by Jane Feather
“Of course it is,” she interrupted with vigor. “I will go and visit Julie straightway, and you must find yourself lodgings. I will tell her parents that you have removed from the house now that we are back. ’Twill sound quite reasonable.”
Julie received her friend with an enthusiasm that could not mask her low spirits. Henrietta paid punctilious and dutiful respects to Lady Morris, talked of Spain and the strangeness of the Spanish court, sipped an elderberry cordial, mentioned casually that Master Osbert was leaving Sir Daniel’s roof for his own, and pretended that she had not noticed Julie’s sudden pallor at the mention of his name, or the tightening of Lady Morris’s already thin lips.
“Well, I daresay you girls have much to talk about,” Lady Morris said after about half an hour. “I have certain matters to attend to, but I give leave for you to remain with Lady Drummond, Julia, if she is not anxious to be gone.”
“Not at all, madam,” Henrietta said demurely. “I am most grateful for the permission.”
Julie murmured her own gratitude, but she kept her eyes lowered until her mother had left the room.
“God’s grace,” said Henrietta in imitation of her husband. “Are ye really kept so close that you must have leave to be alone with a visitor in your parents’ house?”
“Oh, ’tis awful, Harry! You do not know what has happened—”
“Oh, yes I do,” she broke in. “Will has told me the whole, and we have come up with a plan.”
Julie listened to Henrietta’s forceful presentation of this plan. “If ’twere ever discovered…” She gasped. “I cannot imagine what would happen.”
“I can,” Harry said a trifle grimly. “But there is risk in all things worthwhile. If you wish me to help you both, I will do so with all my heart. But if ye’ve not the stomach for it—” She let the sentence hang.
Julie was silent for a minute, her face pale. “I know ’tis wrong to defy one’s parents,” she began hesitantly, “but I cannot see why it should be wrong to love someone.”
“It is not. ’Tis your parents who are in error, and in such an instance ’tis not wrong to defy them.” Since this was the maxim by which Henrietta had conducted her life up to now, she pronounced it with utter conviction, and Julie nodded, much comforted.
“But what of Sir Daniel?” she ventured. “What will he say?”
Henrietta shifted uncomfortably on her chair. “Well, I think ’twould be best if he did not know of it. It should be between the three of us. He is a parent, you understand, and a parent of daughters, so I think he might view the matter a little differently.”
“Oh, dear,” Julie whispered. “I do not think I have your courage, Harry.” She sat silent for a minute, then suddenly spoke with resolution. “Yes, I do have. I will do it.”
“Oh, bravo! Now all that remains is for us to receive your mother’s permission for you to visit me alone.”
Either Lady Morris felt she could begin to ease the strictness of her daughter’s confinement, or she simply felt that Sir Daniel Drummond’s wife could only be an unexceptionable companion for Julia, but she gave leave for the visiting and the plan went into action.
Daniel first became aware of something a little odd when he returned home one afternoon and surprised his wife and Will in deep conclave in the parlor. That would not ordinarily have caused him a second’s questioning, except that Harry jumped away from Will as her husband entered the room, and two bright flags of color flew in her cheeks.
“Oh, Daniel, you startled me,” she offered in explanation of this peculiar reaction. “D’ye wish for ale, or wine, perhaps? Shall I tell Hilde to bring some?”
“There’s both upon the sideboard,” he reminded her on a dry note. “Good day to ye, Will.”
“Good day, sir.” Will stood up a little awkwardly. “I was just leaving.”
“Don’t go on my account,” Daniel said. “Take wine with me.”
Will could not refuse the invitation without discourtesy, and a stilted conversation then ensued that puzzled Daniel mightily. Why on earth should these two, with whom he had shared so much intimacy, be behaving as if in the presence of a stranger? The opportune arrival of his children, newly released from the schoolroom, brought some ease as their cheerful prattle took over the conversation, and Will and Henrietta encouraged their chatter until Will could decently take his leave.
