“Wimbourne ordered thirty settings of Perusia ware.” Max slammed the carriage door behind himself and rapped on the roof to start. “A triumph for your work, my love. He has a discerning eye.”
“Yes, but—” She gazed at him in bewilderment. He was facing straight ahead, his expression calm but somehow forbidding. “Who is Mrs. Bradford?”
Max was as still as stone. “My aunt.”
Bianca’s eyes widened. His aunt who took him in after his mother’s death. Bianca had assumed the aunt had also passed away, but apparently that was not the case. “Why did His Grace ask about her?”
“She came to visit me in Oxford a few times, and once Wimbourne met her at the theater.” There was something oddly mechanical about his words. “Wimbourne never forgets a woman. He’ll be asking about you until his dying day.”
“But . . .” She tried to restrain her curiosity and her dismay, that he’d offered to tell her anything about himself at Vauxhall, and yet barely mentioned his aunt. “Are you estranged from her?” she finally burst out in unbearable curiosity.
“I’ve not seen her in a long time,” he said after a moment.
And Bianca suddenly understood. He’d been a rake and a gambler. His aunt, who had tried to get him a start in a respectable profession, must have been deeply disappointed by that.
That softened her temper, and revived her sympathy. He’d lost his mother, his grandfather, and then his aunt had turned against him. She put her hand on his. “I’m sorry Wimbourne asked about her.”
His fingers convulsed around hers. “He’s got no tact at all. I’m surprised he didn’t ask something worse, like if we’d care to join him and his latest mistress at the opera.”
Bianca smiled, squeezing his hand. Max smiled, too, a trifle ruefully. “I would have said yes,” she confided. “I’ve never seen an opera.”
“Ah.” His thumb rubbed her knuckles as he smiled at her, looking more like his usual self. “I can remedy that, and without having to endure Wimbourne’s ceaseless prattle.”
She laughed, and he grinned back. When she made a point of resting her head on his shoulder, she felt the tension melt out of him. And as they drove back to the house in Farley Street, she made a silent promise to her husband that she would never be so faithless or disloyal, as his family had been. Tates were made of sterner stuff. Together, they would build a new family, and find happiness there.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Their London trip was over. Bianca had already written to her father that the visit had been a great success. They had taken a number of orders from prominent people, which would please Papa immensely. Both the showroom near Bond Street and the little shop in Cheapside had been let, and builders engaged to refurbish both. Max had even got Bartholomew Markham to settle his bill, and delivered the dinnerware they had borrowed for the party. Despite all that, though, Bianca could not deny that she was glad to be going home.
She wondered more than ever about her husband and his history, but at the same time she knew she had misjudged him in the past, and that now she owed him some patience. After what he had related about his family, she sensed it was not a happy story, and it would be unfair for her to pry into it and make him tell her.
For his part, Max wished intensely that Wimbourne had kept his damned mouth shut. It had made Bianca look at him with pity and concern, which he didn’t deserve. It was still better than the alternative, the look of horror and revulsion he feared she would give him if she knew the truth, so he said nothing, even though it felt like a lie.
Damn it. He hadn’t wanted Bianca to know anything about his aunt, not yet—perhaps not ever. Half of him still argued for winning her heart first and then telling her all. Half of him wanted to take every word to his grave; it was an ugly story, and as things stood now there was no reason Bianca needed to know.
He had heard nothing more of Croach, nor had Leake found any sign of him. If the man was in London, he was lying lower than usual. When their coach rumbled out of London, north toward Staffordshire, Max breathed a silent sigh of relief. The notes he could ignore, and there was every chance the man outside the shop in Cheapside had been someone else entirely.
They reached Stoke on Trent and found the quaint little market town transformed. Large tents ringed the green, and nearby shops had thrown up awnings and set out tables. Pens of livestock were visible beyond the tents, and crowds thronged the streets, spilling from taverns and dancing to the tune of some fiddlers and cheering at an exhibition boxing match on the green.
“Oh my,” gasped Bianca in surprise, throwing up the window shade and leaning out. “I forgot about Stoke wakes!”
