“Indeed,” Henrietta said dully.
“He would have been a most uncomfortable husband.” Millicent was on sure ground now. “He—he might even have wished to engage your company more than once a week, my dear. And that would be truly tiresome, as the years passed. You’ll simply have to take my word for it.”
Henrietta rose and kissed her stepmother on the cheek. “I think I shall go take a long hot bath. And I promise, we’ll have no more talk of Mr. Darby.”
Millicent discovered that looking at Henrietta through teary eyes turned her stepdaughter’s hair to pure gold. “I’m just so sorry to tell you unpleasant news. It breaks my heart that you cannot marry and have children.” Tears welled up again. “You’re so beautiful, and you would have exquisite children, and…”
Henrietta leaned over her and wiped the tears away. “It’s all for the best, Millie,” she said, using her childhood name for her stepmother. “I would never suit Mr. Darby in the long run. He’s far too elegant, and I’m too bluntly spoken. I would probably become annoyed with him, and we would fight bitterly.”
“I hope it won’t be uncomfortable for you to see him again.”
At that, Henrietta smiled, and the smile only wavered a little. “Why should it be? We hardly know each other, after all.” She walked out of the drawing room with her head held high.
She walked into her room, thinking that this was the time to cry, if ever. But her common sense stopped her from flinging herself on the bed in a fit of tears. She hardly knew the man. Why on earth would she cry over him?
What she primarily felt, she realized, was embarrassment that she had no idea she was ineligible for marriage. It was humiliating to think about how she pressed her body to Darby’s. No wonder he thought that she was ripe for debauching, if that was the proper terminology.
Although thinking of the experience made her wonder about Millicent’s understanding of intimacy. It seemed to her that Darby could make marital intimacy not quite so objectionable. Surely he, if anyone, would make it pleasurable.
But he couldn’t find that pleasure with her. She sat down in front of her dressing table. It was such a pity that she had inherited her mama’s hair and face. If she were plain, even ugly, then Mr. Darby would have taken no notice of her at all.
That very fact showed up how shallow he was, a man only interested in her honey hair, to borrow his own words. Well, and perhaps a few other body parts, she thought, remembering how his hands had strayed about.
The worst thing was not losing Mr. Darby, if she were honest with herself. The thing that made her heart feel like a piece of iron in her chest was that no man would wish to marry her, not even a widower. No man would ever fall in love with her. The only love letter she would ever receive had been written by herself. All those dreams she’d had, of finding a man who didn’t want children, were nothing more than dust.
She swallowed and willed herself not to cry. The letter she wrote to herself was folded on her dressing table. She touched it with the tip of her finger. Now she knew Darby much better than when she wrote the letter. If he wrote a love letter, it would be far more earthy, and yet more humorous. More fierce and tender, at the same time.
She almost reached toward her writing materials. But writing another letter would only prolong a fantasy of her own making for a few minutes. No amount of letters could make a man agree to marry her. It was time to give up her childhood idea that a knight in shining armor would rescue her. That wasn’t going to happen.
One tear slid down Henrietta’s cheek. She dashed it away and rang the bell for her maid.
In the bath she practiced an old ritual: counting her blessings. She was perfectly happy before Darby wandered into the village, and she would be again. She had dear friends, and she was needed, and she fdlt…
She felt another tear slide off the end of her nose, and then another.
18
Esme Rawlings Discovers That Some Truths
Are Difficult to Conceal
“It isn’t your child,” Esme said, getting to her feet with a slight lurch. “It’s Miles’s baby.”
Sebastian stared at her without rising, which was a sign of how shocked he was. “Oh my God,” he whispered. “You’re with child.”
“Miles’s child,” she repeated, trying to invest her voice with authority.
He said nothing so she unbuttoned the front of her pelisse. “Look!” She molded the fabric of her dress against her belly. He looked.
She waited for him to draw the obvious conclusion.
When he said nothing, she supplied the truth herself. “If the baby were yours, I would only be six months pregnant, Lord Bonnington. I would hardly be showing my condition at all.”
He wrenched his eyes away and met hers. “We are on a first-name basis, Esme.”
There was something in his eyes that she didn’t like to contradict, at least not when it came to something so trivial. “Sebastian,” she said reluctantly. “At any rate, I am much farther in the pregnancy than six months.”
“When will the babe be born?” he asked.
She tried to look casually uninterested. “Perhaps next month.”
Suddenly he realized she was standing, and leaped to his feet. Without speaking, he looked at her from head to foot. Esme suffered it. She had realized that he might as well see how plump she had become. It would convince him that the baby was not his but Miles’s. And that was essential, because—because—she wasn’t sure why. And he would lose that lovesick look when he realized that she was no longer one of the most beautiful woman in the ton, but a plump, round woman with a propensity to cry and not a bit of common sense left in her head.
He didn’t seem to be immediately revolted. Still without speaking, he reached out and took her shoulders in his hands and began a gentle circling of her shoulders that felt so good she almost sagged against him.
“Well,” she said instead, “I had better return to the house. I have many things to do. The Ladies’Sewing Circle is coming tomorrow.”
He gave a little snort of laughter. “You are hosting a ladies’ sewing circle? You, Infamous Esme?”
