Hazelhurst: A Regency Romance (Families of Dorset Book 4)

by Martha Keyes

  "Saved by a wave!" Tobias said on a laugh as they both lifted their sopping feet to evaluate the damage.

  "I hardly think saved is the best way to characterize what just occurred," she said, lifting the bottom of her dress and watching it drip onto the multi-colored pebbles.

  Another wave threatened to engulf their feet, and Tobias guided Anne away from the menace, a hand on the small of her back, toward the small recess in the precipitous, white cliff walls.

  "Safe," he said, winded but relieved, as the wave beat a hasty retreat. He turned to Anne, and seeing her own thrilled expression heightened his own pleasure to the point that he couldn't resist pulling her against him.

  She looked up at him, surprise written in her eyes and her smile wavering slightly as she swallowed. A wave broke somewhere on the shore, but Tobias couldn't tear his eyes from Anne, hardly caring whether the water rose to their waists, so long as he could hold his wife as he was now.

  He felt her shiver in his arms and pulled her closer still.

  "You should not have ignored my suggestion for a pelisse," she said, relenting to the embrace and resting her head against his shoulder.

  "But then you wouldn’t need me, and I would have been deprived of this," he said softly.

  She pulled back, looking up into his eyes and scanning them.

  He put a hand to her cheek and dipped his head down, brushing his lips against hers, eliciting another shiver.

  Her hand wrapped around his neck, pulling him down so that their lips locked, and Tobias momentarily forgot how to breathe. It was unlike anything he had ever experienced—solitary as they were on the beach, in the shade of the high cliffs, wrapped up in one another.

  Cold water rushed their feet and smacked against the cliff walls, spraying them with drops of saltwater as Anne pulled away, sucking in a breath at the chill of the ocean tide. Tobias watched the water recede and then took her hand again, pulling her out of the alcove and toward the path that led back to Hazelhurst. “For if you were to take a chill, I would bear the responsibility.”

  Anne regaled him with what had transpired during his absence, including how much she had wished for his presence on her visit to Mrs. Newsom at the vicarage, where he might have done a better job than she at handling the children.

  "For there is no doubt at all that you have a gift with them," she said, looking up at him with such a look of admiration that Tobias couldn't resist kissing her again.

  But the visit to Mrs. Newsom had also troubled Anne deeply, and Tobias listened carefully, sparks of inspiration firing off in his mind as she recounted the troubles faced by that household. Anne was more cognizant of the needs of those around her than anyone Tobias knew, save perhaps his sister Isabel.

  He couldn't decide if it was a gift or a burden to be so aware of need, but he fully intended to take what Anne had told him and apply himself to the problem—if his idea was even feasible, of course. Lightening the burden of Mrs. Newsom would lighten Anne's burden as well.

  With Anne's dirty, damp dress hem and their wet boots, they were both due for a change of clothing.

  Anne had smiled at the suggestion of a change of clothing. “Why is it that we cannot seem to spend even an hour together without ending up in a state such as this?”

  They broke hands, Tobias feeling reluctant, and Anne's shy glance at him giving him the impression that she, too, wished they needn't separate.

  He allowed himself one glance at her over his shoulder as he paused at his own bedroom door. The fact that he needed to make a trip into the village meant that he wouldn't see her before dinner.

  He might not be able to put the errand off, but he could certainty execute it as swiftly as possible.

  When he guided his horse into the village, he immediately wrinkled his nose, the scent of tobacco wafting toward him. He searched out the source, and his jaw hardened.

  Mr. Hackett stood outside the Turner home, a cigar balanced between his lips. Tobias had always hated the practice of smoking—likely his father's predilection for the habit had given him a distaste for it. He was hardly surprised to see that Mr. Hackett engaged in the filthy habit.

  His fingers grasped the reins more tightly for a moment, but he drew in a breath. He would have his day with Mr. Hackett. For now, though, it was Louisa he needed to speak with.

