by Amy Corwin
Or could she bring herself to face a life one step away from poverty? Other women had been forced to do so. Perhaps she could find some kind of employment. Become a companion like her beloved Mrs. Lawrence.
She remembered the letters Mrs. Lawrence had preserved in her small box. They’d been from her husband—personal and with small touches of humor. Nothing terribly romantic or exciting, and yet they’d revealed the deep connection between the two, a sense of shared interests and cherished love.
Hannah had loved her, as well, like her own mother. She’d tried to treat her as one of the family, but she was well aware that no matter how comfortable she thought they all were, Mrs. Lawrence never forgot that she was a paid companion. She was always a bit apart, a touch reserved, and her employment was not a situation one would accept unless one had no choice.
However, it was an alternative. She could offer to be a companion to the dowager…
What if the dowager didn’t want—or need—a companion? What would happen if she refused to marry Henry, and they asked her to leave? Where would she go? How would she live with no money?
She’d have to sell her jewelry—that much was certain. That would provide her with enough to live on for a while.
Or she could return to Boston. That would please Mr. Winthrop, and it would keep whatever was left of her fortune from the risk of another transfer. All-in-all, that was the most practical solution. Sell her jewelry, buy a ticket on the next packet out of Liverpool, and return to a lonely life in Boston.
Feeling numb, she got up and walked across the terrace to the shallow flagstone steps, edged with jonquils and narcissus. She barely saw the flowers, barely noticed their heady fragrance as she stepped down onto the path that led through the herb garden to the rose beds. A splash of pink caught her attention. Yesterday, she’d noticed that one rose, Old Blush, had buds preparing to open.
She straightened and took a deep breath as she folded the letters together and shoved them back through the slit into her pocket. A decision could wait—would have to wait. Looking around, she saw that the paths were deserted and showed no signs of footprints.
Thinking that Gina might have led Mr. Furlong—Miles Furlong, indeed, she smiled although her lips felt stiff—to the rougher area near the cliff trail, she started off in that direction.
However, as she moved down the path, a flicker of white against the brown and green fields made her look that way. Gina and Mr. Furlong had left the gardens proper and were, indeed, in the wilder area between the grounds of the house and the cliffs. She picked up her skirts and walked toward them, her curiosity getting the better of her.
Gina and Mr. Furlong weren’t standing, enjoying the view. They were on their hands and knees, their bottoms in the air and their noses almost touching the rough grass.
As if hearing her steps, Gina raised her head and looked over her shoulder. “Hannah! Oh, do come and see what Mr. Furlong is showing me. I had no idea there was such a variety of life in even the smallest square. Why, it is like one of our cities in miniature, with tiny insects rushing about their daily errands. And there is a lovely spider—you must look through Miles’s magnifying glass, the markings are exquisite!”
Miles? Dismay tightened the back of Hannah’s already tense neck. So, Gina felt comfortable using Mr. Furlong’s first name, so soon after their first meeting. They had only been alone together for a few minutes. Surely, that was a hint that an unusual level of intimacy had grown between the two far too quickly for good sense or comfort.
Miles sat back on his heels and held out a large magnifying glass with a brass handle. “Do you wish to observe, Miss Cowles?” The expectant expression on his face gave no suggestion that he’d noticed anything amiss in Gina’s use of his first name.
The two seemed quite companionable and content with each other’s company. In fact, to Hannah’s increasing alarm, Gina didn’t seem to be pretending an interest in ants and spiders and whatever else she was looking at. She actually seemed to find the creatures as fascinating as Miles Furlong did.
Worse and worse. The identical, hopeful expressions on their faces as they glanced up at Hannah reminded her precisely of Mrs. Lawrence’s letters and the harmony of expression she’d seen in her parents’ faces when they’d been pouring over maps. Such accord was a rare and precious thing and could only mean a great many tears when Gina eventually went to London.
“Hannah?” Gina asked again, placing her fingers under Miles’s wrist to push his hand and the magnifying glass another inch closer to Hannah.