“Don’t call me that,” she said scowling. “I’m a widow, and I’m being respectable, don’t you see?”
“Are you good at sewing?”
She wouldn’t have even answered him, but he seemed genuinely curious rather than sarcastic. “Not very,” she admitted. “But all we do is hem sheets for the poor. The vicar stops by to offer encouragement.”
“Sounds remarkably tedious,” Sebastian commented.
“Mr. Fetcham is a sweet man, truly. And quite handsome,” she said with just a trace of smugness in her voice.
His hands tightened on her back, but he looked down at her as calmly as ever. “A vicar could never keep you in line, sweetheart.”
“I don’t need to be kept in line,” she said indignantly. “At any rate, Sebastian Bonnington, my point is that I am busy and happy. And I would be quite grateful if you could take yourself back to Italy. Why, a number of people who know you are arriving for a dinner party next week.” She stopped, thinking that it wasn’t very polite to tell him about a gathering to which he was obviously not invited.
“You must give up this foolish idea of being a gardener,” she said, looking around the rose arbor. Luckily old vines and branches were woven so thickly between the lath slats that it was unlikely anyone had glimpsed them standing in the arbor. And no one could think that she would set up an illicit meeting with the gardener amidst the roses. Not in the winter, anyway.
“If you leave, no one will know the worst. I’ll write the employment agency in Bath for another gardener immediately.”
“I won’t be going anywhere,” he said. His voice was almost casual, as if he lacked interest in the whole subject.
“Yes, you will!” Esme said, starting to feel a bit annoyed. “As I said, I’m having a dinner party, Sebastian. Carola is coming, and her husband Tuppy—you know Carola. Helene will be here.”
“You could cancel the dinner.” His hands had slid down her back and were making little caressing circles that felt so good she almost swayed at the knees.
“Absolutely not. Why on earth would I cancel my dinner because you decided to leave Italy and come reside in a place where you are not welcome?”
His hands had reached her waist—or where her waist used to be—and now he slowly brought them together in the front.
“This is quite improper,” she pointed out. But she didn’t move back or take his hand away.
“Ah, God, Esme,” he whispered. “You’re forty times more beautiful now, you know. Your body is entirely different.”
“That’s true,” she said rather glumly, thinking about her formerly slender limbs.
“Motherhood suits you,” he said. “This suits you.” She looked down fleetingly and saw bronzed hands caressing her belly. It made her feel a treacherous wave of warmth in her knees, so she moved back sharply and buttoned up her pelisse.
“I would prefer that you found another position,” she said sharply. “No! What I mean is, would you please return to Italy without further delay? You must see how embarrassing it is for me to have you here. My reputation is gravely compromised simply by having you on my land at all.”
He stood there, hands at his sides, and smiled at her. “I can’t leave, Esme,” he said simply. “Now, more than ever, I can’t leave.”
“I told you,” she said sharply. “This babe is Miles’s!”
“I could never doubt it,” he said. “I don’t know much about these matters, of course, but you are close to the shape my cousin was when she birthed a child.”
She nodded. “So, you see, you must leave.” She swallowed and looked at him with her heart in her eyes. “I don’t want to be Infamous Esme any longer, Sebastian. I just want to be plain Lady Rawlings, a widow raising a child. So please…leave.”
He shook his head. “You needn’t come to the garden and see me, but I will stay here.”
“You’ll ruin my reputation!” she said, her voice going rather shrill. “Someone from the dinner party will recognize you.”
“I doubt it,” he said calmly. “I shall make certain that no one approaches me. I can’t say that I ever met a gardener outside those on my own estate.”
She had to admit the justice of that statement.
“Good afternoon, Lady Rawlings.” He even touched his cap, the way a gardener would. And then he turned his back and returned to his book and rose branches.
Slope sprang to open the door as his mistress toiled her way up the slope from the rose arbor. Lady Rawlings was a great one for traipsing around the estate even when it appeared she might drop that babe at any moment. He politely averted his eyes when it became clear that she was once again suffering from a lowness of spirits.
Odd, that’s what he called all those tears. In the ten years since Lord Rawlings married, his wife had visited the estate two or three times at the most. Instead Rawlings came with his fancy piece, which she was, for all one had to address her as lady. Lady Childe indeed. No better than she should be.
Under the circumstances, he wouldn’t have expected the missus to show quite so many tears at the master’s passing. More than Mrs. Slope will do, Slope thought gloomily. Probably dance on my grave, that wife of mine.
Mrs. Slope had incurred her husband’s disapproval that very morning by announcing that she had joined a Ladies’ Improvement Society started by Miss Pettigrew, the lady schoolteacher. Every red-blooded man in the village and thereabouts knew that the society was nothing more than an opportunity to stir up trouble.
Slope took his mistress’s pelisse, handing her a freshly laundered handkerchief as he did so.
“Thank you, Slope,” she said mistily.
“Will you be having tea in the drawing room, madam?”
“I believe I will visit the nursery, Slope.”
