The Autumn Bride

by Anne Gracie

  It was probably guilt about that that was making him so overprotective now. Too little, too late.

  The minute I see the least hint of imposition, you and those others will be out on your ear—is that understood?

  She plumped her pillows up, then punched them down. He didn’t know what she’d done, so he had no justification for threatening her like that. She wanted to fling his accusations and suspicions back in his teeth. It was infuriating that she couldn’t.

  Even more infuriating that some small part of her still wanted him to think well of her. Of them.

  She climbed into bed, enjoying the cool, smooth feel of the sheets against her skin.

  How much lower would his opinion sink when he discovered where Jane and Damaris and Daisy had been when she found them? And that Abby had met Lady Beatrice in the middle of the night? On her first attempt to be a thief?

  So while I value the care you’ve taken of my aunt in the sickroom—and I do thank you sincerely for it—it doesn’t give you and your so-called sisters the right to impose on her. . . .

  Impose on Lady Beatrice? Even as she resented the accusation, guilt pricked at her. Yes, they lived in Lady Beatrice’s house, at her expense, and accepted a small allowance from her, but they earned every penny; Abby was very clear in her mind about that.

  She wished now she had accepted Lady Bea’s more-than-generous offer of payment. Well, no, she didn’t—it was an offer made out of loneliness and fear, a kind of bribe to make them want to stay with her. And no matter what his high-and-mighty lordship thought of her, she wouldn’t take advantage of a sick, scared old lady.

  Abby punched her pillow again. It would have served him right if she had.

  She snuggled down under the covers. The trouble was, deep down, in her secret heart of hearts she did hope for more. Not to impose on Lady Beatrice precisely, but certainly to take advantage. Of the situation, not the woman.

  If only she could think of a way to do it. There must be a way for Jane to meet eligible men. . . .

  The minute I see the least hint of imposition, you and those others will be out on your ear—is that understood?

  Lord Davenham could toss them out at any moment. Oh, his aunt would object, but would he take any notice? He was the arrogant, autocratic type. A Viking dressed as a gentleman.

  They didn’t have enough money—or clothes—for Bath yet. There must be a way to get Jane to meet eligible men. There must. . . .

  Most people counted sheep to go to sleep; Abby lay in the big warm bed, counting possibilities. . . .

  But once she’d drifted off to sleep, it wasn’t dreams for Jane that disturbed her. It was a big, dark Viking with steely gray eyes, hunting her down. . . .

  There was nowhere to run, no place to hide. Every way she turned, he was there, stopping her, trapping her, judging her. She woke up sweaty, her pulse pounding, her nightgown twisted around her waist.

  She sat up, drank the water in the glass by her bedside and lay down again, with firm instructions to herself that she was not to dream, that she needed a clear head in the morning and that she needed to think, not to dream.

  Lord Davenham had no part in her dreams. She knew better than that. Yes, he was tall and strong and ridiculously good-looking, and something about him made her heart beat faster, but she didn’t even like him. Much.

  He certainly didn’t like her.

  Besides, he was betrothed.

  She’d been down that path before, with Laurence, though she had no idea he was betrothed at the time. Shame shimmered through her. She never wanted to experience that again.

  Chapter Eleven

  “There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate me.”

  —JANE AUSTEN, PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

  Max woke early and in a bad mood. He was randy as hell, having passed a restless night full of erotic dreams, most of which involved him licking syllabub from a pair of delectable little breasts . . . and then progressing downward.

  He needed exercise: a good, hard ride.

  He rose and dressed in riding clothes. He’d hire a horse from the livery stables around the corner and ride off his frustration that way. Damn the wench.

  A couple of hours later he returned, feeling slightly less tense, though not enough to banish the memory of those damned dreams. Consequently he was still irritable. The livery stable hack was a slug; he’d have to buy a decent horse.

  He hurried upstairs to wash, shave and change. He could smell bacon and toast cooking. He’d feel better after breakfast. Get the taste of syllabub out of his mouth. His mind.