“Wakes?” Max moved to the opposite seat, to see better.
“A country fair,” she explained. “I suppose it used to be a saint’s day but now it’s nothing to do with the church. Oh, Papa must be beside himself!”
“Why?” Max gazed out with interest. He’d been to a country fair only once, the year they lived with his grandfather. Old Maxim had gone for the ale tent, and Max’s mother had taken him to see the races and bought him hot cross buns from a man with a cart. She had denied him watching the cock fighting, but paid sixpence for a hoop for him to race with the other children.
At his question, Bianca sighed. “All the workmen will be here and not at the factory. There is nothing Papa can say to deter them. He offered extra wages to anyone who worked, or more days free at Christmas, all to no avail. And we’ve brought so many new orders, too.”
“How long do the wakes last?”
“At least a week. After a few days, when everyone will have spent their money, some will come back to work.” She made a face. “Some will stay until they’ve drunk it all away, and will be useless for work for some time.” She shook her finger at him. “And it shall hurt your Fortuna ware, you know. Every man you might have taken on for it will be drunk and indolent for at least a fortnight.”
Max laughed. “Everyone deserves a spot of fun.” He looked at her mischievously. “Let’s stay a bit.”
She blinked. “What? Before going home?”
“It’s early still,” he countered. “Send the carriage and servants on to Marslip. We can hire a gig.” It was only five miles to Marslip, and on a fine summer day, they could walk if necessary.
Her lips parted, and then she slowly smiled. “All right. Let’s!”
They stopped at the inn, to change clothes and freshen up. Max told Lawrence to send back the gig after he got everything else to Marslip, and gave him and Jennie permission to return to the fair. From the man’s wide grin, Max thought Percy Willoughby would never get back his valet.
Although he had savored the sight of Bianca in her London finery—particularly that black gown she’d worn to Vauxhall—Max thought he’d never seen her look better than when she came down to the tap room, wearing one of her old day dresses with her hair tucked up under a cap and broad straw hat. She was just as beautiful as ever in faded linen.
At the sight of him, she smiled broadly—and his heart felt strangely light in his chest. He realized he was smiling back at her when she stopped in front of him.
“I hardly recognized you, out of your velvet coats,” she teased.
He grinned. He’d also put on an older suit of wool and linen. If the Stoke wakes were anything like the Lincolnshire fair, it was not a place for fine clothing. “And now I look a dreadful fright to you?”
She blushed. “No!”
He leaned closer as he led her out the door, back into the bustling street. “I very much hope not. You, Mrs. St. James, look perfectly splendid to me.”
They strolled through the town. He bought meat pies from a peddler, ale from the tavern, and they wandered through the tents set up on the green with all sorts of things. They laughed at a man with a monkey, nibbling their pies, and placed penny bets on a horse race, which they both lost.
Bianca was stopped every few feet by someone from the factory, and she introduced Max easily and warmly. My
husband, she said, over and over, with a smile and sometimes a fond glance at him. Her hand was on his arm, and when the monkey leapt at her, she pressed closer to him and laughed. Max’s heart was weightless, suffused with light and something he hesitated to name.
And then they came upon the cricket pitch.
A group of people were milling around the open ground before the woods, some with bats in hand. Three men were laying a rope for the boundary while others set the wickets. There was an air of anticipation, and one person was collecting wagers.
Bianca stopped in her tracks. “They’re still forming sides,” she said, waving one arm in the air. “Amelia!”
One of the young women looked up, and came running over. “You’re back! And just in time, too. We need good bowlers. Gemma can’t play this year.” She waved one hand at another woman, who held a baby in her arms.
Bianca laughed and began tucking up her skirts. “I’m lamentably out of practice.“
“We’ll be forced to rely on Anne if you don’t play,” retorted her friend.
“You’re going to play?” Max asked in astonishment. He had heard of an all-female game of cricket, several years ago at Hambledon, but never women playing with men.
Bianca took off her hat and handed it to him. “Of course! We go against the Mannox potteries every year.”
