by Mary Balogh
“I have finished knitting your scarf,” Lydia said as the carriage moved away from the vicarage. “I knitted it while I was away.”
“Oh,” he said. “You did not need to do that, Lydia.”
“And you did not need to chop my wood,” she said. “I have been wondering how I would get it to you. I will give it to you tonight.”
“Thank you.” He was gazing across at her, though there was very little light by which to see.
She could not think of anything else to say, and he remained silent. But she felt sadness welling for a reason she could not quite understand. It was over between them because it could not possibly work. She had her life to live, the life of freedom she had never expected, the life with which she had been gifted anyway. It was a way of life that brought her great contentment. And it was a life into which she had moved fully tonight, out of the shadows cast by her marriage. She was no longer anyone’s helpmeet. She was herself. Lydia Tavernor.
But for a brief moment there had been Harry.
And he had left behind in her a trace of sadness.
He took up the umbrella again as the carriage drew to a halt outside her gate. He raised it as soon as he was outside and held it aloft as he helped her descend the steps—carefully, for they were slippery with rain. He tipped it slightly against the wind as he opened the gate, and then drew her to his side with an arm about her waist as he hurried up the path with her. He kept her dry while she fumbled with her key in the lock and opened the door before bending over Snowball, who had come dashing and yapping to greet her and reproach him for keeping her out so long.
She lit the candle and turned toward him, pushing back the hood of her cloak as she did so.
“Step inside out of the rain,” she said. “I will fetch your scarf.”
He did as she suggested and lowered the umbrella, shook some of the wetness from it, and stood it against the doorframe. He half closed the door, presumably so that the wind would not blow out the candle.
Lydia got his scarf from her bedchamber, folded into a neat oblong. “I should find something to wrap it in,” she said. She was feeling a bit suffocated by the sight of him inside her house again, though he was only just inside.
“There is no need,” he said, reaching out and taking it from her. Their hands brushed. “Thank you, Lydia. It is a lovely bright color. It will mean a great deal to me. I will think of you whenever I wear it.”
“As I think of you whenever I sit before a fire,” she said. “I still have a pile of your wood left.”
He smiled at her, and she smiled at him. And the sadness was a dull ache about her heart.
“Good night, Harry,” she said. “And thank you for the ride.”
“Good night, Lydia.” He raised one hand to hook behind her ear a lock of her hair that had come loose when she lowered her hood. He kissed her forehead.
But the wind blew the door open again as he did so, and he turned, tucked the scarf beneath one arm, raised his umbrella, ducked beneath it, and hurried back to his carriage.
Lydia shut the door, leaned back against it, closed her eyes, and touched the fingers of one hand to her forehead.
Thirteen
The first sign of trouble came the following morning when Mrs. Piper arrived on Lydia’s doorstep. She had brought Lydia’s plate.
“How good of you to return it so promptly,” Lydia said with a warm smile after she had opened the door. “I did not expect it so soon. And I daresay the road is very muddy after all that rain. Was it not torrential? But do come inside. The kettle is close to boiling. I’ll make a pot of tea.”
She was actually not sorry for the distraction. She had been feeling melancholy all morning despite all her efforts to concentrate upon the happy memories she had of the assembly.
Mrs. Piper was not responding either to her smile or to her invitation to step inside out of the damp, chilly air that had succeeded the overnight rain, however. She held Lydia’s plate against her bosom. Her lips were drawn into a thin, hard line. Her eyes were expressionless.
“I put your cakes on the plate with my own last night and called after you to take your plate,” she said, thrusting it suddenly at Lydia, who took it from her. “You did not hear me because you were too eager to go off with Major Westcott. Jeremy was waiting outside to walk me home and offered to run over to your house with the plate right then even though it was pelting with rain. I have a good boy there, always eager to do things for his mother and his neighbors. He ran all the way, but when he got here he was too shocked to bring you the plate. You were standing in your doorway kissing the major while his coachman had his back turned, pretending not to notice.”
“Oh.” Lydia was too startled for the moment to say anything else. “Major Westcott was kind enough to give Mrs. Bailey and me a ride home in his carriage after the Reverend Bailey was called away with Dr. Powis to old Mrs. Wickend’s sickbed. He insisted upon escorting each of us all the way to our door because the rain was heavy and he had an umbrella in the carriage. I am so sorry to have embarrassed Jeremy after he had come all this way in the rain. But he did misunderstand what he saw, poor boy.”
Good heavens. Oh, gracious heavens.
Mrs. Piper’s expression had not changed. “The reverend gave his life for my son,” she said, her voice trembling with some emotion that might well be rage. “The Reverend Tavernor, that is. A heavenly martyr he was. I will never forget him as long as there is life in my body. He was one of God’s holy angels come down to earth. The last thing I expected—the last thing anyone expected—was that his wife would turn out to be a woman of loose morals.”