  Morton Black would be here in an hour. He’d get to the bottom of the mystery that was Miss Chance and her sisters. Max lathered up his shaving brush.

  It prompted an unfortunately erotic image. Max swore.

  * * *

  Morton Black was a grave-faced man with a wooden leg, the latter a legacy of Napoleon and his minions, Max assumed. After a few questions about the people Black had worked for before, and the kind of tasks he’d carried out, Max was satisfied that the man was discreet and capable.

  “It’s a delicate matter,” he told Black. “My aunt has taken into her home four young women of unknown background: Miss Abigail Chance, and Misses Jane, Damaris and Daisy Chance. My aunt is claiming, for some peculiar and irrational reason of her own, that they are her nieces, but she has no nieces, no close relatives at all, in fact, other than myself.”

  “I see,” Black murmured, writing down the names.

  “I wish to learn who these young women are, where they have come from, what they were doing before they came to my aunt and—of course this would be purely speculative—what they intend.”

  Black nodded.

  “The oldest one, Miss Abigail Chance, is their leader; the others all look to her. If Chance is her surname—and I cannot be sure of that—it is not, I believe, the surname of them all. Miss Damaris let it slip that she had a different father, yet they claim her as a sister, not a cousin, and Miss Daisy proclaims without embarrassment that she was born a bastard; yet she too goes by Chance.”

  Black made a note. “Any other information, my lord?”

  “At dinner last night, Miss Jane Chance let slip that she and Miss Abigail once lived in a place she called ‘the Pill,’ the Pillbury H-something. She didn’t complete the name but it occurred to me it could be some kind of institution. I have no idea if the others lived there as well.” He sat back in his chair. “Do you think you can track them down? It’s not much to go on, I know.”

  Morton Black gave a thin smile. “I’ll do my best, my lord.”

  The butler ushered Morton Black to the front door. A few minutes later the man returned bearing a note on a gleaming silver salver.

  Max raised his brows. “Silver? And still here?”

  “It was very dirty, m’lord, and easily overlooked.”

  Max opened the note. Excellent. His man Bartlett had found two houses fitting his lordship’s requirements. He’d made arrangements for someone to be available to show Lord Davenham the houses, should he be interested.

  Lord Davenham was. He glanced at the clock. There was just enough time to inspect the houses before he’d arranged to meet Freddy for the excursion to Richmond.

  He scrawled a quick note to Bartlett and handed it to the butler for delivery. “See that it gets there immediately.” As the butler turned to leave, Max added, “I’m intending to purchase some horses. I’ll hire a groom, of course, possibly two, so I’ll need you to make the necessary arrangements for their accommodation.”

  “Of course, my lord. I believe there are grooms’ quarters in the stable building in the mews at the rear of the house. I shall have them prepared. And would you wish me to have the stables swept out and prepared as well?”

  “Do we have the staff for that?” He was very well aware that indoor servants would be most affronted to be asked to do a groom’s
work.

  “I shall hire someone for the job, and William will supervise.”

  “Good man.” Max headed upstairs to fetch his coat. His day was improving. With any luck by the end of it he’d have a house and his own transport.

  As he passed his aunt’s bedchamber, he heard a gurgle of laughter. It was not his aunt. The door was ajar. Max paused to listen.

  “Curse you, you dreadful gel!” Aunt Bea sounded most put out. What the devil was going on?

  Miss Chance—there was no mistaking that warm, spiced-honey voice of hers—replied, “Please yourself, but you know the consequences.”

  Aunt Bea made an irritated noise. “You have no heart, young lady.”

  Again, that soft gurgle of laughter. “I know.”

  “So, you’re determined to torture me, you callous creature?”

  “I am.”

  “What if I tell my nephew that you’re bullying me shockingly?”

  “Go ahead; see if I care.”

  That was all Max needed. He shoved open the door. “Aunt Bea?”

  His aunt was sitting up in bed dressed in a fetching dressing gown: ruffled, pink and frivolous—quite unsuitable for an elderly woman. On her bedside table sat a tray containing the remains of her breakfast: the shell of a boiled egg, a pot of chocolate, a few flakes of sweet pastry. A couple of kittens—Snowflake and Marmaduke—lay in a sleeping tangle in her lap.

