‘So, naturally,’ Miss Hutton continued, in complete oblivion to the dark direction of his thoughts, ‘I don’t mind giving up one afternoon a week to read to her, even though the kinds of stories she likes are not really to my taste.’
‘How do you know she likes them? How does she make her wishes known, if all she can say is oh, dear?’
‘It is the way she says oh, dear. And also, she gets a sparkle in her eye when she is enjoying the story.’
‘Yes, but if all she can say is oh, dear, how did she let people know she didn’t want visitors?’
‘Well, that was the fortunate thing. She did manage to speak a bit, just at first. Reverend Cottam reached her before the doctor did and apparently she told him that she didn’t want anyone to see her like that, apart from myself and the Reverend of course, since we’d already witnessed her condition, just before she suffered another seizure which left her...well, the way she is now.’
How convenient. For Cottam, that was. If Lady Buntingford actually did have a second seizure. He clenched his jaw. By the sound of it, in either case, he’d effectively turned Lady Buntingford into a prisoner in her own home. So that he could use her name, and her stationery, to further his own ends.
Chapter Fourteen
Lizzie shivered as they crested the last dip in the moors and Peacombe came into sight, spread out below them as though hugging the semi-circular bay.
Things had been going so well. They’d fallen into an easy way of talking again as they chatted about their childhoods, then all of a sudden it was as though he’d retreated into a dark place and pulled up the drawbridge behind him.
Why had her last remark done that to him? Or had his reaction been coming on for some time and she just hadn’t noticed it as she’d been prattling on? He’d certainly looked a little thoughtful when she’d told him about how she’d played at being a smuggler. She supposed she could understand him disapproving of anyone who appeared to sympathise with smugglers. Sam had certainly changed his attitude about them, after he’d joined the navy.
But was it just her attitude towards smugglers he hadn’t liked to hear about, or the fact that she’d admitted to being happier playing boys’ games than learning deportment and embroidery? And as for complaining about her not wearing spectacles, and walking along a High Street on her own...well...
She heaved a sigh. It was beginning to look as if it was going to be much harder to sustain a relationship with a man than it had been to look back wistfully over one she’d thought had failed before it even started. Especially if they were going to react in completely contrary ways to sharing experiences. For while he had gone all stiff and withdrawn once the conversation petered out, all she wanted to do was snuggle up against his body, link her arm through his and rub her cheek against his shoulder in the manner of an adoring kitten. And at the same time, to hug the poor, lonely, frightened little boy he must once have been and tell him... Though what did she need to tell him? He’d survived all that his wicked uncle, or the elements, could throw at him and grown into a fine, upstanding man. A man who appeared to regret having admitted to being a helpless little boy at all. Was that it? Was that why he’d withdrawn and adopted the kind of face she’d expect an earl would wear when obliged to drive a rather dowdy country miss through the streets of a little town where everyone’s heads turned as they went past, no doubt in amazement that a man like him could bear being seen with the likes of her?
It was a bit of a relief when Captain Bretherton turned the gig into the passage that led to the stable yard. She was ready for a drink. How she wished she were a man and could ask for a glass of brandy. Though, if she were a man, she wouldn’t be flummoxed by the unpredictable moods of the man who’d driven her into town. They would just be talking about...sport of some kind. Or horses, or something similar. Not their childhoods, or their hopes and dreams for the future.
She eyed him thoughtfully as his servant jumped down and ran round to hold the horses’ heads. For the first time since she’d met him, she tried to imagine him standing on the deck of a ship, barking orders to his crew who would jump to it. That was where he was probably most comfortable. He wasn’t used to spending much time with women. He’d admitted it, almost the moment they’d set out that morning.
And he had said, hadn’t he, that they needed to spend some time getting to know each other?
And now he was climbing down and coming round to her side of the carriage, and holding out his hand to help her down, like a true gentleman. In short, doing his best.
As she placed her hand in his, she couldn’t help smiling at him. Even when he was being a bit, well, grumpy, he hadn’t made her feel as if it was her fault for being a lumbering, great, unattractive old maid, the way most men did. On the contrary, he was treating her with all the gallantry she could wish for.
‘Do you wish to go to the library first?’ he asked her rather stiffly. Which she found rather endearing. For nobody else ever asked what she preferred. Grandfather just told her what he wanted her to do and expected her immediate compliance. ‘Or the coffee room?’
‘I should like to go to the coffee room,’ she said. ‘It’s always lovely and warm in there. Mr Jeavons will be able to tell me if the books I have requested have come in yet. And probably bring them to me while we are taking refreshments.’
‘Ah, Captain Bretherton, Miss Hutton,’ cried the landlord, the moment they stepped across the threshold. ‘What a pleasure to see you both. Together.’ He rubbed his hands in that oily way which always made her feel slightly queasy. Not that she’d ever let him know, of course.
She felt Captain Bretherton’s arm stiffen slightly beneath the hand she’d laid upon his sleeve. She could tell, just from that tiny change in him, that he felt the same as she did. Which was the wonderful thing about him. They saw eye to eye over so many things.