“Will you be walking tomorrow, Harry?” Will made the apparently casual inquiry as he went to the door.
“In the afternoon,” she replied as casual as he. “By the sea wall, I believe.”
“Can we come?” Nan piped up.
“Yes, indeed.” Her sister added her own urging. “We have not walked there this age.”
“Not tomorrow,” Henrietta said. “We will go there the next day, if you wish it.”
“But why can we not?” they chorused, unused to being excluded from such excursions.
“Because Henrietta says not, and that should be sufficient,” Daniel put in, inadvertently rescuing Henrietta, who had been desperately searching for a convincing reason. The truth was that she would not permit them to participate in any way in the clandestine meetings of Will and Julia. In many ways, their company would have provided the perfect foil, the perfect image of innocence, to those walks and ’accidental’ meetings, but the idea offended her deeply.
“But that’s silly,” Lizzie unwisely muttered. “There has to be a proper reason.”
“Your pardon, Lizzie, I did not catch that,” Daniel said pleasantly. “Could you repeat it, please?”
“I do not think she is going to do anything so foolish,” Henrietta said, seizing the child’s hand. “Come and say farewell to Will.” She hauled the far from reluctant Lizzie outside. “That was a stupidly impertinent thing to say, wasn’t it?”
“But there does have to be a reason,” Lizzie persisted, knowing it was safe to do so with this audience.
“Yes, there does, but ’tis not one I am prepared to vouchsafe,” Henrietta said. “And you will have to accept that, I fear.”
“All right,” Lizzie said after a considering silence. “But I knew there was a reason.” Deciding that it would perhaps be imprudent to return to the parlor immediately, she went upstairs.
Will exchanged a rueful grin with Henrietta as they walked out into the street. “She’s very like you, Harry.”
“I know,” she said, strolling with him to the corner. “Unfortunately, the characteristics she shares with me are those that her father does not look upon with a tolerant eye…at least, not with his children,” she amended. “He does not seem to mind them in me.”
“That is fortunate,” Will said, chuckling. “But I daresay he feels ’tis a lost cause.”
“I daresay.”
They both laughed, and Will hugged her. “I will meet you and Julie at the sea wall tomorrow.”
“Aye.” She touched his face lightly. “’Tis good to see you happy again, love.”
Daniel stood in the open front door, watching them, wondering if he were jealous of that spontaneous, easy affection. They were both so young and vital, so sure of each other, had such a shared history. Perhaps it was not unreasonable to experience a lover’s pang at the special quality of their relationship. Then Henrietta turned, saw him standing in the doorway, and gathered up her skirts to run smiling to join him.
“Did ye come looking for me?” She stood on tiptoe to kiss him.
“You did seem to be taking a powerful long time to bid Will farewell,” he replied, putting an arm around her shoulders, enjoying the pliant warmth of her as she eagerly leaned into his embrace. He banished the lover’s pang as a piece of arrant foolishness.
“I just thought to walk a few steps with him. ’Tis a beautiful afternoon. Shall we walk a little?”
“If you wish it,” he acquiesced, turning with her into the square. “What did you do with my impertinent daughter?”
“She went abovestairs. It probably seemed to her the most prudent thing to do in th
e circumstances.”
Daniel laughed slightly. “Probably it was. But why may they not accompany you on your walk tomorrow?”
She hadn’t been expecting the question and could not help the sudden stiffening of her shoulders beneath the embracing arm. “Oh, Julie and I wish to talk secrets,” she said, recovering.
“Ahh.” Daniel found nothing strange in the explanation, but he did wonder what had caused that uncomfortable reaction to his question. “Are they secrets that cannot be shared with your husband?” he ventured.
Color flooded her cheeks. “Why…why should you think…well, perhaps…perhaps they are…but…”
Daniel stopped in the street and turned her to face him. His eyebrows lifted quizzically. “Harry, just what mischief do you brew?”