“Those are Mannox men?”
“And women,” put in Bianca. “Mostly Mannox workers, although they always get Tall Bob the bargeman to join them.”
“Tom Mannox is playing,” added her friend. “He asked about you, Bianca.”
Bianca rolled her eyes, and Max paused. “Why?”
“He fancied her,” said Amelia with a giggle. “And only partly for her bowling.”
“Amelia,” said Bianca in exasperation.
“Right! Are you a better batsman or bowler, sir?”
Max began to smile. “Batsman.”
“Oh my, George will be delighted by that!” The woman, Amelia, clapped her hands together and ran back to the group, calling out that Miss Tate—she swiftly corrected herself, to Max’s private pleasure—and Mr. St. James would play as well. The pace of wagering grew considerably brisker.
“Are you any good?” Bianca asked directly. She had pulled up her skirts into her pockets, and retied her fichu, winding the long ends around her back. It outlined her figure beautifully.
“Tolerably.” Max shed his coat and waistcoat, dropping his hat atop them.
She didn’t look satisfied. “I want to win, you know. If you’re only tolerable—”
He laughed and snatched her hand to his lips for a swift kiss, which seemed to shock her. “Trust me.” He strode off toward the fellow with the bats, turning up his sleeves.
They had enough interested players to form a full eleven, and a coin toss relegated the Perusia players, under the captainship of George Tucker from the throwing house, to the field. There was a brief argument about the wickets, with some alleging they were too close together, but that was resolved and the first innings began. Gemma Tucker with the new baby settled down to keep score under the gaze of an interested crowd and the oversight of the umpires, namely the butcher and the head groom from the Two Foxes tavern.
Mick, one of the Perusia modelers, bowled the first over. He had a strong arm, but the Mannox batsman scored five before being bowled out. The second swung a good bat, and made a respectable fourteen before being retired.
Bianca, assigned to the end of the field near Max, darted up to him as the next man strode to the crease. “That’s Tom Mannox,” she reported breathlessly. “He has a strong bat.”
“Has he?” Max smiled grimly, and settled in to watch the fellow. He did bat well, but when he’d made twelve already, he whacked the ball hard toward Max. Max fell back, eyes fixed on it. It was heading toward the boundary, which would be another six, unless he managed it—
He leapt at the last second, straining upward, and snatched the ball in his fingertips. Behind him he heard the roar of his teammates, including Bianca’s whoop of delight. He lobbed the ball back to the bowler, and made a bow toward the applauding crowd as Mannox stormed off the pitch.
The next several batsmen came and went, and the score reached seventy-eight before disaster struck. Mick slipped on the flattened grass and went down hard on his throwing arm. The crowd behind Gemma erupted with cries of concern as he was taken off, and George Tucker grimly waved Bianca in.
Unbidden, Max went, too. “Can you bowl fast?” He didn’t think it likely, or she would have been put in earlier.
Bianca pushed the hair from her face and gave him a severe look. “Fast enough, sir.”
He backed off, hands up, grinning in delight. “Go to it, then.”
She bowled respectably. Max, having never had the pleasure of playing cricket with ladies, found himself captivated by the sight of his wife running forward to fling the ball toward the wickets, as fierce as any bloke at Balliol. She wasn’t the fastest bowler, but she was, as she had said, fast enough. She gave up two paltry singles in her over, and Max roared in appreciation as she yielded to the next bowler.
“Well done!” he said as she came back into the field. Flushed but smiling, she curtsied.
The Mannox side was eventually dismissed at one hundred and one runs. There was a short interlude, with fresh mugs of ale and buns from a cricket-enthusiast peddler, during which Tom Mannox sidled up to Bianca. Max, fetching ale, watched intently. He was a thick-set fellow, shorter than Max, with fair hair and a ruddy face. Bianca gave him a withering look and said something that made him turn red and stalk back to his side.
Max crossed the grass and handed her a mug. “Is Mannox unhappy about something?”