‘We have called in to take coffee,’ said Captain Bretherton in a clipped voice.
‘And to collect the latest novel for Miss Hutton to read to Lady Buntingford,’ put in Mr Jeavons with a tone in his voice that put her in mind of a dish of lard. ‘Only just in this morning, and the talk of London, by all accounts. And Miss Hutton could not wait to get her hands on it.’
And that was another thing. He was always talking about her as if she wasn’t right there in the room. As though she had no substance.
‘We will wait in the coffee room,’ she said, removing her hand from Captain Bretherton’s sleeve. ‘You may fetch Lady Buntingford’s order to us there,’ she informed Mr Jeavons imperiously, before stalking down the corridor, yanking off her gloves. Which wasn’t easy when the strings of her reticule seemed determined to wind themselves round her fingers.
Captain Bretherton still managed to reach the room before her, darting round her and opening the door before she had to perform the menial task for herself.
‘Lady Buntingford’s order?’ He leaned close and murmured into her ear as they passed through the doorway together. ‘Didn’t you tell me she could only say a couple of words?’
‘Well, yes, and it’s true...’ she said on a little sigh. He was standing so close to her that she could feel the heat from his body. Which did something peculiar to her knees. And her stomach. It created a sort of wonder...and yearning.
‘Then that means that you have deliberately ordered a racy novel, under the pretext of doing an elderly invalid a good turn.’ He shook his head in mock reproof.
‘Racy? Who said anything about it being racy?’
‘If it is the talk of London, then it must be.’
‘Must it?’ She could feel her cheeks heating. ‘No, probably not... I mean, most of the stories that promise scandal turn out to have heroines who do little more than sit about waiting for some hero to come and rescue them from whichever villain is currently oppressing them. Weeping copiously while they’re at it,’ she said with scorn.
‘Y
ou don’t approve of females weeping?’
‘I would much rather they did something to the purpose. Like...get up and...fight. Or at the very least struggle. Of what use is sitting about weeping?’
‘Well,’ he said after a short reflection, ‘if there was a fire, they could wring their hankies over it and put it out.’
She sucked in a sharp breath. There he was again—that man she’d met in the Pump Room. The one who joked with her. Who made her want to laugh.
‘It sounds,’ she said after only the slightest pause, ‘as though you have read some of those books where the girls do nothing but weep for chapter after chapter, if you can imagine them putting out fires that way.’
‘What are you trying to imply?’ he said in a low growl.
‘What were you?’ she answered pertly.
‘Touché,’ he said, tapping the tip of her nose with one forefinger. ‘However, it is blatantly obvious that you are not the kind of female who would sit down and weep when life throws adversities in your way, are you?’
‘Absolutely not.’ With a toss of her head, she eased her way fully through the door and made for the nearest table. And since they were supposed to be getting to know one another, she might as well confess how very unfeminine she really was. ‘My brother taught me to defend myself, when he knew he was going to have to go away to sea and leave me on my own. We didn’t just pretend to fight on the beach. He made sure I can really fence and box, and shoot a gun. And when he came back on leave, he also taught me how to fight in close quarters with a knife.’ A knife which he’d given her and told her to keep upon her person at all times. She still wore it to this day, buckled round the upper part of her boot, in the sheath he’d also had made for her. Perhaps, if she told Captain Bretherton that she carried it at all times, and knew how to defend herself with it, he might stop complaining about her going about unprotected.
Or perhaps not. He might think it was disgraceful for her to carry a sharp weapon and forbid her to do so any more. People had funny ideas about what was proper for a female to do. She had only to think how shocked Lady Buntingford had been over many things Lizzie had thought perfectly acceptable. And if he disapproved, then she’d have to make a choice—whether to stay true to Sam’s memory by keeping her promise to him to keep his gift to her on her person at all times, or to try to please the man she was hoping to marry, by leaving it off.
She was going to have to feel her way carefully.
‘Do...do you disapprove?’
‘I cannot approve of you pretending to kill revenue men,’ he growled.
‘Oh, but that was only a childish game, Captain Bretherton. Sometimes Sam played the part of a revenue man and I was a smuggler, and sometimes the reverse. He went into the navy himself, don’t forget.’
‘Beg pardon. It’s just that so many people seem to have more sympathy for the kind of men who are, after all, criminals of the worst sort...’
He gave her a long, considering look. And then stepped even closer.
‘Don’t you think you ought to remove your coat? So that you will feel the benefit of the fire?’
‘Oh. Oh, yes, I suppose...’ she began as she drew off her gloves. As she slipped the buttons from their holes, Captain Bretherton went round behind her to help her off with it. He was standing so close that she could swear she could feel his breath, hot on the back of her neck. And suddenly it was not only her coat, but also her bonnet she needed to remove. The strings were far too tight round her neck. It was getting hard to breathe.
‘I take it,’ he said, ‘that you did not weep when your grandfather removed you from Bath?’
What? Bath? They’d been talking about smugglers. And how on earth was she supposed to be able to follow the thread of a conversation with his large, capable hands sliding down her arms as he removed her coat?
