel.
“I find it hard to believe you were ever a meek girl,” Michael said, though he well knew she had been. Beltram damned near took pride in “making Henrietta Whitlow what she is today,” as if ruining a housemaid was a rare accomplishment rather than a disgrace.
“I was a drudge,” Miss Whitlow replied. “A pretty drudge, though I grasped too late how that beauty could affect my fate. I quarreled with my father over his choice of husband for me and decamped for the metropolis, as so many village girls have. The tale is prosaic and my fate not that unusual.”
“Your fate is very unusual,” Michael countered. “Those village girls often end up plying their trade in the street, felled by the French disease, or behind bars. You had your choice of dukes and, I hazard, are wealthy as a result.”
“I am wealthy, and all that coin only makes my father hold me in worse contempt. The wages of sin are to be penury, disease, disfigurement, and bitter remorse, not security and comfort.”
Two hours ago, she would not have been that honest.
“Your father’s household is the objective you’re intent upon?”
She tucked one foot up under her skirts, a very informal pose. “Papa refuses to enter any room I’m in, he will not say my name to other family members, and he’s removed every likeness of me from his house.”
And to think Michael was pouting because his sisters had declined to join him for Christmas. He did not want to know that Henrietta Whitlow was afflicted with heartaches. He wanted to believe she’d leave her London life, become an intriguing fixture among the lesser gentry of some backwater, and never miss one small volume from among her store of books.
When Christmas angels took up residence at Inglemere, perhaps.
“Why bother with further overtures in your father’s direction?” Michael asked. “He deserves to have the cold comfort of his intolerance directed right back at him.”
Miss Whitlow peeked beneath the shade rolled down to keep the worst of the cold from leaking through the window.
“I hope your coachman knows this road well. The weather is turning awful.”
Was there any change of subject less adroit than the weather? Miss Whitlow hesitated to discuss her family, though she’d numbered her lovers without a hint of a blush.
“I hired Logan when I bought Inglemere. He’s driven the route from here to London for years. We can’t be far from the next inn, and you are not to worry. Compared to the Norwegian coast in December, compared to the North Sea in a temper, this snowstorm is merely weather.”
She continued to gaze out at the snowy landscape, which had acquired the bluish tinge of approaching twilight. Michael was running out of time to plunder her possessions, though tonight, as she slept secure at the next inn, he would surely see his task completed.
“I cannot give up on my father,” she said, “because he gave up on me, and that was wrong of him. We are family. I will make one more effort to bridge our differences, and if he remains adamant, then I’ll do as you suggest and put him—and my quarrel with him—aside.”
Ten years was an infernally long time to quarrel. Mr. Whitlow was a fool to toss away a daughter with that sort of tenacity, but then, Michael was a fool too.
He’d wondered idly about how to concoct some sort of green-tea-and-scythed-grass soap to give Miss Whitlow for a Yuletide token—in a world where he wasn’t about to steal more than kisses from her—when what she wanted by Christmas morning was nothing less than a miracle of paternal forgiveness.
* * *
By the time the coach lumbered into the inn yard, Henrietta was tucked against his lordship, all but asleep, and half dreaming of a Christmas dinner with her family—all of her family—gathered around a laden table. Oddly enough, his lordship was present at the feast too.
“I have doubtless snored as loudly as Lucille,” Henrietta muttered, righting herself. Her back ached, and her feet were blocks of ice.
The baron retrieved the arm he’d tucked across her shoulders.
“I suspect somebody keeps moving the inns along this stretch of the highway so they recede as we approach. In Ireland, we’d say the fairies have been busy.”
The farther the coach traveled from London, the more a soft Irish brogue threaded into his lordship’s words. In the dark, his voice would be…
Henrietta nudged Lucille’s knee. “We’ve arrived, my dear. Time to wake up.”
Lucille scratched her nose, but otherwise didn’t budge.
“Tea, Lucille!” his lordship said. “Hot, strong, sweet, and laced with a dollop of spirits.”
Her eyes popped open. “I must have caught a few winks. If you’ll excuse me, Miss Henrietta, I’ll just be stretching my legs a wee while, and… my gracious, the daylight has all but fled.”