“No.” She took a step back. While she wasn’t frightened of spiders, neither did she want to examine them nose-to-nose. Or beak-to-nose, or whatever spiders had in the middle of their faces. “That is, I don’t wish to interrupt, and I forgot my shawl.” She rubbed her arms, her mood brittle and unsure. “I simply came outside for a breath of fresh air.”
“Oh.” Gina’s face fell, and she glanced at Miles for support. “Are you sure you don’t want to look, Hannah? It truly is fascinating.”
“I’m sure it is.”
“We noticed that other visitors have arrived,” Miles said, handing the magnifying glass to Gina when Hannah refused to take it. An anxious look tightened the skin over his sharp cheekbones. “Is Mr. Hodges requesting our attendance? Should we return to the house?”
Gina flashed an angry look over her shoulder at the manor. “My uncle can wait a few more minutes. I want to see if that pretty spider catches her supper.”
“Lady Northrop and her daughter have arrived,” Hannah replied, trying not to think about some poor, helpless insect, caught and eaten by a spider.
It probably won’t feel any worse than I do right now, drained of everything.
“Oh.” Gina snorted and turned back, her gaze searching the ground in front of her. “Blackwold’s betrothed—or nearly betrothed. They will have tea and gossip and not miss us in the least. We should have another half-hour before they even realize we are not in the room with them.” She turned her head to give Miles a quick, sweet smile.
He smiled back, his blue eyes softening behind the round lenses of his glasses. “Mr. Hodges—”
“Uncle Carter will never miss your presence, Miles, I assure you,” Gina said, interrupting him and leaning down to peer through the magnifying glass.
He gave another uneasy glance at the house and then bent over again, his long fingers gently moving blades of grass aside to improve Gina’s view of whatever creature was living down there.
Hannah studied their bent backs and shoulders brushing as they examined life in miniature on the rough ground. She sighed. “I’m returning to the house.”
Neither one of them appeared to hear her. Miles murmured something in a soft voice to Gina. She giggled and leaned closer to him, moving the glass a fraction in his direction.
“Goodbye,” Hannah said. “I’m going to jump off the cliff.”
Gina flapped a hand over her shoulder.
“If I survive, I’m going to go tell Lady Northrop and Lady Alice exactly what I think of them,” Hannah added. It was perfectly clear that no one was interested in anything she had to say.
Gina’s wave became a definite shooing-away gesture.
“Miss Cowles!” Henry Hodges suddenly appeared a few yards away. Although he cast one supercilious glance at the only visible part of the pair on the ground—their bottoms—he failed to display either puzzlement or concern over their extraordinary behavior. If anything, his gray eyes sparkled as if he were excited. “I am delighted to see you.” He held out his crooked arm.
Another deep breath whispered over her lips. With a sense of resignation, she slipped her hand through the crook of his arm, and they began to walk back to the house. Her stomach gurgled. Should she tell him about the loss of her fortune?
“Have you met Lady Northrop and her daughter, Lady Alice?” he enquired with a smile. The brilliance of his eyes increased as did his pace until he was almost dragging her across the uneven ground.
“Blackwold is exceedingly fortunate—Lady Alice is a lovely young woman. Fresh and innocent as a summer morning.”
And rich. Let’s not forget that. Her jaw and her grip on his arm tightened a moment as she murmured a vague agreement, her sick feeling returning full force.
“You are very similar—both lovely women—she the new morn while you are a riper, mature summer. She is so fair, and you must have noticed her blue eyes, as translucent as the clear sky. Though yours are as dark as the ocean, and your hair the color of honey.” It was clear—at least to Hannah—that he preferred the new dawn over ripe noon, though he tried to sound just as enthusiastic when he remembered to praise her.
Her facial muscles ached as they grew tighter and tighter over her forehead and around her mouth. Lady Alice was eighteen, only two years younger than Hannah, and the same age as Gina. Hardly a vast difference, even if she did feel like a middle-aged aunt at times around Gina.
“Are you staying for supper?” Hannah asked, trying to change the subject of conversation.