‘I have always detested Bath,’ she admitted, though how exactly they’d got back to that, she couldn’t imagine. ‘I was glad to come home.’
‘Did you not feel even the slightest bit sad?’
When she turned round to look at him, she saw that he was taking off his own hat and tucking it under his arm. ‘I know you did not shed any tears, but did you not miss...anything, or anyone you left behind in Bath?’
‘Are you...?’ She sat down rather suddenly, in the nearest chair. ‘You are, you are fishing for compliments!’
He sighed, mournfully, as he took the chair on the other side of the table. ‘I fear I would be wasting my time. You are clearly a hard case.’
‘That is what most people believe,’ she said sadly. ‘That I have not a shred of feminine softness about me.’
‘I did not mean to offend you,’ he said, running his fingers through his hair as though vexed with himself. ‘This is what comes of trying to flirt with you when I have so little experience.’
He stretched out his legs and stuck his hands in his pockets. She couldn’t see his face, but she could imagine, from that pose, that it bore a glum expression.
‘Then don’t flirt with me again,’ she said. ‘I don’t expect it. And to be honest, since I’m not used to it, I don’t really know how to deal with it anyway. Could we not just...?’
‘What? Just what?’ He sat up straight, as though straining towards her.
‘Just be ourselves. Be honest with each other.’
He slumped back down again. ‘Honest.’ He shook his head. ‘Miss Hutton,’ he began. ‘If I were to be completely honest with you...’
And then the door opened to admit Mr Jeavons himself with a couple of books tucked under his arm, closely followed by a waiter bearing their refreshments.
And whatever Captain Bretherton had been about to tell her remained frustratingly unsaid.
Chapter Fifteen
Oh, why did Mr Jeavons have to come in at this precise moment? Harry had been about to tell her something. Something she wasn’t going to like, judging by the tone of his voice. What could it be? Had he decided he didn’t want to marry her, after all? Or had he lied about being an earl to try and impress Grandfather? No, that couldn’t be it. He surely wouldn’t have fabricated the wicked uncle and the grasping cousins, and the debts and all the rest of it.
Perhaps it was that he’d heard he needed to go back to sea in a week’s time?
And why wouldn’t Jeavons just put the books down and go away? Surely, the way Captain Bretherton was glowering up at him—at least she was pretty sure he was glowering from the tilt of his head and the set of his shoulders—and her own fidgety manner must be telling him they wanted to be alone?
And why was he going on and on about all the lovely walks to be had in the area? She’d lived here for most of her life and knew all about the fossils littering the beach round the headland they could reach along the newly constructed promenade. And the gardens created on a series of terraces on that same headland. And had played in the tunnels where the waterfall had its source and had marvelled at the way ice brought down from the moors could stay frozen all year round in certain alcoves in those tunnels.
Had he no sensitivity? Couldn’t he imagine that she might have wanted to tell Captain Bretherton about all those places of interest herself? And show them to him herself?
‘One enters the promenade by the harbour and, for the fee of one penny, visitors can stroll the entire length of bay and gain entrance to the gardens...’
‘Or,’ she said, finally losing patience with the hotel manager, ‘one can go over the moors and reach the headland entirely for free.’
Mr Jeavons drew himself up to his full height. ‘Only by means of a path that is overgrown by gorse bushes, which comes perilously close to the cliff edge, in places. It is a treacherous path, Captain Bretherton,’ he said, turning his shoulder to her. ‘Not at all suitable for a lady.’
‘I know those paths,’ she retorted, ‘like the back of my hand.’
‘Perhaps Miss Hutton does,’ he said to Captain Bretherton, stoking her irritation up to the point of clenching those hands into fists, ‘but it is not advisable to encourage visitors to the area to take risks. There have already been two unfortunate accidents...’ He faltered.
‘Accidents?’ Captain Bretherton sat up straight. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Ah...’ Mr Jeavons finally set down Lizzie’s books on a table by her elbow. ‘It was nothing. Nothing for you to worry about, that is, Captain, I’m sure. One mustn’t dwell on...that is, we don’t want the area to get a reputation for... Jones!’ He suddenly whirled round and snapped his fingers at the waiter, who was still fiddling with the cups and plates. ‘Come along now. Back to the kitchen. There is work to be done.’ He bowed briefly to Lizzie, then Captain Bretherton, and slunk out of the room.
‘What,’ said Captain Bretherton, ‘was that all about?’
‘That,’ Lizzie said with a sigh, ‘was Mr Jeavons letting his tongue running away for a good while before suddenly coming to his senses.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Besides, they weren’t accidents. Not the two cases he mentioned, if that was what he was talking about, and I can’t imagine he meant anything else.’
‘Now you have really confused me.’ He got up and came to stand by her chair.
‘Do we really have to talk about them? They were both terribly upsetting...’
‘Hmm...’ he said. Then went to the table on which the waiter had set out the refreshments and picked up the coffee pot. ‘Sometimes, it helps, you know, to talk about incidents which otherwise have a tendency to prey on the mind.’
The Captain Claims His Lady Page 11
