by Rose Lerner
He drew in a deep breath, reminding himself that Byron did it. He went out every day with his deformed foot, and he let them stare. He went to Almack’s in knee breeches with that skinny leg of his, and to the devil with them all. If Byron could do that with half of London breathing down his neck, Nick could manage Lively St. Lemeston.
He had survived the siege of Badajoz. This was nothing. “I’ll go,” he said. “But I’m making you a bet too.”
“I’m listening.”
“If I get that woman married off, you can never wince when you look at me again.”
Her lips parted, her eyes filling with tears. “Oh, Nicky, I—”
“Don’t apologize. Just make the bet.”
She held out her hand. It was older than he remembered, the veins more prominent. But when he shook it, her smile made her look young. “The coach will take you this afternoon. And see if you can keep Tony away from women while you’re there, won’t you?”
He would get this match made by hook or by crook. And then he’d walk away and—
His imagination failed. It didn’t matter. One step at a time, he told himself, just as he had in hospital when every step was a small, blessedly finite agony. One step at a time from here to the door, and we’ll worry about what’s on the other side when we get there.
Nick leaned on his walking stick, giving himself a few moments to catch his breath. Of course the widow lived at the top of two flights of very steep, very twisty stairs.
After six hours of jouncing about on bad roads the day before, followed by sleeping in an unfamiliar bed in damp weather, his leg had already been protesting. He’d waited until the sun came out this afternoon, and still his leg whined all the way from the Lost Bell, Tony’s inn headquarters: past the Market Cross and down the quaint streets, up the uneven garden path to the widow’s lodgings, past hedges and bushes strewn with drying clothes and past the open kitchen door, and into the house. Now, after the stairs, it shouted at him that it wanted to go home and sleep.
You and I both, leg. He rapped on the low attic door. There was no answer. After half a minute dragged by, he tried again. No answer. The wretched woman wasn’t home. The staircase yawned behind him like a drab, dirty descent into Hell.
Men had probably journeyed into Hell with more grace and less cursing, but eventually Nick found himself back out on the threshold. He closed the door and leaned against it. The maids at their washing in the kitchen couldn’t see him from this angle. He shut his eyes and silently recited Byron until the ache in his leg receded.
“Are you ill, sir?”
He started upright. The plumper of the two maids stood before him. The water from the washing had splashed all down her front, and it was chilly enough that the points of her nipples showed even through several layers of wet cloth. There was so much of her, breasts and hips and thighs and—
She cleared her throat loudly. “Sir?”
He hurriedly raised his eyes to her face. It was a lovely face, heart-shaped with great dark eyes, finely arched brows, and an annoyed rosebud mouth. The tips of her thick dark hair curled wetly.
“Yes, I must have eaten something that disagreed with me,” he said. “I’m Mr. Dymond, and I’m looking for Mrs. Sparks. Do you know if she’ll be in later?”
The maid’s eyes widened, and she tried to dry her hands on her skirts. “Maybe,” she hedged. “What did you want to speak to her about? Wait a moment, did you say Mr. Dymond? But I’ve met him, he’s—”
“I’m sorry, I should have said Mr. Nicholas Dymond. My brother is the candidate.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You know Mr. Sparks is dead, don’t you? He can’t vote.” Her Sussex accent wasn’t as strong as many of the folk he’d spoken to here, but a warm burr coated her words like a honey glaze.
It would behoove him to win her over for the sake of Mrs. Sparks’s vote, but he didn’t quite know how. Flirting with a voter’s wife was safe; she knew you didn’t mean it. A maid might think you were trying to bed her. His mother had impressed upon them all from a very early age the folly of womanizing during an election.
How would Lady Tassell handle this? A smile, flattery and a bribe, no doubt. She had small armies of servant spies across England, and they all thought her a paragon of kind generosity.
He smiled at the maid. Her hands twisted in her skirts. “I do know,” he said reassuringly. “But there’s nothing to stop her taking another, is there? If you could tell me of anyone she might be sweet on, I’d be very grateful. You must know all the news hereabouts.” He pulled a shilling out of his pocket and pressed it into one nervous hand.