“Mrs. Piper!” Lydia stared at her, aghast, and now she was the one clutching the plate to her bosom. “Jeremy misinterpreted what he saw. But even if he had not, even if I really had been kissing Major Westcott, would that be such offensive behavior that it must reflect badly upon my morals? I am a widow, not a wife. I was unwaveringly loyal to my husband while he lived. That must have been evident to everyone here. I am sorry Jeremy saw what he did and was embarrassed and drew the wrong conclusion. But I must admit to resenting the hasty judgment you have passed upon me based solely upon what he reported to you. If you care to listen to my explanation, I will give it, though I do not recognize any obligation to do so.”
Mrs. Piper clearly did not care to listen to anything. She took a step back, though she did not immediately turn away. “Oh, it is not just that one thing,” she said. “You had him chopping wood here for you all one morning, and then you had him inside your house for more than an hour afterward—with the door shut. And you had him back again that same night for more of what he got in the morning. I suppose it all got started when you talked him into walking you home from Tom Corning’s one night—yes, I heard all about it—and from Mr. Solway’s the week after. And last night! That dress you were wearing, if you don’t mind me saying so, was shameful for a woman who had the privilege of being the reverend’s wife before he became a holy martyr and gave his life for my boy. You danced and you smiled and laughed and made an exhibition of yourself, though everyone knows the reverend believed dancing to be sinful and putting oneself forward in company to be immodest in a woman. If he could have seen you last night he would have turned over in his grave. He was the most upright and pious and godly man that ever walked this earth. And I never did think you were worthy of him. I always thought you were a sly one. I am sure a lot of people thought so too, though we have kept our mouths shut until now out of respect for him because he doted on you. My helpmeet, he always called you. Some helpmeet!”
Oh, gracious heaven! Lydia watched, half paralyzed, as Mrs. Piper turned and strode out of her garden, leaving the gate swinging behind her, and along the street until she was out of sight behind the copse. Snowball trotted along the path, though she stopped outside the gate and stood in the middle of the road looking after her before trotting back in, wet mud and a
ll.
Lydia closed the door and stood with her back to it, her eyes squeezed shut, the plate hugged to her bosom with both arms. It took several minutes for the jumbled ball that was her mind to sort itself into coherent thought.
So that morning when she had seen Jeremy’s head above her fence, it had not been the first time he had looked. He had seen Harry chopping her wood. He had seen him come inside for refreshments. He even knew the visit had lasted one hour, though it was very unlikely he possessed a pocket watch. He knew about the visit that evening. Oh, dear God, he knew about that. He knew she had walked home from Tom and Hannah’s with Harry—Mrs. Piper had not been at that social gathering, but Jeremy must have seen her anyway. He had seen Harry kiss her forehead last night.
Had he been spying on her for some time, then? No, that was not a question. He had been spying.
But why?
Because Isaiah had saved his life and he had taken it upon himself to make sure she was safe? Quite frankly that did not sound convincing. Because he wanted to be a sort of watchdog, then, making sure that she was honoring Isaiah’s memory with upright living? That would make sense surely only if he hoped she was not. He must know that his mother disliked and resented her—but why?—and would like nothing more than something specific with which to reproach her. Mrs. Piper had always been a bit of a gossip. A spiteful one, for the gossip she spread was never of the happy variety. Viciously pious was how Lydia had sometimes thought of her. She had loved nothing better than to bring to Isaiah’s notice the perceived transgressions of her neighbors. To his credit, he had never encouraged her.
Other people did, however.
Most people, of course, if they were strictly honest with themselves, enjoyed a bit of gossip, especially if it was basically harmless. There were some, though, who thrived upon the sort of gossip that tore someone else’s reputation to tatters. Such people generally showed little concern for facts, especially if the facts threatened to disprove what they wanted to believe.
Lydia drew a deep breath and released it slowly. It was too much to hope, she supposed, that Mrs. Piper would keep her moral outrage to herself. Or that she would keep to herself all the facts she had amassed, courtesy of Jeremy’s spying, to prove that she, Lydia, was a woman of loose morals who had set out to get her hooks into Major Westcott. Of course it was too much to hope. And those bare facts, she did not doubt for a moment, would be fleshed out and embellished until they were quite unrecognizable as truth.
And the facts themselves? Well, she was not entitled to feel the full force of righteous indignation, was she? She had lain with Harry.
But yes, of course she was entitled to her fury. They were both adults, she and Harry. They had both passed the age of majority long ago. They were both unmarried and unattached. It was no one’s business what they did together in private. Yet they had both been aware that in a place like this people would make it their business. They had bowed to that awareness and given each other up—as lovers and even as friends.
They had given each other up precisely because of the possibility of what was now happening anyway.
For there was no possible chance that Mrs. Piper would keep her outrage and her facts to herself. Lydia was about to become the victim of an explosion of salacious gossip. Her life, her precious life of quiet freedom and independence, was about to change. Forever. She did not believe she was overdramatizing.
“Oh, Snowball,” she said with a sigh when she looked down at the trail of muddy paw prints that stretched from the door into the kitchen. “Look what you have done.”
And look what I have done, she added silently.