  Mr. Hackett tipped his hat as Tobias dismounted. "Good afternoon, Mr. Cosgrove," he said.

  Tobias only nodded, striding toward the door. He didn't trust himself to engage in conversation with the man. It was better to avoid him for the time being.

  "Lady Anne does not accompany you, I see," Mr. Hackett said, and Tobias could have sworn there was a hint of mocking in the words.

  Tobias stiffened, pausing with his fist at the Turner's door, ready to knock. He turned toward Mr. Hackett. The man was even more adept at manipulation than Tobias had thought. The thought of him manipulating Anne more than he already had was intolerable. "You will not speak of my wife, sir. Nor speak to her ever again."

  Mr. Hackett inclined his head, and Tobias raised his fist again only to stop.

  "And what, pray, am I to do when she speaks to me?" Mr. Hackett asked.

  Tobias didn't even turn toward him. "I shouldn't trouble yourself about that possibility. It is so unlikely that I should consider it a waste of your time to dwell upon."

  A small scoff escaped from Mr. Hackett, and Tobias clenched his eyes in an effort to rein in his patience. The thought of Anne sharing a life with a rogue like Mr. Hackett was enough to make one thing clear: Tobias was not as different from his father as he had hoped he was. He had too much of a temper to make any such claim.

  "You have something you wish to say?" Tobias finally managed to say, manufacturing a humorless smile as he looked to Mr. Hackett.

  Mr. Hackett shrugged. "She was here not two days ago addressing herself to me, and she made it abundantly clear that—what is it the poem says?—ah yes, I believe it is Always towards absent lovers love's tide stronger flows." He smiled provokingly. "And I was absent for quite some time, Mr. Cosgrove."

  Tobias writhed inside at the words. They pierced him right in the heart, and in that instant, he pictured rushing toward Hackett, barreling into the man's chest and sending them both down into the garden. They would wrestle for a moment, and Tobias would send a fist to his jaw.

  But no. Tobias sucked a breath into his flared nostrils. He would have to contain himself. The man would be served justice soon enough, and then that self-satisfied hint of a smile would be gone forever.

  "Stay away from my wife," he said, rapping his knuckles upon the door harder than was perhaps merited. He sent a final glance at Mr. Hackett, who was watching him with a hint of a smirk on his lips, and Tobias itched for the time when the man would receive his comeuppance.

  The discussion he had with Louisa proved to be more difficult than he had anticipated. The suggestion he offered for a possible solution to her difficulties was rejected—with gratitude, but rejected nonetheless.

  "For, while it might have been precisely the situation needed a few days ago, I think that there is no longer that need." When Tobias had responded nothing, she had added, "Because Nicholas has returned, you see."

  Tobias hadn't the heart to tell Louisa that her husband was more likely to disappear without any notice, leaving her in another lurch, than to support her and James. She needed to know what type of man she had married.

  The door opened, and Mr. Hackett stepped in.

  Tobias shut his eyes and sighed. He couldn’t explain things to Louisa when the man was in the same room. If she had to choose whom to believe between her husband and Tobias, there was little doubt whose words she would choose to believe.

  "Please keep the suggestion in mind, all the same," he said, placing his hat back on his head and bowing.

  Mr. Hackett made a flourishing bow to him as Tobias came to the front door. "Please convey my greetings to Anne," he said.

  Tobias grinned through clenched
teeth, saying lightly, "Not a chance in hell, my friend."

  He passed through the door and swung his leg up over his horse.

  "No matter," said Mr. Hackett, stepping out of the house and matching Tobias's light tone. "She comes here often enough under the guise of visiting my wife that I shall no doubt have the opportunity to convey my warmest greetings to her myself."

  Tobias gripped the reins in his hands, and his horse shuffled skittishly at the tight hold. He forced a smile at Mr. Hackett, reminding himself for what seemed the hundredth time that the man little knew how the sheer ice he stood on was cracking under his feet.

