by Kelly Bowen
“I need investments and have considered buying a few coaching inns. Widows often own their late husband’s businesses, and thus a female owning an inn isn’t that unusual. It’s a chancy proposition, though. Very dependent on mail routes, weather, and the whims of the fashionable.”
“We can continue this discussion inside,” his lordship said. “Get me a fresh team, Logan, and leave Miss Whitlow’s bags on the coach. We can push on to Inglemere as soon as the moon rises.”
The baron took Henrietta by the hand and tugged her in the direction of the steps, and a good thing that was. Left to her own devices, she might have stood in the snowy yard until nightfall, marveling that his lordship had more or less invited her to spend the night at his own house.
* * *
The storm had obligingly taken an intermission, and in the bright illumination of a full moon on new snow, Michael and his guests continued on their way. Lucille was at least awake, which meant he had more incentive to keep his conversation free of innuendo, overtures, or outright begging.
He wanted time alone with Henrietta Whitlow, he needed time alone with her trunks. Having her as an overnight guest at Inglemere would tempt him to arrange the former, when he must limit himself to the latter.
“I do believe it’s getting colder,” Lucille muttered. “Does that sometimes, when snow lets up. You think it’s cold, then winter stops funning about. How much farther, milord?”
Too far. “We’re better than halfway,” Michael said. “If you’d like to continue to Amblebank, I can have Logan drive you tonight, though I’d suggest you leave your bags with me to make the distance easier for the horses.” Please say you’ll go.
Please stay.
I’m losing my wits.
“Miss Henrietta,” Lucille said, “if you make me spend another minute longer than necessary in this coach, I will turn in my notice, so I will.”
“You turn in your notice at least once a month,” Henrietta said. “In this case, such dramatics won’t be necessary. Nobody in Amblebank would be alarmed if my arrival were delayed until next week, though I do want the children to have their presents on Christmas morning.”
She’d at least be spending her holiday around children. Michael would have to journey into Oxford for that privilege.
“I never know what to get them,” he said. “My nieces and nephews. Two of my sisters are married and between them have a half-dozen children. I’m at something of a loss when it comes to presents. My brothers remain in Ireland, so the issue is less pressing with them.” Fine spirits for the menfolk, silk for his sisters, but the children were a puzzle.
Miss Whitlow passed him the flask of tea they’d been sharing, though the contents had grown cold within a mile of the inn.
“You’re at a loss because as a child, you never had presents. You had no toys, no books, no pets. My father was of a similar bent, though my mother’s influence softened him somewhat.”
Michael’s diversion had been hard work and harder work. “We had a pig, a grand creature named Bridget Boru. If she had more than ten piglets, my father divided up the proceeds of sale from the extra piglets among us children. The birth of the Christ child was not more warmly anticipated than Bridget’s litters.”
But how Michael had died a little inside to see those piglets sold off, season after season, and how jealously he’d guarded his “sow bank.”
“You had dreams,” Miss Whitlow said. “Your nieces and nephews do too. I think of my girlhood dreams when I’m shopping for Christmas tokens.”
The question was out before Michael realized how fraught the answer might be: “What were your dreams?”
She took back the flask and capped it. “The same as every other girl’s: a home of my own, children, my own tea service.”
“Not books?”
“My love of books came later.”
When the hope of children and family was beyond her? How odd that Henrietta and he should share the same dream—a family, in all its prosaic, complex, dear, and exasperating variability. All of his hard work, all of the risks he’d taken, had been so that someday he’d be able to provide for a family, with no fear of potato blight, English prejudice, or hard winters.
“For Christmas, I want never to set my backside upon a coach bench again,” Lucille said. “In case anybody should wonder.”
“I was consumed with curiosity on that very point,” Michael said. “Assuming your wish can be granted temporarily, what else might Father Christmas bring you?”
Lucille’s gaze landed on Miss Whitlow. “Peace on earth. It was a fine aspiration back in Bethlehem, though we’ve yet to achieve it. Peace in Oxfordshire would be a start.”