Her fingers were cold and damp. Even with the sun finally out, it was a damnable day for washing.
The other maid, holding a linen shift trimmed with faded green bows and red rosettes, appeared at her elbow and plucked the shilling from her fingers. “That’s mine, I believe. And Mrs. Sparks isn’t sweet on anyone.”
“Sukey!” The maid flushed, then turned on him, eyes flashing. “I thought better of the Orange-and-Purples, I really did. I’m not getting married for your dratted election, so you can stop flirting with all the servants in the vicinity.”
Sukey winked at him. “Oh, don’t stop on my account.”
Nick stifled a groan. He wasn’t cut out for this. He couldn’t manage even the simplest bit of politic dealing. “Mrs. Sparks, I take it.”
Chapter Two
Despite Nick’s dismay, he couldn’t help thinking this meant that was her shift in Sukey’s hands. Her petticoat and underthings were draped over the rhododendron behind her. Under her wet dress, right now, she must be wearing brown-and-white striped stockings, like the three pairs hanging from a nearby tree branch.
“Yes,” she said sharply, “and yes, those are my underthings you’re ogling. Sir.”
Nick straightened, collecting his wayward thoughts. “My humblest apologies, madam.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Really? The very humblest? Ne plus ultra?”
There was no purpose even in an ordered retreat; he had no reinforcements, no main army to rejoin. He had to stay and fix this. But first he needed to discover the lay of the land. “Did you like being married?” he asked bluntly.
“No,” she snapped, and then pressed her fist into her mouth as if she couldn’t believe she’d said it. “I mean—yes,” she amended after a moment. “Sometimes. I—it wasn’t Will’s fault. Lord, I’m a beast.”
This was interesting.
“Of course you’re not a beast, ma’am,” Sukey said. “Men are impossible to live with, that’s all.” She put a hand on her mistress’s shoulder.
As if that made her remember how cold she was, Mrs. Sparks shivered. “I’m impossible to live with too,” she said sadly. Then she shot him a glare. “Which is why I live alone.”
He sighed. “So do I. Although I’m sure it will be no time at all before my mother is trying to matchmake for me. She bullied me down here to talk to you, you know.”
He didn’t like how calculated his words were. But it worked. He could see it, when in her mind they became fellow pawns in his mother’s game. She smirked. “If this is an example of the delicacy of her stratagems, you have nothing to fear.”
“Unkind, but just.” Her lips twitched. He almost had her. “Listen—perhaps you don’t want to marry again, but do me a favor and at least come to the dinner my brother is throwing for the voters on Thursday? Meet a few potential husbands. I hear there’s to be dancing, and it will convince my mother that I’m at least making inroads into your spinsterhood.” Damn, that last bit sounded rather indecent.
She flushed, evidently agreeing.
“Why not, ma’am?” asked Sukey. “It would do you good to get out for an evening. I can’t remember the last time you wore something really pretty.”
It wasn’t meant as an insult, but Nick winced as the blush deepened into angry shame on Mrs. Sparks’s face. “I don’t own anything really pretty,” she said harshly. “I dyed my best gown blac
k when we laid Will out.”
“There, you see?” Sukey said. “That means it was more than two years ago. Two whole years of drudgery and scribbling. It’s about time you—”
Mrs. Sparks began to vibrate like a teakettle. Nick found it inexplicably charming.
“It’s not a very formal affair,” he interrupted before she could boil over. “Pin an orange-and-purple rosette in your hair and you’ll be the height of fashion. Please say you’ll come. I’d like to know there will be at least one familiar face in the crowd.” His mother wanted him to dance. He had planned to ignore that, but now, if his leg would permit it, he found himself wanting to dance with Mrs. Sparks. Although if she stepped on his feet, he imagined she would do so very firmly.
Her face softened. He was close to success, so close. “I don’t have time,” she said, still sharply but with rather less conviction than before. “Drudgery and scribbling is time-consuming work, and unless you wish to do my washing and piece a quilt for the Gooding Day auction, the rest of my week is—”
“So if I help with your washing and make a donation to the auction, you’ll come to the party?”