Someday, much sooner than Henrietta wanted to admit, Lucille would be old. The maid had a crease across her right cheek, and her cloak had been misbuttoned at the throat. She already had the dowager’s habit of falling asleep in company.
Lucille had been in service at Beltram’s, the same as Henrietta, and she’d been the first person Henrietta had hired for her own household.
His lordship climbed from the coach to hand the ladies down, and off Lucille went.
“The inn doesn’t look like it receives much custom,” Henrietta said. The entrance was lighted and the doors sported pine wreaths, but other than a tang of smoke in the air, little suggested the place was open for business.
“I’ve not had to stay here previously,” the baron said. “We’re but eight miles from Inglemere. I’ve seldom even changed teams here, though I will today.”
He was traveling on, then. Henrietta hated that notion. As the coach was led away, she wrapped her arms about his lordship’s waist.
“I’m taking a liberty with your person,” she said. “You will think badly of me, but then, everybody already does. I will miss you.”
He drew her closer, though winter clothing prevented the degree of closeness Henrietta sought. He’d been decent to her, and she’d missed decent treatment more than she’d realized.
“I’m rarely in Oxfordshire,” he said, “though I will think of you when I travel back this way.”
Henrietta knew exactly how to send a man on his way smiling. She usually dropped hints that he’d been the most exciting/passionate/affectionate/inventive lover—something credible, but not too effusive—gave him looks of fondness and regret and a parting exchange of intimacies remarkable for its dullness.
Lest he second-guess his decision to part from her.
In five cases out of six, her paramours had come wandering back around, hinting that a resumption of their arrangement would be welcome. Henrietta never obliged. Anselm had come around as well, and Henrietta had taken fierce joy in the fact that the duke had called simply as a friend, albeit one with marital troubles and a wide protective streak.
She’d not even flirted with Michael, Baron Angelford, and she would miss him.
“You’re being kind,” she said, stepping back. “Letting me know that some Yuletide chivalry on your part will not develop into anything more. I’m usually the one who must be kind. I suppose we’d best find me accommodations and see about sending word back to MacFergus regarding my whereabouts.”
Please argue with me. Please contradict my brisk conclusions, or at least express a hope that we might meet again.
“I’ve come to Inglemere with an ey
e toward selling it.” His lordship used a gloved finger to brush a wind-whipped lock of hair from Henrietta’s cheek. “My sisters bide in Oxford itself, so owning a town house there makes more sense. If you ever have need of me, I can be reached at the home of Clarissa Brenner, Little Doorman Street.”
Worse and worse.
“I have brothers in the environs of Amblebank,” Henrietta said. “They won’t gainsay my father, but neither do they disdain my company. A wealthy sister is allowed a few peccadilloes.”
I sound bitter.
Probably because I am bitter.
Henrietta was also tired, cold, and once again a lone female making her way against all sense on a path of her own choosing.
The coachman, Logan, came down the inn’s steps. “Ye canna bide here, mistress.”
“What do you mean?” the baron snapped. “Miss Whitlow has been traveling all day. She’s hungry, chilled, fatigued, and due a respite from my company. You should be unloading her trunks as I speak.”
Must he be so ready to get rid of her?
“I’m sorry, guv, but this inn accepts no overnight custom. The innkeeper and his wife are elderly, and they’re off to await the arrival of a new grandchild in Oxford. The housekeeper says we can get a fresh team and a hamper, and warm up for a bit in the common, but there are no beds to be had here.”
No beds? How ironic that a courtesan, who generally plied her trade in a bed, should be so pleased to find none available.
“What sort of inn stays in business by letting its beds go empty?” his lordship fumed. “I’ve never heard the like.”
“Beds are a lot of work,” Henrietta said, which earned her a look of consternation from the baron. “The innkeeper would need maids to change the linens daily, laundresses to do endless washing, heaps and heaps of coal to heat the wash water, more maids to tidy up each room, every day. More coal to keep those rooms warm, and all for not very much coin. The kitchen and the stable generate most of the profit for an establishment like this.”
His lordship peered down at her. “How do you know that?”