“Yes. Uncle Carter has even managed to convince Grandmother to join us, so we shall have quite a pleasant party.”
Pleasant wasn’t the adjective that leapt to Hannah’s mind, though perhaps with Lady Northrop present, the dowager would manage to be a little less acerbic.
Or perhaps not.
What would the dowager say when she learned that Hannah was as poor as Mr. Hodges’s young curate? It didn’t bear consideration.
Henry dragged her even faster up the terrace steps toward the door. “And Grandmother mentioned that you were quite pleased when she mentioned my proposal.” With his free hand, he pressed her fingers into the crook of his arm.
“I am considering it,” she replied sharply. The last thing she wanted to do was to discuss it now.
“That is all I ask, Miss Cowles.” He held the door open for her. “I am sure that the advantages will become apparent upon consideration.”
Even to a woman as dull as I am? Or as poor as I am? Blackwold was right—I should have drowned like a proper British lady, then I wouldn’t be facing such a bleak future. She mumbled a response that could be taken as agreement if one didn’t listen too closely.
It seemed to satisfy Henry. His smile grew as he led the way to the drawing room. He paused at that doorway, clearly forgetting her until she swept past him, her skirts brushing his leg.
She entered an empty room.
Or nearly empty. Hopwood was leaning over the low table in front of the fireplace, collecting half-empty teacups and plates and placing them on a tray.
He glanced up and straightened when Hannah and Henry entered the room. “Lord Blackwold and his guests have retired to their rooms to prepare for dinner, sir.” He bowed. “Miss Cowles.” He folded his hands over his plump stomach and awaited their orders.
“I shall retire as well, then,” Hannah said, grasping the excuse to flee to her room and collect herself. The corners of the letter kept poking through the thin linen of her pocket, reminding her that at some point, she was going to have to admit that she was not the wealthy heiress that she’d claimed.
She’d always thought of herself as a calm and thoroughly self-sufficient woman, but somehow, the past few hours had pushed her off balance. Now, she felt like a top wobbling near the edge of the table. She needed to collect herself before facing Lady Northrop and the dowager at supper.
And she needed to see if she had anything in her trunk that she could salvage. Lady Blackwold’s old, remade gowns were not going to be sufficient for her last appearance as an heiress.
One final night, and then she’d have to decide in which direction to take her future.
Chapter Seventeen
When Hannah began pulling dresses out of her salt-encrusted trunk, she found the fitted, fringed buckskin jacket her mother had specially made to match the frontiersman jacket her husband had obtained from a trapper. Hannah gently removed it and laid it on the bed, the heaviness in her chest making it difficult to breathe.
Even her limbs seemed uncoordinated and strapped with weights as she moved to hold the jacket up to her in front of the mirror. Her eyes burned with hot tears.
Several years had passed since her mother died, and yet at times, the wounds seemed as fresh as ever. She ached with a deep, tearing loss for both of her parents. How she missed their laughter and optimism, and most of all, their arms around her shoulders. A tear trickled over her cheek, and she brushed it away with the back of her hand.
Her mother and father never let the snobbery of others worry them. Her hand smoothed over the soft buckskin. In fact, they’d taken to wearing their matching fringed jackets when visiting friends, as if to proclaim that they were simple Americans with no interest in titles, peerages, and estates.
Hannah’s gaze lingered on the fringes. Her parents were not the first to do such a thing. Benjamin Franklin had worn a simple fur hat while acting as a diplomat in France, in a clever attempt to appear as an unsophisticated frontiersman. The United States of America had subsequently profited from the sophisticated Parisians’ low expectations of Mr. Franklin, unaware that he was a brilliant scientist and intellectual, definitely not the humble, uneducated backwoodsman he appeared to be.
Perhaps she ought to take a leaf from Mr. Franklin’s book. Time and time again, it had been pointed out to Hannah that she had already failed to behave as a proper British lady, and indeed, she was not. Nor would she ever be. She glanced out the window at the flaming sunset. Her emotions threatened to rip her apart.
