A Lady Awakened

by Cecilia Grant

  He would grip the sides of the bath when that moment came, and unfold to his full height. Water would sluice off him. It would trickle from his hair, drops dancing in the sunlight that would just then happen to flood the room. And his eyes would come, unerringly, to the woman who watched.

  In the library she pictured this, a forgotten book open on her lap. Over supper, as she speared peas on the tines of her fork. And in her bedroom, in broad brazen daylight, and again when she retired, she lingered over every lush detail of the scene to repeated and shattering satisfaction.

  What had the Romans been thinking, with their Venus? Love ought to have been a man, tall and broad and glistening as he broke the surface, not to drift about on an insipid clamshell as the painters had it, but to stride under his own power out of the waves up onto land, the ocean’s bounty made manifest for every woman in a fifty-mile radius.

  One had things to do. One had a hundred and five more productive ways to spend time than in sinful reverie. But it wasn’t altogether sinful. Images of a love-god rising from the sea gave way, and then somehow conflated themselves with the memory of Mr. Mirkwood as he stood on that cottage threshold, muscled arms tenderly cradling a fragile old man. He’d never looked so powerful. So capable. So suffused with grace and might.

  He would offer to touch her tonight. She would send signals that would prompt him to it, and when he offered, she would permit him, just for a while. He knew the right place. He knew what to do. “Don’t let me lose myself,” she could say, and he would know when to stop. She could trust him with that.

  Then why not with the rest? The query popped unbidden from some impertinent place in her mind. Even her own brain conspired against her now. She let the question hang unanswered, and drifted back to thoughts of long limbs in water.

  HOW WAS your bath?” Mrs. Russell wanted to know the moment he came in. She sat up in bed, sheet clutched carefully at her shoulders.

  But he was beyond polite remarks about the petty details of his day. He strode to her, set his hands at either side of her jaw, and bent to kiss her, full on the mouth.

  She was startled, clearly. She didn’t shrink away, though, or even stiffen. Her mouth accommodated his, soft and steady, until he drew back for breath.

  “I’m sorry to have put you through all that today.” He half-knelt on the bed, one foot on the floor, hands still cupping her face. “But I’m glad you were there. You braced me up beyond telling.”

  “I’m glad too. You were so brave.” Her hands came up to find a grip on his wrists. The sheet fell away to expose her and she didn’t even notice.

  “Brave? You must be joking.” He tilted her face up and kissed her chin. “I was frightened nearly out of my wits.”

  “Yes.” Her grave dark eyes watched him on a downslant. “Frightened, and so brave. I was proud of you.”

  “Enough of this.” He pulled away and started on his buttons. “Let’s see to your seed, and then I’d like to hear your opinion of a new idea I’ve had.”

  The seed changed hands with more dispatch even than usual. She helped, sweet generous woman, arching against him and tangling her fingers in his hair. But then she always had liked it to go quickly. Willingly he obliged her, charging to his crisis with a haste of which he would surely be embarrassed, had his partner been anyone but Mrs. Russell.

  “Now it’s your turn to be pleased,” he said afterward, stretching out beside her. “I’ve had a thought as to the financing of this dairy scheme.”

  “Dairy scheme.” He hadn’t stopped to put out the candles, and he could see by her expression he’d taken her aback.

  “I told you I wanted your opinion of an idea, recall? But perhaps you’re worn out from your exertions of the day. I can wait until morning if you like.”

  “No …” Her lips compressed for a moment. Her whole face went fierce with concentration, like a drover trying to get a hundred head of oxen to change direction. “No, I would like very much to hear your idea. Is it a new argument by which to persuade your father?”

  “In part, yes, because it will reduce his share of the expense. I think of seeking investors.”

  “Investors.” She slipped her hand beneath her cheek, propping her head partway up. Here came the eager curiosity a man could learn to crave. “As people invest in a merchant vessel, do you mean, and take a share of the profits?”

  “Precisely. It’s long since time I called on some of the neighborhood’s better families anyway. If I could fix them with a stake in the venture’s success, then I expect they’d be inclined to direct any cowless tenants to buy from us. Perhaps to buy from us themselves, if we were to produce some special variety of cheese, or any other thing not readily available.”

  “Emphasize the aspect of benefiting our poorer neighbors. Particularly if you’re speaking to ladies.” She’d got all her oxen turned the right way now, and all the force of her attention was on him. “That will be more palatable than if you were to frame it only in terms of commerce. Speak of the hard work involved, and how that will promote virtue among the laborers.”

  “Virtue. By all means.”

  “And have you thought of making your shares small? That way your wealthy investors could buy a dozen or more, while even a person of modest means might buy one, and feel that same sense of stake in your success. Your dairy could have champions in every house in the neighborhood.” But no better champion, ever, than the one who lay facing him, her eyes warm with the satisfaction of wrestling a cloud-castle down onto solid ground.

  Lucky the man who persuaded her to remarry. He could go through life forging one nebulous idea after the next, and know that she would hammer each one into practical shape.