  She did not present a picture of a woman being callously tortured.

  “Max, there you are!” his aunt exclaimed. “Tell her!”

  Max glanced at the “her” in question.

  Miss Chance rose from her chair beside the bed, laid a book down on the counterpane and said calmly, “Good morning, Lord Davenham. I trust you slept well?”

  Dressed in the simple gray gown of the morning before, she nevertheless managed to look fresh as a spring morning. Her hair was drawn back in a loose knot, with soft tendrils feathering at her temple and nape. She looked nothing like Max’s image of a callous torturer.

  But looks were often deceptive.

  “What’s the problem here?” he asked.

  “No problem. I’ve been reading to your aunt, that’s all. And now I’ve finished.”

  “Hah! Tell him where you finished!” Aunt Bea snapped.

  Clear gray-green eyes danced with laughter. “Just before the end of the chapter.”

  “It’s outrageous,” his aunt grumbled. “Nobody finishes reading before the end of a chapter.”

  Max looked from his aunt to Miss Chance, then back again. He had no idea what they were talking about.

  Miss Chance took pity on him. “It’s quite an exciting point in the story, and I’ll be very happy to finish reading it to your aunt once she’s walked to the window and back.”

  “Walked to the window . . . ?”

  “As the doctor said she must, several times a day, if she’s to gain the full use of her limbs again.”

  Ah. Now he understood. “I see, well, in that case—Ow!” He looked down to where a small, disreputable scrap of black fluff had leaped out of nowhere and attached itself to Max’s knee. With tiny, very sharp claws. It began to climb him like a tree.

  He bent and carefully pried the creature from his leg, unhooking one small claw at a time. He raised the kitten to eye level, narrowed his eyes sternly at it and said, “That is no way to greet your namesake! Or, indeed, anyone. And breeches are not for climbing up.”

  The kitten narrowed its eyes back at him. And started to purr.

  Max placed it on the bed with its brother and sister, where it immediately pounced on its brother and started a fight. “Atrocious manners,” Max informed it, and turned back to the matter at hand.

  His aunt was grinning openly. Miss Chance had her lips well primmed and under control, but her eyes danced with laughter.

  Damn. His dignity shot to pieces by a tiny scrap of black fluff. Oddly, catching the warm light in Miss Chance’s eyes, he didn’t mind. Then she smiled, his breath hitched and for a moment his mind blanked completely.

  He was a betrothed man.

  “Carry on,” he told Miss Chance crisply. “Good morning, Aunt Bea.”

  * * *

  “Featherby, you shouldn’t be telling me this—you shouldn’t eavesdrop on Lord Davenham’s private conversations. It could cost you your position.”

  Featherby looked unconcerned. “A good butler knows everything that goes on in a house, Miss Abby, so don’t you fret about me. Besides, William and I owe you everything.”

  “It’s very kind of you, truly, and I appreciate the good intentions, but please don’t risk your job on my behalf again.”

  “Don’t you want to know what he wanted Morton Black to do?”

  Abby sighed. “You know I do.”

  He drew her aside.

  When he finished relating what he’d overheard, Abby looked at him in dismay. “It won’t take Mr. Black long to find the Pillbury Home. And then our names will come out—Jane’s and mine, that is.”

  “Is that such a bad thing?”

  She frowned. “Not really, I suppose. It’s the rest I worry about . . . the worst. But I doubt Mr. Black can discover that.”

  “Does the old lady know? About the brothel, I mean?”

  Abby stared at Featherby in shock. You knew?”

  He smiled. “I told you, a good butler knows everything. William told me about it before we left the other place. One of the girls—young Daisy, I think—let it slip. But don’t worry, Miss Abby; wild horses couldn’t drag it out of us. But have you told the old lady?”

  “Yes, before we moved in here. I couldn’t accept her invitation and leave her in ignorance of the worst.”