  And yet, Tobias was only human. The next time Hackett made a thinly-veiled implication that Anne was still in love with him, Tobias couldn't take responsibility for his actions. The thought that there was any truth to his words—that they were more than just empty provocation…

  It was unbearable.

  17

  Anne's skin had tingled as she had changed her soiled dress for one more suitable for dinner, directing her maid to bring the dress she felt most flattering to Anne.

  Her heart fluttered as she thought of dining alone with Tobias after his errand to the village. Was he finishing the business of sending Mr. Hackett away? Anne couldn't find it in herself to regret such an action, if it were indeed what he had intended. The man's words to her, his demeanor had been anything but that of a man determined to now be loyal to his wife and child.

  Certainly it would hurt Louisa to have him sent away, but when she was brought to see the type of man her husband was, perhaps she would come to accept that it was in everyone's best interest.

  She stood before the hearth in the drawing room, basking in the warm glow of the fire within the grate as it warmed her toes, still cold from the frigid water at the beach, remembering the contrast of the chill in her feet and the warmth of Tobias's arms.

  Had he been caught up in the moment? Or had he been wishing to kiss her for as long as she had been wishing he would do so?

  She spun around as the door opened, her face falling at the sight of the footman, holding a silver tray with a letter upon it.

  "For you, my lady," he said, and she took the letter from the tray, her heart dropping as she recognized her father's script and wax seal. The thought of her father made her stomach swim. Would she ever be able to look on him without thinking of Mrs. Childress?

  She broke the seal with the knife on the tray and then thanked the footman and watched him leave before unfolding the paper. Anne and her father did not correspond regularly. A letter from him hardly boded well.

  Anne,

  You will perhaps remember the warning I issued to you when I was last at Hazelhurst. I write with the unpleasant errand of confirming the suspicions I then harbored and the caution I pled with you to take. It seems you have not heeded my words.

  It was my very unfortunate experience to witness your husband's presence in town a few days since. I passed by in a closed carriage, and he was thus unaware of my presence as I observed him—very much alone—in the presence of another woman whose reputation is well-known. I shall not burden you with any other details, as I imagine you are wise enough to understand the significance of the piece of information I am conveying.

  I urge you to see to this matter without delay, to do whatever is necessary to prevent yet another scandal from tainting the good name of this family. I remind you as well, that presenting Mr. Cosgrove with an heir in a timely manner is your duty as a wife.

  Lord Purbeck

  Anne's chest rose and fell rapidly as she reread the second paragraph, her appetite disintegrating as nausea overtook it.

  He must be wrong. He had to be wrong.

  But what reason could he possibly have for fabricating such a tale? Was this the reason for Tobias's visit to London?

  Of course, she knew that it was not uncommon for men to keep company with such women—particularly in marriages of convenience—but the depth of her pain made it quite clear to Anne that, however this marriage had begun, it was no longer a marriage of convenience—for her, at least. She had fallen in love with her husband, despite all of her best intentions, and her heart was irrevocably tied to him.

  What foolishness could have led her to assume the same of Tobias was a question she didn't know how to answer.

  His happiness upon seeing her, the moments they had just shared on the beach—she clenched her eyes to dispel the images. They had been nothing but Tobias being himself: a man ready to follow amusement wherever and whenever it presented itself.

  But reading her father's words felt so much like the betrayal and rejection she had experienced upon learning the truth about Mr. Hackett that she rushed from the drawing room to return to her room. She couldn't bear to confront Tobias. She had no right to question him and his activities, and she needed time before she could present a façade of placid acceptance as she knew she would be obliged to do.

  But not tonight.

  When Anne awoke in the morning, it was with the same weight in the pit of her stomach that had settled there, deep and unyielding, the night before.

  She had no one to blame but herself for what she was feeling, but the knowledge did nothing to comfort her. Why was she unable to remain unattached? Why did her heart insist on setting itself upon men who could never return her regard?