* * *
* * *
The shreds of his contentment seemed to have deserted him, Harry admitted to himself later that same afternoon, and he despaired of getting them back. It had all started at Christmas, of course. But then it had continued into this thing with Lydia Tavernor, which had stumbled along from its improbable beginnings until it flared into a brief, uncontrolled burst of passion. And last night had not helped, even though he usually enjoyed the village assemblies.
What had happened, he supposed, was that during the past few months he had come face-to-face with the essential emptiness of his existence. It had been bound to happen sooner or later. He had this large house and park to enjoy, but no one with whom to share them. He had a troubled past, which was best left where it was, and a present that was marginally satisfying—though lonely, damn it—but no future to look forward to except more of the same. Somehow more of the same, with which he had been perfectly content for four years, seemed like a dreary prospect.
There was no one special in his life.
No one to love or to cherish, to use his mother’s word.
He had come to hate that word whenever it popped into his head.
And no sex.
There had been plenty of the latter during the years with his regiment, lusty and satisfying. There had been none during the years of his convalescence, very little since.
And then Lydia.
He had spent an hour or so of the morning in his steward’s office, going over the account books, and then another hour or two out on the home farm, mostly admiring the new and not-so-new lambs. He had sat down to a cold luncheon, for the plainness of which his housekeeper, Mrs. Sullivan, had apologized with the peculiar excuse that she and the kitchen staff were more than usually busy taking inventory of their supplies. Afterward Harry had wandered out to the summerhouse among the trees east of the manor. He sat inside it now, out of the chilly wind, on the leather-upholstered seat that circled the interior wall of glass, gazing out over the park and across one corner of the village to the countryside beyond.
Perhaps this restlessness was a healthy sign. Perhaps it showed that he had finally and fully recovered his health and was ready to move on to a more active phase of his life. But what would that be? Or perhaps the restlessness had something—or even everything—to do with Lydia Tavernor. He frowned at the thought. For why should it? Whatever there had been between them was over, by mutual consent. She was not looking to marry again, and he was not ready for marriage yet—was he? She no longer wanted a lover, and he was not in search of a mistress. Not here, anyway. Not anywhere, actually.
Dash it all. He wished he could get his life back, the one he had lived with such contentment and with very little reflection just a few months ago. The maddening thing about life, though, was that it would never go backward. It would not stand still either. And it did not offer any clear image of what was ahead. Which was perhaps just as well.
Maybe he needed to get away for a while. But where? London, heaven help him?
His thoughts were interrupted at that moment by movement among the trees to his right. He brightened immediately when he saw Tom Corning striding in his direction. School must be finished for the day. Tom opened the door of the summerhouse unbidden and stepped inside.
“Ah, warmth,” he said, closing the door quickly and rubbing his hands together.
“How did you find me?” Harry asked as he slid farther along the seat so Tom could sit beside him and enjoy the same view.
“Your butler thought you would be either at the lake or here,” Tom said. “I tried here first. It would be madness to wander about the lake on a day like today. Why is he all dressed up so smartly?”
“Brown?” Harry said. “My butler? Is he? He looked his normal self when I saw him a short while ago. Not that I was paying particular attention. How was school today?”
“Fine.” Tom leaned forward slightly and rested his forearms across his thighs with his hands dangling down between them. He was looking down at the floor instead of admiring the view Harry had made available to him. “Harry, old chap, I think you ought to be warned that you were seen last night.”
“Seen.” Harry frowned at the back of his friend’s head. “Well, that is hardly surprising, since
I do not have a magician’s power to make myself invisible. Let me see. I was at the assembly rooms for three or four hours, mingling and talking with almost every adult from the village and the countryside around. I danced almost every set. No, every set. And I was seen, was I? How very shocking. Seen to be doing what exactly?”
“Kissing Mrs. Tavernor in the doorway of her cottage,” Tom said. “I am not saying there is anything scandalous about that, especially when you must have had every reason to expect privacy from prying eyes. But the person who saw you was the lad who gives me the most trouble with truancy from school, the lad Tavernor saved from drowning. He is a sneak and a poacher as well as a truant and has apparently taken it upon himself to keep an eye on Tavernor’s widow, with what motive one can only imagine. My guess would be that he does it so he can report back to his mother on anything Mrs. Tavernor does that might reflect badly upon the late vicar’s memory. She was one of his more fanatical followers.”
“The Piper lad?” Harry said. “He says he saw me kissing Lydia last night? Then he is a damned liar in addition to the other things you listed.”
“Lydia, is it?” Tom asked, turning his head briefly to glance at his friend.
“I saw her to her door beneath an umbrella because it was raining,” Harry said, “just as I did a few minutes before that with Mrs. Bailey. I stepped inside for perhaps thirty seconds while she went to fetch a scarf she had knitted for me. In return for a pile of wood I chopped for her a few weeks ago, before you ask,” he added when Tom raised his eyebrows. “I said thank you and I said good night and—ah, yes—I pecked her on the forehead. And left. A peck and a kiss are quite distinct things, Tom.”