“Lucille.” Miss Whitlow’s reproof was weary.
“I’ll hold my tongue, miss. But his lordship’s bound to hear the parish gossip. You haven’t done any more than many other country girls do when they’re—”
“Perhaps my nieces would like a tea service for their dolls,” Michael said, rather than watch the maid’s defense further erode her employer’s mood. The closer they drew to Amblebank, the quieter Miss Whitlow became.
“That’s a lovely idea,” she said. “Or a lap desk, for the older children. One with their name carved on the top.”
“What about a journal?” Michael mused. “My nieces would memorialize their brothers’ every transgression given a chance.”
“Not a journal.” Miss Whitlow tucked the half-empty flask into her sizable valise—which Michael might also have to search. “Journals can be found and their contents exposed by mischievous siblings at the worst possible moment.”
Was no topic of conversation safe with her? “You speak from experience.”
“Two brothers’ worth. My older brother showed up shortly after my parents married, and I followed less than two years later. My younger brother waited a proper five years to come along. In any case, I learned not to keep a journal. What of you, your lordship? What would you like for Christmas?”
Her question brought an image to mind of Michael in the great hall at Inglemere presiding over a long table shared with sisters, in-laws, children, the occasional cousin, and—truly, he’d been shut up in the coach for too long—Henrietta Whitlow at the far end of the table.
He wanted a holiday full of laughter, warmth, and family.
He’d get a solitary tray in the library and a guilty conscience.
“I hope the coming days will allow me to find some rest,” he said, “and peace and quiet. I’ll read, catch up on my correspondence, and consider properties in Oxford for possible purchase.” His sisters claimed there weren’t any, though Michael suspected they’d simply got used to managing without his fraternal interference.
Henrietta was at her customary place beside him, close enough that he could see the fatigue shadowing her eyes, a bleakness in her gaze, and a grimness about her mouth.
“I know it’s highly unusual,” he said, “and you must feel free to refuse me, but I’d be very grateful if you’d tarry at Inglemere tomorrow. My coachman and grooms deserve to rest, and I daresay you do as well.”
He was a cad, a bounder, an idiot, and very good thief. He did not need an extra day to paw through Miss Whitlow’s effects.
“I don’t—” Miss Whitlow began.
“What a generous offer,” Lucille said. “You’ll have the rest of your life to wear plain caps, miss, and endure sneers in the churchyard. Might as well get a good night’s rest before we embark on your penance, aye?”
“My staff is utterly discreet,” Michael said, “and I won’t think of you journeying on to Amblebank tomorrow. The roads will be safer in a day or two, and you will be fortified for the challenge of dealing with family.”
Didn’t he sound like the voice of gentlemanly reason? Miss Whitlow ought to toss him from the coach.
“One day,” she said. “One day to rest, get warm, plan my approach, and let MacFergus know what’s become of me. One day, but no more.”
One day—and two nights—would be m
ore than enough for Michael to trespass against her trust, steal from her, and send her into the arms of the family who presumed to sit in judgment of her. They’d treat her like royalty if she were his baroness, regardless of her past, but he was the last man who deserved to be her baron.
Chapter Four
Even good girls grow weary of loneliness and poverty. You will realize, of course, that I might have been a tad bit misleading where my comely housemaid was concerned—or perhaps she misunderstood my overtures? Henrietta’s education had been neglected in every regard except how to drudge for her menfolk, poor thing.
I didn’t go down on bended knee, but I might have alluded to wedded bliss a time or two or twenty. She eventually granted me the prize I’d so diligently sought. For some while, all was not-quite-connubial bliss. Never was my candlestick so well polished, as it were… and I didn’t have to spend a penny for my pleasure. I could not boast of my cleverness, trifling with the help being frowned upon, but you must admit, London’s bachelors are a happier lot for my having seen to Miss Whitlow’s education…
What the hell are you doing?” Liam Logan kept his voice down lest he upset horses who’d earned a ration of oats for their labors.