Bianca made a face and took a drink. “Every year he used to propose I marry him, because with my bowling and his batting we’d be sure to have a son who would be legendary on the pitch. All Tom cares about is cricket.” She took another sip. “As if Papa would have even let him in the door! Mannox steals our workers and then tries to claim his wares are better than Perusia. I’d lock myself in a convent before wedding Tom Mannox.”
“Ah.” Max savored his own ale, watching the Mannox side. A few big fellows, and one tall, rawboned chap whom Max felt was the real threat. “Is Mannox a strong bowler?”
Bianca set aside her mug. “No. He throws hard, but if you outlast him he throws wild. Tire him out, and he’ll melt like butter.”
The Perusia innings did not begin well. Mick, who had bowled so well, hooked one ball around his leg and scored a single, while the other players suffered from extreme bad luck in hitting the ball directly at men in the field. They had made a paltry forty-nine when Bianca took up her bat and went to the crease.
The bowler was a short, pugnacious fellow, though he did doff his cap when Bianca raised her bat. Then he charged forward and threw the ball at her feet. She tried to block it, but it ran up the edge of her bat and over her hands. The ball arced into the field, where it was very fortunately fumbled, but Bianca was clutching one hand in the other. Max stepped forward in concern, but the look on her face stopped him. Shaking and flexing her hand, she retrieved her fallen bat and faced up to the short fellow with fire in her eyes.
Never had Max found a cricket match so thrilling, not when he was a boy playing on the packed-dirt Marylebone fields, nor on the viciously competitive Oxford pitch. The fellow taking wagers circulated through the crowd, and Max—eyes fixed on his wife at the crease—laid fifty pounds on the Perusia side. Down by fifty-two with only three batters left, the odds were long.
The next ball Bianca sent to the boundary for four. She added a single a few balls later, only to see Amelia, who had preceded her at the crease, called out by the butcher for stumbling into her wicket. She staggered off the field, head in her hands, as the Mannox side cheered and the Perusia side heaped imprecations on the butcher’s head.
That brought Max to the wicket. He selected his bat carefully and took a few test swings. Bianca waited at the op
posite wicket, poised to run. It sent a charge up his spine to see her so nakedly hungry to win, her eyes darting around the oval before fixing on him. He gave her a slow smile. She nodded once.
By God, I love that woman, he thought fiercely.
Then he settled in to win the game—for her.
Bianca had told him what he needed to know. Tom Mannox threw hard, but like most hard throwers, his aim degenerated over time. By now, Max expected him to throw wide, and he did. With almost brutal ease, he blocked the first few balls before Mannox buckled down and threw hard and straight. Max dug in and stroked it well over the boundary for six. The next ball he hit for four, and then another six to finish the over.
Mannox retired, glowering. The tall lanky fellow came in. Max blocked his first three balls, waiting for the one he could loft. Unfortunately his eye caught on Bianca, hovering at the opposite wicket, and so he just missed the ball, lobbing it weakly over the wicket-keeper’s head. After his last few swings, the fieldsmen had moved back to the boundary, and the ball hit the ground harmlessly in front of them.
“Run,” Max roared, taking off for the other wicket, and Bianca sprinted past him. They barely made it, and now Bianca lifted her bat. She blocked several balls before ending with a three.
He jogged forward to meet her on the pitch as they traded places for the next over. “Splendid work, darling,” he said in passing.
“Notch some runs!” she returned.
Max laughed and stepped to the crease. Mannox had the ball again, to Max’s satisfaction. He bided his time, blocking the first few balls. Mannox, frustrated, threw directly at his feet. Max squared his shoulders and stepped into his swing, sending the ball hurtling over the boundary. The Perusia side erupted in screams.
Mannox tried again, throwing high this time, but Max wasn’t about to have that. He twisted his bat and clubbed the ball deep and far, sending the fieldsman almost into the woods to retrieve it.
The bat was beginning to feel right in his hands. He could swing for hours like this.
Had Mannox not been the captain of the team, he would have been taken off, but he kept the ball, and this time he hurtled toward the wicket as if he meant to fling the ball into Max’s face.
About a Rogue EPB Page 22
