by Mary Balogh
Well, it would be madness.
Why, then, had he asked if he might escort her home from Solway’s house tomorrow evening? Why was he even going to a birthday celebration he would normally have avoided? He did not attend every social function to which he was invited, after all. He tended to socialize more with his own class for the simple reason that he had more in common with them and was more comfortable with them—and they with him. He had gone to Tom and Hannah’s last week only because Tom had been his close friend for as far back as he could remember.
Had he accepted this invitation because it might give him an opportunity to see and talk to Mrs. Tavernor again? And good God, she did not need to be escorted home afterward. She lived only a stone’s throw away. But he had agreed to attend the party, and she was going to be there too, and she had consented to his taking her home.
He was not behaving rationally, Harry thought. It must be because his mind was weary from lack of sleep. He had better do some clear thinking between now and tomorrow evening, though. Talk sense into himself.
* * *
* * *
Mr. Solway was certainly surprised when a large crowd of his neighbors, having gathered first at the church, appeared all at once on the threshold of his house, all yelling, “Surprise!” in unison when his daughters answered the knock upon his door. Those near the front saw him first recoil in alarm, then shake his head and wag an admonishing finger at his daughters, and then smile with what looked like genuine delight as he spread his arms and beckoned everyone inside.
“If it is an old man you have come to commiserate with on his birthday,” he said, “you have come to the right place. I told my girls there was on no account to be any fuss made, but I might as well have saved what little breath is left me to blow on my tea. One’s children don’t pay any attention at all after one passes the age of seventy. Be warned. Come right on in so that those at the back don’t have to spend the evening out in the garden. Have you come too, Major Westcott?” He held out his right hand and beamed his pleasure. “This is an honor indeed.”
He shook Harry heartily by the hand, and Harry squeezed his shoulder with his free hand and wished him a happy birthday and hoped he would have many more. He was always touched when his neighbors treated him with the deference he might have expected if he had continued to be the Earl of Riverdale instead of being plain Harry Westcott, illegitimate son of the former earl.
It was a pleasant, merry evening. It began, after they were all inside and the older ones among them had been given chairs and the noisy greetings had subsided, with the Reverend Bailey offering a prayer of thanks for the seventy years upon this earth that Mr. Solway had enjoyed and asking a blessing upon the celebration and the years, however many of them the Lord had allotted, that lay ahead for each of them. Then a few of Solway’s contemporaries got to their feet one at a time and recounted generally funny stories of their younger years together. The church choir led a round of hymn singing, which was a little ragged without the musical accompaniment Mrs. Bailey always provided at church but was nevertheless hearty. Solway’s grandchildren, who were in attendance despite the fact that several of them would be up well past their bedtime, got under everyone’s feet and upon more than one nerve. And finally everyone feasted upon the savories and dainties Solway’s daughters had prepared in lavish abundance and kept hidden from their father until the party was no longer a secret and everything could be loaded upon the table after two extra leaves had been added.
The birthday cake, elaborately iced, took pride of place at the center of the table. Yet Mrs. Tavernor kept very quiet about it while the guests exclaimed upon how beautiful it looked and what a pity it was that it had to be cut, and then upon how delicious it tasted, so moist and fruit filled and richly spiced, and was it not a good thing it had been cut and not merely kept as a decoration? Harry noticed because he had been particularly watching her—and because he knew that it was she who had made the cake. Her demeanor of quiet modesty was deliberately assumed, he noticed. Even when Mrs. Franks, one of Solway’s daughters, announced that it was Mrs. Tavernor who had baked and iced the cake and thanked her for it, she did no more than half smile before ducking out of sight. As a consequence, Mrs. Franks’s announcement went largely unnoticed. Most would remember the cake tomorrow. How many would also remember that their former vicar’s wife had made it?
Perhaps, then, Harry thought, it was not entirely his fault that he had never taken particular notice of her either until just over a week ago. It seemed that she really did not want to be noticed. That was strange. Most people surely wanted to be seen and recognized and acknowledged. Her late husband, the Reverend Isaiah Tavernor, had always been noticed wherever he went.
Had it been the attraction of opposites with those two?
“A penny for them, Harry, my lad?” Tom Corning slapped a hand on his shoulder. “You look as if your mind is a million miles away. Which may not be a bad thing. It may be less congested there than it is here. Can you imagine living for seventy years?”
“My grandmother will be eighty next year,” Harry told him.
“No!” Tom said. “The dowager countess? Is she aiming for a hundred?”
“It would not surprise me,” Harry said. “Every time death comes calling, she probably gives him the evil eye and he slinks back where he came from to wait awhile longer.”
Tom laughed.