“Perhaps you will find Lady Henrietta there as well,” Slope said rather frigidly. It didn’t suit his sense of decorum to find grown people frequenting the nursery. Children belonged in the nursery, and adults belonged in the drawing room. Mr. Darby had appeared to be a model of decorum when he first arrived at the house. But he had developed a distressing tendency to wander up to the nursery in an odd moment.
“Shall I request that the children join you for tea in the parlor, madam?” That was much more acceptable, to his mind.
“I shall ask them myself, Slope.”
He shook his head as he watched Lady Rawlings make her way up the stairs. He didn’t care for newfangled notions.
And visiting the nursery—well, if that wasn’t newfangled, what was?
Besides the idea of Mrs. Slope improving herself, that is.
19
My Brother Simon
“I came to apologize to you, Josie.”
Josie looked up, speechless. No one ever apologized to her. It was always the other way around.
But there was Lady Henrietta, hands clasped in front of her, looking quite anxious and guilty. If Josie had been able to visualize such a thing, the look on Lady Henrietta’s face was quite close to that often seen on Josie’s.
“I should never, ever have thrown that glass of water on your head. I lost my temper.”
Josie knew all about losing her temper. That was what their old nursemaid, Nurse Peeves, used to do, and then she’d scold Josie for making her lose that temper. Moreover, Nurse Peeves said Josie herself had the temper of a devil, and a disposition to match. So Josie backed up, cautiously, in case Lady Henrietta felt like smacking her for being so naughty.
After a moment, Josie still hadn’t said anything because she didn’t understand what she was supposed to say.
Lady Henrietta bent down and said, “I know that I insulted you terribly, Josie. Will you forgive me?”
Josie thought about it. “I have a temper too,” she offered, adding rather uncertainly, “my lady.”
Lady Henrietta’s smile made Josie feel warm all the way to the pit of her stomach. “How generous of you to tell me. Will you call me Henrietta? I do think that people who share terrible tempers should be on a first-name basis.” She looked around the room, which was brightly painted with baby ducks. Esme had obviously had it refurbished in anticipation of her baby’s birth. “This is a nice nursery, isn’t it? Do you like it here?”
Josie nodded vigorously. Life had improved considerably for Miss Josephine Darby since her brother brought them to visit their aunt Esme.
“Nanny is lovely.” Aunt Esme’s nanny smelled like cinnamon toast a good deal, which was Josie’s favorite smell. “She doesn’t mind Anabel spitting up.”
“That is a sign of true nobility, don’t you think?” Henrietta agreed.
“And my brother Simon comes to visit. He never visited me when we lived in the country. This morning he played soldiers with me!”
Simon? Henrietta thought. I’d forgotten that Darby’s first name was Simon.
Lady Henrietta looked a little odd, and Josie thought perhaps she didn’t believe her. “He knelt just here,” she said, pointing so that Lady Henrietta knew exactly where it happened, “and he showed me how to make battalions, and line up my soldiers. Then he got a little peevish—that was what Nanny called it—because the floor put streaks on his knees, but now I know how to make battalions on my own. Aunt Esme came to play as well, but she can’t kneel because her stomach gets in the way.”
Henrietta shook off a twinge of jealousy at the thought of Esme’s belly and smiled at the little girl before her. It was uncanny how much she looked like her older brother. “Did you know that your hair is the exact color of the leaves in autumn, Josie?”
Josie didn’t much care. “Would you like to see my soldiers, Lady Henrietta? I could show you the way my brother Simon ordered the battalions.”
“Henrietta,” she reminded her. In truth, she would rather not hear about my brother Simon. “I would rather not play with soldiers today. How would it be if I told y
ou a story?”
Josie’s heart sank a little. In truth, she was longing to engage her soldiers in fierce battle. Ladies generally told stories about kittens and mittens and sometimes ducklings, none of which interested Josie very much.
“Of course,” she said politely. For when she was happy, she was a quite polite child.
“This is the story of a pair of little boots, made of the finest calf leather,” Henrietta said, seating herself by the fire. “They had twelve little buttons up the front and the buttons were chocolate brown, just the color of your hair.”
Well, at least the little boots weren’t little kittens. Josie tucked herself onto a hassock at Henrietta’s feet.
“I don’t think you ever saw these boots, Josie, because they didn’t belong to a girl. Nor did they belong to a boy. In fact, these boots didn’t belong to anyone, because when this story starts, they were lost. Lost in a deep, dark, forest full of shadows and trees with spindly branches.”
Josie drew in her breath. “How did they get there?”
“No one knows. One day they just found themselves in the midst of a dark, dark wood.”
Josie shivered just to think about it.
“So the pair of boots wandered down a twisting path, crying—”
“Were they crying for their mama?” Josie was tremendously interested in the whole question of mamas.
“Yes,” Lady Henrietta said. “How did you know? That is precisely what they were doing.”
As the story went on, the boots got wet. They got cold. They were frightened by an owl. Finally, they found their mommy, although she turned out to be a cow, because the boots were made from the finest calf leather. But it was all right because it was winter, and the mommy cow could use some boots to wear, so everyone was happy.
By the time the cow danced off wearing beautiful new boots with twelve chocolate-colored buttons, Josie was leaning against Lady Henrietta’s legs, quite overcome with the pleasure of the story.