She put her hands to her burning cheeks and cursed this inability to lie to him convincingly. She had never suffered this difficulty with anyone else. “No mischief.” She gulped. “But they are Julia’s secrets.” That at least was the truth and she felt her flush die down.
“I see.” He let the subject drop and they continued their walk, Henrietta recovering to chat in her customary fashion, to listen to his account of the latest doings at the court, and to question him with sharp intelligence on his own views as to what was going to happen now that the king had made definite plans to sail for Scotland.
“I am not to sail with the king,” Daniel told her. “He would have me remain here for the present. I and others are charged with the organizing of a Royalist army here, ready to sail for England as soon as it is needed.”
“In what way needed?”
“To join with the Scots reformed army in an invasion of England,” he said levelly.
Henrietta shivered but said nothing.
Daniel’s arm tightened around her shoulders. “It means our time in Flanders will soon be at an end. We shall breathe English air again.” He looked down at her seriously. “Will you be glad to be home in Kent, elf?”
“I will be glad to have the time to make it my home,” she responded with thoughtful candor. “We were not there many weeks before we went to London, and then we came here almost immediately. And while we were there, I felt it to be your home, not mine.”
“And will that still be so?”
“Nay, ’twill be quite different,” she averred. “Because it is different between us now.”
“Mmmm,” he murmured, “that it is.”
“I think it might be wise for us to retrace our steps,” Henrietta declared. “Just so that we may demonstrate the difference in a degree of privacy.”
And in the seclusion of the bedchamber she offered him such overwhelming evidence of the difference that he forgot the afternoon’s oddities. Unfortunately, the amnesia did not last for long.
Chapter 18
“Oh, I do beg your pardon, Sir Daniel!” Breathlessly, Will excused himself.
“Think nothing of it,” Daniel replied, recovering from the effects of having been nearly knocked off his feet at his own front door. “Y’are in somewhat of a hurry, I gather.” He regarded the scarlet-faced, redheaded young man with a questioning quirk of an eyebrow. “Were you going in or out?”
“Out, sir. I have been visiting Harry.”
“I rather thought that must be the case,” Daniel said gently. “It generally is. Well, do not let me detain you, my friend, since y’are in such haste.”
Will, much flustered, tried to admit that he was in a hurry whilst disclaiming that Daniel could in any way be detaining him. He managed to tie himself into such knots that his companion stared at him in astonishment. When the young man had finally taken his leave, Daniel went in search of his wife, who might conceivably be able to shed some light on this extraordinary behavior.
He found her in the January-bare garden at the rear of the house, cutting holly. “Just what is the matter with Will, Henrietta?”
She started at the question, dropping the armful of berry-laden foliage to scatter richly at her feet. “I don’t know what you could mean, Daniel. Why should anything be the matter with Will?”
“He appears to find the sight of me a trifle unsettling these days,” he said carefully, bending to pick up the prickly branches. “Which seems strange, considering how often he is in the house. Indeed, I begin to wonder why he bothered to move out.”
Henrietta pinkened. “D’ye object to his presence?”
“No.” Daniel shook his head, carefully filling her arms with the retrieved foliage. “Not in the least. Should I?”
The pink deepened and the brown eyes slipped away from his steady gaze. “Of course not.”
“Henrietta, if something is going on, I think ’twould be politic in you to apprise me of it sooner rather than later,” he said. “Somehow, I have the impression these last weeks that y’are hip deep in mischief again, and it is making me very uneasy.”
“Y’are not suggesting I might be behaving improperly with Will?” she exclaimed, seizing on this absurdity as a convenient way of altering the direction of the conversation.
“You are always in his company,” Daniel replied.
“But he is my friend.”
“That is what is making me uneasy. You wouldn’t be trying to help him in some way, by any chance?”
She began to polish a deep green leaf with a gloved finger. “Why should Will need my help?”
“If he has a grain of common sense, he will ensure that he does not,” Daniel replied, looking down on the bent head, resisting the urge to kiss the soft exposed nape, to run his finger along the groove in the slender column of her neck, where curled feathery corn silk-colored tendrils.