  Of course, there was the possibility that her father was mistaken—that he had not seen what he thought he had seen. Or that there was some innocent explanation for it. It would be very much like her father to assume the worst—he seemed inclined to interpret everything through a glass of cynicism.

  Anne's heart beat wildly as she dressed for the day. What would she do when she saw Tobias? What if he attempted to continue the familiarity of the interaction they had shared yesterday? What if he didn't? She couldn't decide which alternative would be worse.

  It was thus with a muddled head and conflicted heart that Anne descended the stairs to partake of breakfast, having spent as much time as she could justify in her own parlor, writing letters to people she hadn't spoken with in an eon and attempting to read a book until she realized that her eyes had been reading the words for twenty pages and she none the wiser about what had been occurring in the story.

  But Tobias was not in the breakfast room, and when Anne tried to very nonchalantly inquire about his whereabouts, Mrs. Pinborough could provide her with no information other than that he had risen early and requested a small breakfast be brought to his room.

  Anne swallowed the lump in her throat and nodded with a forced smile at the housekeeper, trying valiantly not to read into Tobias's behavior.

  One thing she knew: she could not spend the entire day cooped up in the house with nothing to distract her, nothing to keep her mind from dwelling upon the various memories of Tobias she attached to the house. The breakfast room in particular, with its Hussar blue walls, held too many suggestions and images of the hopes Anne had been harboring.

  It was high time that she rode into Weymouth and explored the wares available there—some fresh new decorations for the house, perhaps—ones that held no attachment to Tobias. Neutral objects. Some fresh air, too, would do Anne a world of good. She could very well drive herself there—one of the advantages of being married and having grown up with a brother who had taught her how to drive to an inch.

  The air nipped at her nose and cheeks as the tilbury rumbled over the uneven roads toward the town, making Anne grateful that she had thought to wear her fur-lined pelisse and the matching muff, which sat at her feet.

  Somehow things seemed much less dreary and hopeless in the fresh air, with a view of the expansive ocean to which the road ran parallel. It was not in Anne's nature to despair, nor to think the worst of those she cared about.

  The best course forward would be to take better care in protecting her heart, while not closing it off entirely to the possibility that her father had been mistaken, whether in what he had seen—he was certainly not as young as he used
to be, and his vision was very likely suffering the effects of age—or in his assumptions of the meaning of what he had seen.

  And while Anne's heart still ached at the thought of it all being true, she was practical enough to know that despair was hardly a productive response.

  She was thus able to drive and then walk the streets of Weymouth with a fair measure of composure and pleasure, admiring the window displays of various shops, stepping in to purchase some of the hard candy offered by her favorite confectioner, and order the purchase of a new set of curtains for the breakfast room—something new to offset the way the room was currently saturated with Tobias's smile and laugh.

  Anne drove the horses through the streets of Weymouth, the tilbury filled with bandboxes and small trinkets, prepared to make the journey back to Hazelhurst, when a determined and thoughtless job cart cut in front of her, requiring her to veer out of the way and turn into one of the narrower, side streets which branched off of Dorchester Road.

  She sighed in frustration, but the task of navigating the narrow street and the few equipages which were stopped along it required every bit of Anne's attention. She was nearing the end of the street, glancing down beside her to ensure that she had indeed given enough space to pass by a stationary wagon, when her eyes landed upon Tobias, standing at the door of one of the narrow, slanted homes that lined the streets, his hand holding the hand of the woman who stood in the doorway, a smile on his lips.

  Anne froze, her hands grasping the reins until her fingernails dug into her palms, even through her gloves. There was little room for mistaking the woman's station or occupation, and the sight of Tobias with her made Anne's vision swim for a moment, her neck craning to maintain them in view, until she realized that she was coming to the end of the street.

  She slowed the horses, forcing herself to concentrate on the traffic of the street before her. Hands trembling, she turned the tilbury into the street, but her eyes barely registered the bustle of laborers there, her mind unable to dispel the image of what she had just seen.