While she hadn’t even been at Blackrock for a complete month, she felt at home. Her heart had soared when she’d watched the breathtaking view of the sun setting over the ocean, or the massive power of the clouds darkening to rage in a brief storm that ended in misty sunshine and the occasional distant rainbow. It would be painful to leave Blackrock Manor now, when she was just learning to appreciate its wild changes of mood.
She pulled out the letters and tucked them behind the secret panel of her trunk. What should she do? Did she have any hope of rebuilding her fortune? She had no idea what condition her father’s abandoned estate was in, or if she’d even want to refurbish it and live there, if that was possible with her terribly reduced inheritance.
Would it be worthwhile? What if she didn’t feel at home there as she did here?
But she’d come to England to make her home. She thought she belonged here, would fit in as she had not in Boston, where her parents had rented a humble apartment before one after the other had died. The epitaph in Boscastle would have served them just as well.
Hope, darkly tinged with bitterness, fluttered inside her. The dowager’s request offered a way to fit in—a sure way to marry and settle down to start her own family, even without her own money. Perhaps she’d been foolish to think she could find love and happiness such as her parents had experienced. Their life had not been a perfect idyll, either. There were often times when her mother and father had fought—their words ringing with anger. There were difficulties, certainly, and times when Hannah had gone to bed and pressed the pillow over her ears so she wouldn’t have to hear their deep-throated, furious words.
What should she do?
Coldness stiffened her hands. What if she married Henry, and he turned out to be the man on the beach? Could she live with him, knowing that?
In truth, could she live with any of the Hodges, knowing that one of them was a murderer?
But if she went with Gina to London, what was the best that she could hope for? Without any funds, there were very few men who would even give her a second glance. And she could not expect to return to Cornwall and Blackrock Manor.
Her heart seemed to shrink within her chest as she took a long, shuddering breath. It might already be too late for her to find what her parents had had. Too late… Much too late.
The truth was harsh and unkind. She’d already fallen in love, but it was with a man she could not hope to marry—might not even want to marry if she knew ev
erything about him.
Ruined, indeed, but not in the ridiculous way the villagers gossiped about. She was ruined because her heart was already filled with the dear image of Blackwold, his shaggy hair hanging over his left eye, his neckcloth loose and hanging down on either side of his strong neck, and his waistcoat unbuttoned and rumpled as he slouched in the chair next to her bed at three in the morning, asking her impertinent questions.
A trembling sigh escaped her as she stared in the mirror. What should she do? What had she really hoped to find by coming to England? She would never fit in and could not hope to outshine ladies such as Lady Alice or even her fashionable mother, Lady Northrop. And the trip had cost her everything: Mrs. Lawrence had been drowned and Hannah had lost her inheritance.
She straightened and picked at the fringe of the soft buckskin. Maybe it was time to stop trying so desperately to be a proper British lady or a rich heiress. Honesty was called for.
Though tonight was not the night for buckskin. Or the truth. Her mouth twisted ruefully. She returned to the gowns she’d removed from the trunk and flung onto the bed. She’d been so pleased with them when she left Boston, but now they all seemed slightly old-fashioned after seeing the well-fitted and obviously expensive dresses the other ladies had worn for traveling. If Lady Alice’s silvery-gray traveling outfit was any indication, she would have some exceptional evening gowns for her first—and obviously only—Season in London.
Why she even bothered to go was beyond Hannah, although perhaps it was necessary for her to be presented at Court and all of that folderol. It was one social necessity she was glad didn’t exist in America. Her hand smoothed over the shimmering folds of a geranium-colored silk dress. If she married Henry—or anyone else for that matter—and he somehow managed to receive her father’s title, would she be required to be presented at Court, too?
Another unforeseen complication, and one she didn’t relish. No wonder her father had abandoned his home and title and started wandering the world. His special genius had somehow managed to amass another fortune, even without a title or social position. He just used his wits and his cheerful gift for making friends with anyone, regardless of age, position, or wealth.