“I’m plundering a woman’s luggage,” the baron replied from the depths of a large, brass-hinged trunk. “What are you doing out and about at this hour?”
The light of the single lantern made the baron look gaunt when he straightened. Gaunt and guilty. He’d served his guests a fine dinner in Inglemere’s elegant dining room, and should have been abed himself, not wandering around a darkened stable.
“I’m tucking in the boys,” Logan said. “You ought to consider buying these grays. They’re a good lot, and they pull well together.”
His lordship went back to rummaging in the trunk. “Spare me your analogies. Henrietta Whitlow is no longer for sale. I’m not sure she ever was.”
The Quality in a mood were puzzle enough, but Michael Brenner was new to his title, far too solitary, and without much cheer. Liam respected the man and even liked him—the baron was scrupulously fair, hard-working, and devoted to his family—but Liam didn’t always understand his employer.
“Miss Whitlow had something on offer,” Liam said, tossing another forkful of hay into the nearest stall, “to hear half of London tell it. I don’t blame her for that. Dukes and nabobs are as prone to foolishness as the rest of us, and it’s ever so entertaining to see a woman from the shires making idiots of them.”
The baron straightened, his greatcoat hanging open despite the cold. To Liam, a horse barn would ever be a cozy place, but the baron wasn’t a coachman, inured to the elements and dressed to deal with them.
“The damned thing isn’t here.”
“The only damned thing I see in these stables is you, sir. Care for a nip?”
Two other trunks were open, and the latches were undone on the remaining three. The baron accepted Liam’s flask and regarded the luggage with a ferocious scowl.
“I was sure she had it with her. She’s closed up her household in London, and these are all the trunks she’s brought. Damn and blast.”
“Have a wee dram,” Liam said. “It’ll improve your cursing.”
“My cursing skills are excellent, but I try to leave them back in the bogs from whence I trotted. This is good whisky.”
“Peat water makes the best, I say. My brother-in-law agrees with me. What are we searching for?”
His lordship sat on one of the closed trunks. “We’re searching for foolishness, to use your word. Lord Beltram was Miss Whitlow’s first… I can’t call him a protector, for he ruined her. He was her first, and in the manner of besotted men the world over, he wanted to immortalize his conquest. Somewhere in Miss Whitlow’s effects is a small volume full of bad poetry, competent sketches, and maudlin reminiscences. Can I buy some of this whisky?”
“I’ll give you a bottle for Christmas. Miss Whitlow is not in the first blush of youth, if you’ll forgive a blunt observation. Why has Lord Beltram waited this long to fret over his stupidity?”
The baron sighed, his breath fogging white in the gloom. “He’s decided to find a wife—or cannot afford too many more years of bachelorhood—and this book is a loose end. When they parted, Miss Whitlow asked to have only this book—not jewels, not a bank draft, not an introduction to some other titled fool. All she wanted was this silly journal. Beltram passed it along, thinking himself quite clever for having ended the arrangement without great expense or drama.”
Liam tossed a forkful of hay into another stall, working his way down the row. “So Beltram is a fool, but why are you compounding the error with more folly? Miss Whitlow has had years to blackmail the idiot or publish his bad verse. Why must you turn thief on his behalf?”
The baron took up a second fork and began haying the stalls on the opposite side of the aisle. Horses stirred, nickered, and then tucked into their fodder.
“Once long ago,” the baron said, “in a land not far enough away, with which we were at war, Beltram’s silence saved my life. I promised him any favor he cared to name and only later realized my silence had also saved his life.”
“So he took advantage of an innocent maid, and now he’s taking advantage of you,” Liam said. “And you wonder why the common folk think the Quality are daft. You’re not a thief, my lord.”
The baron threw hay with the skill of one who’d made his living in a stable once upon a time.