Her jaw dropped. “You’re going to help with my washing.”
“I did my own plenty of times in Spain.” Of course, he had had two good legs then. Now the prolonged exposure to the chill and wet would probably have his thigh aching all evening and into tomorrow. But he could see that the novelty of an earl’s son doing her washing had her hooked, and in the first heady flush of victory, that pain seemed far off.
“But you said you were ill,” she protested.
“I’m feeling much better. Why don’t you go upstairs and dry off? Maybe you can get some scribbling done while Sukey and I finish here. That should save you enough time to allow for the party on Thursday.”
She hesitated, looking from him to the maid.
Sukey grinned at her. “Yes, ma’am, Mr. Dymond and I will be just fine. I’ll tell him all about what sort of men you prefer.”
Mrs. Sparks sighed. “That’s terribly kind of you, Sukey. But really, if all three of us work, we’ll be done in two-thirds the time.” Nick hid a smile; Mrs. Sparks had a precise mind. She was also generous in her estimation of his skills as a laundress. Then she smiled, rather maliciously. “We’ll give him the tablecloths.” Sukey laughed.
He found out why quickly enough—soap had to be rubbed into every last stain before laying the twisted linen on the kitchen bench and beating it with Mrs. Sparks’s paddle-shaped battledore. Then the tablecloths had to be soaked in the trough and scrubbed with his fingers, and examined again for stains. If there were any left, the whole process was to be gone through again. But Mrs. Sparks was kneeling beside him, doing the same thing to her worn gowns. Her cheeks were pink from exertion and the heat from the fire, and when she rubbed the cloth together vigorously, her bosom bounced. There were worse ways to spend an afternoon.
Phoebe tried not to be too aware of Mr. Dymond’s shoulder pressed against her own as he struggled with her tablecloths. It had been cruel of her to assign them to him, only she hated doing them so much. The third time he cursed at a stubborn stain, she took pity on him. “Here, let’s switch, you can take the—” She was suddenly conscious she was holding one of her dresses. The idea of his hands on it seemed terribly intimate.
“No, no,” he said airily. “I can do this.”
If it was a matter of masculine pride, there was no use in arguing. She shrugged and hid her relief.
She still couldn’t quite get over the oddity of the situation. She’d only ever seen him before at church, at Christmastime when his family was in residence. He’d sat in the Tassell pew in the front; Phoebe’s family felt lucky to have their own pew at all, a few rows from the back.
He’d been a handsome boy even then, but he’d grown into something special, and now here he was in her landlady’s kitchen, close enough to touch. He was too fine and fancy for washing day, the watercolor of his honey-blond hair, blue eyes, and soft features turned to an expensive oil painting by the dramatic slash of dark eyebrows, sharp cheekbones and firm mouth.
Half an hour ago he had looked like a distinguished fashion plate with his old-fashioned walking stick, and now his hair was frizzing from the wash-water and his expensive coat was wet to the elbows. But he didn’t complain or show any sign of shrinking. And when it came time to pound the linen with the battledore—well, he had splendid shoulders. She caught Sukey eying them too.
Not to mention, he was tall. She smiled smugly. “Here, help me get the sheet onto the line.” She carried the wet bundle up into the yard, and he followed with his walking stick, of which he seemed very fond. Generally she and Sukey had to struggle with this, and more often than not they trailed the end of the sheet in the mud and had to wash it all over again. Mr. Dymond had no trouble at all. He lifted the sheet over the line from his great height and straightened it so it hung neatly without even stretching.
They were almost done. Laundry day wasn’t so bad, now that she lived alone. When she’d had to do all Will’s things, she had spent the day before, the day of and the day after in a grumpy, resentful haze. Surely it isn’t that difficult not to spill soup on one’s shirt, she’d thought to herself, and Tobacco is a filthy habit, only look at these stains on his cuffs.
She really had been impossible to live with, hadn’t she?