  Featherby gave her a benevolent smile. “I wouldn’t expect anything else of you, Miss Abby; such a true lady you are. Well, as long as Lady Beatrice knows, you’re all right then. It’s her house, and she’s not going to let Lord Davenham kick you out; you can be sure of that.”

  Abby swallowed. “I hope not.” She paused. “Speaking of our previous residence, have you or William ever been back there?”

  “You mean have we heard whether anyone has come looking for a Miss Chantry and her sister again?” Featherby shook his head. “William says not. He keeps his ear to the ground, does William, and nobody’s come asking questions since that time I told you about, the day we left.”

  “Does anyone there know where you and William live?”

  “No. William’s very discreet. In any case, most of the former tenants have moved; it’s mostly vagrants who live there now. The demolition is imminent. Everyone assumed that’s why you girls left too. William put it about weeks ago that you’d gone to live with relatives in the country—that traveling chaise was remarked on by a few people.”

  The tension in Abby unraveled a little. “So nobody is looking for us?”

  “Nobody,” Featherby assured her. “Only Morton Black.”

  * * *

  “What are you doing?” Lady Beatrice interrupted Abby’s reading. She raised her lorgnette and peered in the direction of Daisy, Jane and Damaris.

  They were seated around the window to get the best light for their task. The return of Lord Davenham had made them all aware of the precariousness of their situation, and the first priority was to sew the dresses to be worn at Jane’s season in Bath.

  “What do you mean?” Jane asked.

  “I thought you gels were sewing, but looks to me like you’re unpicking. Seen Abby doing it often enough.” Abby was the worst seamstress, which was why she mostly read aloud. “But all three of you? Making a mistake at the same time?”

  “Oh, that.” Jane laughed. “We’re unpicking a dress.”

  “I can see that, m’gel, but why?”

  “To use the material, of course,” Daisy said.

  Lady Beatrice tilted her head, as if she’d misheard. “To what?”

  “It’s how we get the fabric for all our clothes,” Damaris explained. “We buy—well, it’s usually
Daisy who does the buying. She knows all the best places and has the best eye for what she can use or not.”

  “You buy what?”

  “Old clothes.”

  “You mean you make your dresses from old clothes?” Lady Beatrice exclaimed.

  “We can’t afford to buy material new,” Daisy said. “The fabric is the most expensive part of any dress. I can get half a dozen old dresses for the price of one length of new material, and depending on what they are, I might get as many as three or four new dresses out of them. Or a dress and a pelisse.”

  “But you can’t wear other people’s old clothes!”

  “Where do you think I got the material for that?” Daisy pointed to Lady Beatrice’s pink-and-green dressing gown and said proudly, “Two dresses I got down Petticoat Lane and some of me bits and pieces.”

  “My dressing gown? Made from rags cast off by strangers?” The old lady recoiled, casting a horrified glance down at herself, as if her favorite garment had suddenly turned into a pile of old rags, reeking and crawling with vermin.

  Abby laughed at her expression. “Everything is perfectly clean.”

  “Rags? They’re not rags,” Daisy said, clearly offended by the slur on her shopping abilities. “I only buy the best, me. I’m very choosy!”

  Unconvinced, the old lady sniffed.

  “It’s true,” Daisy insisted. “Some people get rid of a dress after one or two wears—one, sometimes, if they’ve spilled something and their maid is too stupid or too lazy to get the stain out.”

  “Old clothes worn by complete strangers,” Lady Beatrice muttered crossly, smoothing her hand over her dressing gown. She was obviously torn.

  “No choice, me lady,” Daisy said. “Beggars can’t be choosers.”

  Lady Beatrice drew herself up in her bed. “I,” she said in the voice of outrage, “am not a beggar!” She narrowed her eyes at Daisy. “And neither are you, m’gel. Abby, ring the bell for Featherby. It’s time for my luncheon.”

  Featherby arrived and set out a light luncheon of soup, poached fish, cucumber salad and bread and butter on a table by the fire. It might be summer, but it was still a chilly, gray day.