“Unless you’ve been poor as dirt and twice as hopeless,” he said, hanging the fork on a pair of nails when the row was complete, “you don’t know how an unfulfilled obligation can weigh on your sense of freedom. Every time I crossed paths with Beltram, I knew, and he knew, that I’d put myself in his debt. I cannot abide being in his debt, cannot abide the thought that ten years hence, he’ll ask something of me—something worse than a little larceny—and I’ll be bound by honor to agree to it. I gave the man my word.”
“Honor, is it? To steal from a woman who’s already been wronged?” MacFergus would have a few things to say about that brand of honor, and as usual, this plan gone awry had been his idea.
“I’ve considered stealing from her, then stealing the book back from Beltram so I can replace it among the lady’s belongings.”
“Clever,” Liam said, wondering what Mary would make of all this nonsense. “Or you might tell Beltram you simply couldn’t find the thing. I daresay lying to his lordship won’t meet with your lofty idea of honor either.”
“If I can’t find it, if I honestly can’t find it, then I’ll tell him that.”
“That you wouldn’t lie to a nincompoop makes it all better, of course. I’ll wish you the joy of your thievery, sir. I’m for bed. Pleasant dreams.”
“Go to hell, Logan. If the book isn’t here, the only other place it could be is in Miss Whitlow’s valise.”
Which was doubtless resting at the foot of the lady’s cozy bed. “And Happy Christmas to you too, my lord.”
* * *
His lordship hadn’t come to Henrietta’s bed last night.
He’d lighted her up to her room, offered her a kiss on the cheek—the forehead would have provoked her to quoting the Bard’s more colorful oaths—and wished her pleasant dreams.
Her dreams had been tormented, featuring an eternity racketing about naked and alone in a coach forever lost in a winter landscape.
“You’re already dressed,” Lucille said, bustling through the door without knocking. “I bestir myself at a needlessly early hour and find my services aren’t required. The baron had chocolate sent up to my room. Fresh scones with butter, and chocolate, kept hot over a warming candle.”
Henrietta knew how that chocolate had felt, simmering over the flame. She decided to leave her hair half down, the better to light the baron’s candle at breakfast.
“What is wrong with me, Lucille?” She shoved another pin into her hair. “I swore off men more than six months ago and in all that time wished I’d made the deci
sion years earlier.” Before she’d met Anselm, in any case. Her memories of him had been a little too fond. “You don’t have to make the bed. The baron has an excellent staff.”
An excellent, cheerful, discreet staff who appeared genuinely loyal to their employer.
“I cannot abide idleness,” Lucille said. “All that feigning sleep in the coach yesterday taxed my gifts to the limit.”
Were pearl-tipped hair pins too much at breakfast? “You were feigning sleep? That was a prodigious good imitation of a snore for a sham effort.”
“Mostly feigning. You and his lordship got along well. These are the loveliest flannel sheets.”
For winter, they were more luxurious than silk, which was difficult to wash. Henrietta had never thought to treat herself to flannel sheets, but she would in the future.
“The baron and I got on so well that after supper he left me for the charms of his library. Perhaps I retired in the nick of time.” Was that a wrinkle lurking beside her mouth? A softness developing beneath her chin?
Henrietta had never worried about her appearance before—never—and now… “I have left my wits somewhere along the Oxford Road.”
Lucille straightened, a brocade pillow hugged to her middle. “This is what you put the gents through, Miss Henrietta. This uncertainty and vexation. They didn’t dare approach you without some sign you’d welcome their advances. Do you fancy his lordship, or merely fancy being fancied?”
“Excellent question.” Henrietta began removing the pins she’d so carefully placed. “I fancied being respectable. I know that’s not likely to happen for the next twenty years, but I can aspire to being respected. Then his lordship goes and treats me decently, and I’m… I don’t care for it as much as I thought I would.”
The respect was wonderful. The insecurity it engendered was terrifying.
She cared for him, for the boy who’d had no toys, the wealthy baron who didn’t know how to entice his sisters to join him for Christmas dinner. She cared for a man who’d not put on airs before a cranky maid, who regarded Henrietta’s past as just that—her past.