  His hand reached across the pillow, and two fingertips brushed over her smooth cheek. “I’ll miss this, you know. When I’ve gone back to London.” To say these words aloud periodically—to remind himself he must go back—made a worthy exercise in discipline. “This business of planning and talking. It’s not a way I ever thought to spend my time in bed. But I’ll miss it all the same.”

  He made her glow. Were he just meeting her, he would mistake her flush of incandescence for carnal invitation. And he would proceed, and be hauled up short for his mistake.

  Instead he brought his fingertips back to touch his own lips, then hers. A chaste goodnight, absurd between a man and his mistress, preposterous between a woman and her hired stud, but suitable, perhaps, for two ill-matched strangers who’d improbably found their way to friendship.

  Chapter Fourteen

  YOU’RE SURE she knew what it meant, him calling you by that name?” Sheridan sat at the dressing-table, paging through a book of plates that showed mourning attire for fall and winter weather.

  “She certainly knew it meant something improper, and I as good as told her the rest. I said I meant to keep Mr. James Russell from inheriting.” Martha paced to the bay window and set her palm against a warm pane of glass. Not so warm as it had been one month since. “We must hope she desires that outcome as well.”

  “Living on the next property, all this time!” One could picture the maid shaking her head. “Mrs. Kearney never said a thing.”

  “I commend her discretion.” She turned, letting her hand fall from the window. “Do you know, Sheridan, for as unsavory as the last few weeks may have been, I’ve seen so much of noble nature in all the people about me. Mr. Keene, for example. I had a most gracious letter from him only this morning, assuring me he’s working to dissuade Mr. James Russell’s visit. Why should he go to the trouble? He scarcely knows me. It’s a kindness beyond anything I could expect.”

  “Do you think he may succeed in preventing the visit?” Sheridan used a narrow slip of paper to mark one page as she flipped to the next.

  “I begin to hope he may.” She paced again to the room’s other end, her restless hand trailing over the wallpaper. “If an heir presumptive were truly concerned with the prospect of a widow’s defrauding him, he would come in the first month, wouldn�
��t he, to hinder her effecting the sort of scheme I’ve been about.”

  “Or he might come at confinement, as you said before, to hinder you in other schemes.”

  “True. But that gives Mr. Keene more months to work upon him.” With one finger she stirred a tray of little-worn jewels that sat on the table. “I can’t help but be hopeful. So many things have been aligning themselves with my wishes of late.”

  The girl’s eyes rose briefly to hers, and fell again to the book. “You’re keeping watch of the calendar, I suppose?” She spoke in low, tentative tones, as though unsure of whether she ought to broach the subject.

  “I’m trying to think of anything else.” Martha speared an agate ring and turned it round twice on her finger. “Today makes four weeks since the start of my last courses.” She needn’t say so aloud. An abigail knew the mistress’s private business as well as she knew her own.

  “Does Mr. Mirkwood know?” Sheridan turned a page without marking it.

  “Not the exact date. But it’s been three weeks and a half now since he began calling. He must have some idea.”

  “Will he say anything, do you suppose? Or will he wait for you to tell him he needn’t call anymore?”

  Here was something else from which her imagination shrank. The way their bargain would end. She tapped a fingernail against the agate and finally shook her head. “I’m long past attempting to predict what Mr. Mirkwood will do.” In one motion she stripped off the ring and cast it back on the tray, where it pirouetted on end for several seconds before clattering down flat. “Now, must you mark so many plates? You know I only want two gowns and a spencer, the plainest possible.”

  MR. BARROW owes his life to you, I don’t doubt.” Granville sat with his hands folded on the table before him, his tea and toast sadly neglected. “I shall see that Sir Frederick hears of it.”

  Theo spooned raspberry jam from the pot to his own toast. “He owes his life to sheer luck. I cannot now look back on that picnic with anything but shame, knowing he lay so unwell not a half-mile off while we enjoyed ourselves in light pursuits.”

  “I bear that shame as well.” Sun slanted into the breakfast parlor, bathing the agent in mellow light. “Management is a new undertaking to you, but it’s my profession. I ought to have known what was his condition.”

  “In future you shall.” With a butterknife he spread the jam to all corners of his toast. “I mean to work up some scheme by which the other laborer families will look in on him, if he ever falls ill again, and keep you apprised. Certainly I cannot afford to lose him just now.” His blood hummed and tingled as though tiny benevolent hornets were racing through his body. The moment had come. “I’ve had an idea for a new use to make of this land, and I shall be wanting his expertise nearly as much as I’ll be wanting yours.”

  Granville was all attention. He sat forward in his chair and listened, plucking out his ever-present pencil to take down a note or two. He agreed as to the pitiable condition of milk and butter available for local purchase. He opined that all but the wealthiest wheat-farmers would always be at a disadvantage, not having the option to hold back their grain and wait for prices to rise. He nodded thoughtfully over the idea of selling in Brighton, though he cautioned they must ascertain what sort of products were already brought to market there. And at the bit about investors, he immediately wanted to make columns of numbers, working out what would be the cost of a share and how soon a shareholder might expect to see some income.