At a certain point in the evening, as usually happened at such gatherings, someone decided it was time to leave, and put the decision into effect without any fuss or fanfare, yet somehow set off everyone else too, with the result that everyone was suddenly standing and there was a flurry of voices calling for children and spouses and coats and shawls and gloves, while other voices were raised in good-night greetings to one another and renewed birthday wishes to Mr. Solway and thanks to his daughters. A great deal of hand shaking and backslapping and cheek kissing and hugging proceeded in Mr. Solway’s vicinity and then everyone was spilling outdoors more or less together and calling out to one another again with yet more farewells and last-minute messages and then dispersing to their various homes, most of them on foot, a few who lived beyond the village in gigs and chaises.
Solway looked sorry that it was over, Harry thought as he stepped outside, one of the last to leave, as the old man had wanted to wring his hand once more and thank him again for condescending to come and make his birthday party even more memorable than it would otherwise have been.
Harry half expected that Mrs. Tavernor would have set out for home alone, especially as her house was so close. But she was still outside the door, hugging each of Mrs. Franks’s three children, who were about to be hauled unwillingly home by their father while their mother and their aunt remained behind to tidy the house.
Mrs. Tavernor waved the children on their way, turned to Harry, and fell into step beside him as they made their way along the street. No one seeing them would make anything of it, he thought. They were just two neighbors taking the same direction home for a few steps before their paths diverged.
He had better make sure there was no more to it than that.
Five
Mr. Solway enjoyed himself even though he told his daughters he wanted no fuss made of his birthday,” Mrs. Tavernor said. She had clasped her hands behind her back beneath her cloak and thus discouraged Harry from offering his arm.
“He did,” he agreed. “He likes to pretend to be a crotchety old man, and I daresay he will grumble to his long-suffering daughters, but he loved being the focus of everyone’s attention. Your fruitcake, by the way, was fully appreciated. It was the best I have ever tasted.”
“You are kind,” she said. “But you flatter me. I have had very little experience as a baker. I do know, though, that a fruitcake ought to be baked considerably sooner than two days before it is consumed. The spices need time to blend together and pervade the whole, and the fruit needs time to moisten
and enrich the cake. However, I had very little advance notice. I did the best I could under the circumstances.”
“Your best was actually better than that,” he said.
She turned her head to look at him. “My cake was better than the best?” she said. “How very reassuring. And how grammatically illogical.”
He laughed. He liked her quiet flashes of humor. He had no doubt most of his neighbors had no idea she was capable of them.
Her cap this evening was trimmed with a double border of delicate lace. He had noticed every detail of her appearance tonight: the neat, modest dress—long sleeved and high waisted, with a plain round neck, lavender in color—her gray shawl, the cap. She wore it now beneath her bonnet, to very pretty effect, it might be added.
Now there was a decision to make. There really ought not to be. He had told himself that quite firmly just a few minutes ago.
They walked past the copse of trees and around the curve in the road to stop outside her gate. It was not too late simply to see her to her door as he had the last time, bid her good night as soon as she was safely inside with a candle lit, and continue on his way home. No harm would have been done. He would merely have shown her the sort of neighborly courtesy any other man would have. She surely had no real expectation of more. She had not been specific last week and had immediately wanted to take back what she had said. He had not been specific yesterday morning. She probably would be relieved if he took this unspoken thing between them no further, and he would be saved from doing something he would almost certainly regret.
Alas, good sense did not prevail.
“Will you invite me inside?” he asked even before they stepped beyond the gate. “For a cup of tea, perhaps?”
She turned to him and raised her eyebrows, though in the near darkness—he had not lit his lantern when he left Solway’s house, having planned to light it from her candle—it was impossible to read the expression on her face. There was a moment of silence before she answered.
“I did not bake today,” she said.
Was that a no?
“I have already eaten far more than I ought,” he said, “including a very generous slice of your birthday cake.”
She turned back to the gate without another word, opened it, went through, and continued along the path to her door without shutting the gate behind her.
Was that a yes?
He stepped in after her and closed the gate. She had the door open by the time he caught up to her and she was bending to pat the dog, which had come dashing out to greet her with excited yips before turning its ire upon Harry.
“I know,” he said. “You are a fierce guard dog even if you do look like a mere bit of fluff. I am in fear and trembling.”
The dog barked again, decided that Harry was to be tolerated even if not welcomed, and turned to trot back into the house. Harry chuckled and stepped inside after Mrs. Tavernor, who was busy lighting the candle. He shut the door while she removed her bonnet and cloak, hung them up, and went to light two more candles on the mantelpiece in the living room. Then, still without looking at him, she disappeared through an archway into what he could see was the kitchen, where she poked the fire that had been banked in the range, built it up, and set the kettle over the heat to boil. Harry did not move from where he stood or offer to help.
Neither of them had spoken a word since they were outside the gate.
There seemed to be a bit of a shortage of air in the house.
Harry had never been gauche or uncomfortable with women. But then he could not remember a time when he had been completely alone in a house with a respectable female, especially late in the evening when both of them were aware that they were considering having an affair.
She was the first to break the silence. “The kettle will not take long,” she called. “The water has been keeping warm while I have been away.”