“Sukey, why don’t you go upstairs and build up the fire?” she suggested. “Mr. Dymond and I will finish the bed linens, and you can get some soup heating. And make a new pot of tea. You must come upstairs and dry off, Mr. Dymond. The Orange-and-Purples would never forgive me if I let you catch cold.” It was a perfectly ordinary thing to say, but it felt daring. She was cold enough not to mind the heat in her cheeks.
“Some tea sounds like heaven.” There was something startling about his smile, every time—it entirely changed the shape of his face. Strong lines appeared on his smooth skin and his eyes gleamed a brighter blue. Even his dark, winged brows took on a more welcoming curve.
Sukey straightened her shoulders, removed all expression from her face, and said woodenly, “Of course, madam.”
It was her imitation of a butler in a great house, the sort of impassive, well-trained servant who didn’t blink at anything. She liked to bring it out when Phoebe got snappish with her or—Phoebe’s cheeks warmed further—when she was teasing that Phoebe had done something very shocking indeed. “Just ring if you need anything, madam, sir.”
“I’ll wring your neck,” Phoebe said, flicking water at her, and Sukey laughed and went up the stairs. Silence stretched. She should really move into Sukey’s place at the other end of the trough and not kneel so close, but they were almost done. She reached for the last pillowcase. “Thank you for helping with this. And don’t mind Sukey.”
“Oh, I don’t. My valet’s just as bad. He’s going to wring my neck when he sees the state of my coat and shirt. It’s a good thing I didn’t take him to Spain. He would have thrown himself off a mountain. Or thrown me, maybe.”
“No laundresses?”
“Sometimes in a billet.” He followed her outside to strew the last few things on the hedges. “Never on bivouac. And we had to carry everything. Well—the men had to carry everything on their backs. I owned a mule in the baggage train, but that still meant only two spare shirts and two spare pairs of socks, and in the winter everything was damp for weeks on end. Sometimes I thought I’d never be warm and dry again.” His mouth went grim. “I was, though.”
She heard it in his voice, even though he didn’t say it: Some men weren’t. She shivered, abruptly ashamed of her laundry-day whining. He looked fine and fancy, but that didn’t make him a china figurine who’d sat on a mantelpiece all his life. He’d suffered greater privations than hers.
He took her shivering for cold. “You’d better change out of those wet things. Your lips are turning blue.”
She must look a fright. “You’re just as wet as I am.” She wished she didn�
�t sound so sullen. What did it matter what he thought of her appearance?
“Am I?” He looked down at himself in surprise. “I never understood the fellows who stood about complaining of the Spanish climate—the quickest way to get warm is to build a fire, and the best way not to feel the cold is to think of something else.”
“What did you think of, generally?”
He smiled a wonderful, wicked smile that made his blue eyes glitter like winter ice, and let the moment drag out until she’d supplied a hundred naughty answers in her own mind.
“Mr. Dymond!” She tried to sound disapproving without much success.
“Oh, I’d compose poems, mostly, or recite them,” he said innocently. “What did you think I was going to say?”
“I think it’s time to dump out the laundry water.”
He eyed the trough, a wary expression crossing his face.
“It is heavy, but Sukey and I are usually too lazy to carry it out bit by bit in buckets. Would you rather—”
He squared his shoulders. “No, no, it’s quite all right.” He bent and gripped the handle at one end of the trough. She grabbed the other.
“Watch the top step, it’s higher than the path,” she said as they maneuvered up the kitchen stairs and out into the garden. His face looked a little set. “Are you sure—”
“Quite sure.” They made it over the top step without incident. He smiled at her—and she forgot entirely about the loose stone in the path. She tripped and dropped her end of the trough, water sloshing over her in a great dirty wave.
That wasn’t the worst of it. Mr. Dymond completely lost his balance, sprawling on the ground with a pained grunt that utterly mortified her.
“Oh God, I’m so sorry, we should have used buckets, are you all right?” She shut her mouth firmly before she could say, You shouldn’t have smiled.
“That dress you’re in needs to be washed,” he said, and they both started laughing. His laugh was as attractive as his smile; she was watching him very closely when he stood.