  “I think of five and twenty cattle to start, and two bulls, and I’d hope to pay no more than eight pounds a head.” His spoon tapped deftly round the shell of his egg, a pleasing industrious sound to go with the agent’s scratching pencil and murmured calculations. “We might purchase at the fair in East Grinstead come December, though I understand most of the cattle there are brought from Wales. I rather like the sound of these cows from Jersey: good milk-producers, and small, so they won’t need as much fodder as your larger breeds.”

  Granville put down his pencil and sat back. “Well.” Finally he picked up his tea. “You have been studying on the subject, haven’t you?”

  Theo took off the top of his egg and spooned out a bite. “Mrs. Russell’s steward—the fellow who got me started with the thatching—has been helpful. And I’ve acquired a few documents. I don’t doubt my father will have a hundred questions, when I ask him to advance this money, and I’d like to be prepared with as many answers as I can.”

  “I won’t discourage you from educating yourself.” The agent sipped more tea and set down his cup. “However you won’t need to persuade Sir Frederick of anything. When he arranged your stay here, he authorized releasing a certain amount of money in support of any such schemes you might conceive.”

  “He did?” His spoon stopped, suspended halfway between his mouth and the plate. “He never said anything to me.”

  “No, and he asked me not to broach it either. He didn’t want you looking for a way to spend the money. He preferred that the idea come first, the financing after.”

  “Good Lord.” Silver clinked on china as he set the spoon down. “What on earth gave him the notion I would ever come up with any scheme?”

  Granville lifted one shoulder, the suggestion of a smile just visible on his lips. “He’s had six and twenty years to observe you. He must have formed some idea of your capabilities.”

  “Good Lord,” he said again. Beyond the agent, dust motes swirled idly in a sunbeam, inviting a man to drift away in thought. He would have laid money he knew exactly what Sir Frederick thought of his capabilities. Indeed he would have concurred with the assessment. Even now his father’s good opinion—if such it was—felt odd and ill-fitted, like a borrowed coat.

  A coat borrowed from a woman, at that. None of this would have happened without the influence of Mrs. Russell. Would it? He might have wished, vaguely, for people to live a more comfortable life on his land, but he would never have applied himself to bettering their state. Would he?

  “In fact you have funds enough at your disposal to forgo the investors altogether.” Granville sawed his toast into strips, his appetite at last making an appearance now Theo’s had been forgot. “But I confess I like the idea too much to recommend your dropping it. It strikes me as characteristic of the kind of landowner you will be.”

  For an instant he wanted to laugh. Then the instant passed. There was nothing ludicrous, after all, in his being thought a certain kind of landowner. The kind who knew how to weave disparate interests together to make something for the benefit of all. He did, perhaps, have that talent.

  “Then let me try your opinion on another possible use for Sir Frederick’s funds.” He reached for his tea. “The Reverend Mr. Atkins of Seton Park has spoken to me of the school he’s starting. What do you think of encouraging our laborers to send their children to him?”

  MORE CALLERS came. The magistrate Mr. Rivers and his wife that afternoon; a Miss and Mrs. Landers the next. The calls were of a proper duration, and the conversation just what it ought to be. Everyone approved Mr. Mirkwood’s benevolent aims. Everyone was pleased to know her. They insisted—such unsuspected kindness—that she must send to them for help with tenants, or servants, or any other matters difficult for a young lady to manage on her own. All but strangers until Mr. Mirkwood had rousted them out, they were true neighbors of a sudden, ready to look out for her interest in the name of duty and, perhaps, something more.

  “I’ve never known a man to promote affection the way you do,” she said to him the night after the Landers ladies had called. “Not only toward yourself, I mean, but among people generally. I think this will be a better community for your having come.” Again she hadn’t sent the right signals, and he’d gone to his satisfaction alone. Likely he’d long since given up hope of bringing her with him.

  “Go back to the bit about my promoting affection toward myself.” He lay beside her, sated, his hands absently plaiting a lock of her hair. “Do I do that, indeed?”

&nb
sp; “Of course you do. Everyone who’s called has spoken of you so graciously. They’re fond of you already.” Coward. That was neither what he wanted to hear, nor what she truly wanted to say.

  You have not known him four weeks. Any feelings a lady might develop for a gentleman in that span can only be illusory. The admonition had truth behind it, and still, what but affection could make her wish she might say words more gratifying to them both?

  Touch me, she might say. Promote what feelings you will. The signals weren’t working, and she wouldn’t have many more opportunities. Thirty days now since the start of her last courses. Not unprecedented. Failure could announce itself at any time. Enough days without failure, too, would signal the end of their relation.

  She closed her eyes, bringing on a citrus-scented darkness with starlike pinpoints of pleasure: the thousand tiny tugs to her scalp as he laid her strands of hair over and over each other. Occasionally his fingertips came in accidental, exquisite contact with her skin.

  Touch me. Tongue to the back of her top teeth would be the beginning. She could even say it with her eyes closed if she wished.

  “You’ll come tomorrow, won’t you?” Of a sudden his hands left her hair. “When I meet with the laborers? I’ve asked Granville to be there and I’d like your presence as well, since you’ve been in on the thing from the start.” When she opened her eyes she saw him up on his elbows, regarding her as though he meant to will her into attendance.