Harry had never seen the inside of the house before, though he must have passed it hundreds of times. The dressmaker who used to live here had retired when he was still a boy and become something of a recluse, though she had always nodded and smiled sweetly at him and his sisters when she saw them go past. She had died a couple of years or so ago.
It was a well-designed house, furnished for comfort as well as elegance. The living room looked inviting and cozy. There was a workbox on one side of the chair by the fireplace, a knitting bag on the other. Two needles poked out of the top of the latter, displaying something soft and warm-looking and sunshine yellow. There were three books rather haphazardly spread on one cushion of the sofa facing the fireplace. Two of them had well-worn leather covers. The third looked newer. Cheerfully bright and pleasingly mismatched cushions were strewn against the backs of the sofa and the two chairs. Those on the chair that was obviously her favorite had not been plumped when she last got up from it.
She was tidy, then, but not fanatical about it.
She came to stand in the archway, and Harry realized he was still just inside the door, wearing his coat, with his hat clutched in his hand. He would give anything, he thought at that moment, to be striding alone up the drive to his house. It had been a cardinal rule of his mother’s—one with which he had always concurred without question—that one did not become sexually or even romantically involved with anyone who lived within five miles of Hinsford Manor. Not unless she—or he in the case of his sisters—was being given serious consideration for matrimony. That, of course, had been in the days when his mother was the Countess of Riverdale and he was heir to the earl’s title and his sisters were Lady Camille and Lady Abigail Westcott. His status had changed since then, but he had continued to observe the rule.
One’s reputation was a precious commodity and virtually impossible to retrieve once it was lost. That would apply doubly to Mrs. Tavernor, of course. A man’s reputation was usually more durable than a woman’s. But not much more in a village like this.
Yet here he was.
They looked at each other, and he wondered if she was having similar thoughts. But how could she not be? She was not only a woman. She had been the vicar’s wife. Briefly he considered flight.
“Major Westcott,” she said, “will you have a seat?”
He did not move immediately. Then he took off his greatcoat and hung it, with his hat, on an empty hook beside her cloak and turned to look into the room. She had not told him where to sit. He considered one of the chairs, the one that was not hers, but then chose the sofa instead after first stacking the books on the table beside it.
The newer book was a Bible.
He waited to see where she would sit. But the kettle was beginning to hum and she returned to the kitchen.
“I do beg your pardon after just inviting you to be seated,” she called a few moments later, “but would you be good enough to light the fire, Major Westcott? It is made up ready. All it needs is a spark.”
All it needs is a spark. Unfortunate choice of words. And was it really cold enough in here to make a fire necessary? Harry felt quite warm enough. A bit too warm.
He got up to do her bidding. He remained on one knee to make sure the spark had caught the kindling and would spread to the wood. Soon he could feel a thread of warmth against his face. He could hear the clinking of china as she came back in from the kitchen, and he rose to his feet to take the tray from her hands. There was a teapot covered with a knitted cozy and two cups and saucers of fine bone china with a matching milk jug and sugar bowl and two silver spoons. He set the tray down on the low table before the sofa and resumed his seat while she poured their tea, standing on the other side of the table while she did so.
Neither of them spoke—again. Firelight and candlelight flickered behind her.
When she straightened up, she looked at him, her face in shadow, and he was aware that she was hesitating. Her chair was to one side of the hearth behind her. The sofa had only two cushions upon which to sit
. It was actually more a love seat than a sofa. Then she came around the table and sat beside him, and half the remaining air went from the room, and that fire had surely warmed to an inferno. Their shoulders did not quite touch, but he felt her closeness as a physical thing. She smelled of a faintly floral soap or perfume. It was an enticing scent, whatever it was.
The dog, which had followed its mistress everywhere, stood in the narrow space between them and the table and eyed Harry through the white fluff that almost hid its eyes before yipping a halfhearted threat and plopping down across one of her slippers. It did so in such a way, however, that it could gaze up at Harry to make sure he behaved himself.
He felt a bit as though there were a chaperon in the house after all—and one who was not about to tolerate any nonsense.
“It is still a little chilly in the evenings without a fire,” Mrs. Tavernor said, breaking the lengthy silence at last. Her voice was stilted and just a bit too loud.
“Yes,” he agreed, his own voice far too hearty. “It is.”
The conversation—what conversation?—threatened to die a well-deserved death.
“Major Westcott—” she began again, arranging her cup and saucer before her.
“It is Harry,” he said.
“Oh.” She turned her head to glance at him before biting her lip and looking away again. “I am Lydia.”
It suited her, he thought. He did not know anyone else of that name.
“Harry,” she said, “I do not know quite what this is about.”
Neither, God help him, did he. Though they both knew only too well. Actually he had no idea why he was behaving so much like a gauche schoolboy.
“Perhaps,” he said, “it would be as well if you were to think of me just as a neighbor whom you have been kind enough to invite inside for a cup of tea before he walks home along a dark, winding drive.”