“That is not very kind,” she mumbled.
“The truth often isn’t.”
“I do not know what you are talking about. I must arrange these before dinner…Julia is here…There is a shoulder of mutton with redcurrant sauce, which I know you like so I hope you have an appetite.” Rattling on in this fashion, she hurried across the garden and back into the house, leaving Daniel even more mystified than ever, and even more uneasy.
He did not really believe that Will and Henrietta were conducting themselves as anything but friends, despite his occasional pang of envy at the special nature of that friendship—a dimension he could never have himself with Harry, based as it was upon such a shared past. But whenever he came upon them together these days, instant constraint sprang up. It had been so since their return from Madrid in September, and the only explanation he could think of was that they shared a secret from which he was excluded. Daniel Drummond did not like that explanation in the least.
Frowning, he followed Henrietta into the house. Nan and Lizzie were engaged in some competition on the stairs. It seemed to involve constant jumping, considerable excitement, and not a little altercation. Irritably, he administered a sharp rebuke that sent them upstairs shooting hurt looks at him over their shoulders.
He turned toward the parlor and paused, his hand on the latch. There was no mistaking the urgent quality to the low voices coming through the oak. He rattled the latch loudly before he lifted it and pushed open the door, saying, “Henrietta, those children are not to be permitted to play in the hall. Where is Mistress Kierston? Ah, I give you good day, Julia.” He bowed to the young woman, who had jumped up from her chair at his entrance and curtsied, blushing. For some reason, the very sight of him these days seemed to put everyone to the blush, Daniel thought humorlessly.
“She’s at church. I did not think they were doing any harm,” Henrietta said.
“They were making an unseemly amount of noise.” He walked to the sideboard. “If you do not wish to take charge of them, then they must accompany Mistress Kierston to her devotions. May I pour you a glass of wine, Julia?”
“No…no, I thank you, sir,” Julia murmured uncomfortably. “I was just leaving.”
“But you were to stay for dinner,” Henrietta protested.
“No…no, I cannot, really. But I thank you.” Julia headed for the door
. “Perhaps you could visit me tomorrow, Harry.”
Henrietta accompanied her friend to the front door without demur and offered no excuse for her husband’s ill temper. She knew the reason for it, and sharing that knowledge would do nothing for Julia’s already fragile equilibrium.
“I am sorry the children were noisy,” she said in an effort to placate Daniel on her return to the parlor. “I did not realize it would annoy you so. But ’twas quite my fault.”
Daniel looked at her over the rim of his wineglass. What on earth had she been whispering about with Julia in such intense fashion? At the moment she looked as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, so demure with her hands clasped in front of her, her head a little to one side, her voice softly anxious.
“What are you up to?” he demanded.
Henrietta decided rapidly upon the combination of attack and half truth. “I am not up to anything, but I have told you that Julia has certain…well, certain private matters to talk over with me, and now you have frighted her with your bad temper. ’Twas not at all courteous. And it was not just to be vexed with the girls simply because you were in ill humor.”
Daniel gave up. It was perfectly reasonable for Julia to confide in Henrietta, and they would hardly be confidences that would interest him. The girl was probably in love, or in some parental trouble. And whatever was going on between Master Osbert and Henrietta would presumably be revealed all in good time. Whatever it was could not possibly be too important.
“Just how often does Mistress Kierston go to church these days?” he asked, as if there had been no acrimony in the last minutes.
“Once, sometimes twice, a day,” Henrietta replied, barely missing a beat as the mood inexplicably changed. “Today, there is a preacher come from London and she wished to hear him. I understood him to be a proponent of hellfire and brimstone, a doctrine that appeals to Mistress Kierston.”
“’Tis not a doctrine she has been successful in imparting to her charges,” Daniel observed with a wry smile. “I will fetch them for dinner.” He went abovestairs and Henrietta, relieved but with the uncomfortable feeling that the relief was only temporary, went into the kitchen to give order to the cook and Hilde.
