A Lady's Guide to Passion and Property

by Kate Moore

  “Because you don’t wish to wound your neighbors’ pride when you refuse to marry any of them.”

  She let out a short dry laugh, not at all like the merry sound he’d interrupted earlier, but her eyes still danced. “First you presume to know who’s going to propose to me, and now you presume to know my answers.”

  “Leave it to me, and I will have Adam safely away from here tomorrow, while you go to your friends in town.”

  “I haven’t said I will go anywhere.” There was an obstinate tilt to her chin.

  “But you’ve been toying with the idea all day.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “That letter in your pocket. How many times have you read it?”

  She pushed down the paper peeking out of her pocket, and he watched as some kind of debate played out behind her eyes. “If I did go to my friends, who would look out for Adam, and how would I know he was safe?”

  “I’ll send word.”

  Her gaze was on Adam, her hand on the letter. Harry thought she needed just a little push to persuade her to give in.

  A crash of crockery hitting slate broke the moment. The cat jumped down and scurried around the bench. Raised voices erupted from the kitchen.

  Lucy’s shoulders slumped briefly, but her eyes still laughed. “London, Captain? For me? I think not. Unless you want to do without supper.”

  A minute later Harry heard her low, calm voice cutting through the girls’ squabbling, restoring order.

  “The girls need Lucy in the kitchen,” Adam said. And Harry knew he had one more thing to do before he could pry the innkeeper from her inn.

  * * * *

  Lucy did not miss the cat until it was time to ready Adam for bed. The captain’s offer to take Adam to a safe place had consumed her thinking through the evening rush and the last-minute calls of the night’s guests for tea and warming pans for their beds.

  The captain’s unexpected offer of help only added to the temptation of Margaret’s letter. Lucy could spend a fortnight in society with no harm done. She could have her moment of picnicking on the grass like the lady in the portrait, then she would return to her duties at the Tooth and Nail.

  She checked Queenie’s dish and found the untouched scraps from the earlier disaster of the dropped fricassee of chicken. When the cat did not come to her summons, she slipped a worn blue pelisse over her shoulders and stepped out into the night with the dish.

  The hush of the kitchen garden surrounded her. She breathed in sharp, fresh air, and with one hand, pulled her pelisse tighter. Whatever the calendar said, winter refused to let go of London. Weeks earlier Hyde Park had been the scene of a crazy wager that four horses pulling a huge van could cross the frozen Serpentine.

  Now tiny pricks of icy light dotted an indigo sky. As her cheeks and ears cooled, the smell of damp earth rose to meet her. A horse and cart rumbled by beyond the wall, and small creatures skittered under the leafless shrubbery as if passing along a secret roadway in a world apart from the noise and bustle of the inn.

  She savored the stillness. In the quiet of the garden, she could acknowledge that though she tried to think of Papa as she worked, somehow the work itself took over. There was little room for thoughts of Papa or anyone else while running to the bells’ summons, climbing stairs, lifting trays and buckets, plunging a hand or a mop into cold or hot water, and stirring pots and fires, from first light to last, until every part of one’s body ached and reeked of the job. She understood now why Papa had talked so little most evenings. He had been content to let her prattle on about her friends and her school.

  She shivered and called Queenie again, lifting her gaze at the sound of the garden gate clicking shut. Out of the dark a man strode up the path. She had a confused impression of his entering. Oddly, he had closed the gate, but not opened it. As he stepped into the beam of light from the kitchen door, she saw black boots, long lean legs, and a scarlet jacket that made a rosy patch in the darkness. Captain Clare.

  “What are you doing out here?” he asked.

  “Tempting Queenie.” She showed him her palm with the dish of scraps. “She’s run off.”

  He waited so long to answer that she thought he must not have understood.

  “I didn’t think Queenie ever left Adam’s side.”

  “A reproach meant for me, I think, Captain. You think I can’t leave Adam, but of course, I can and have. Often. For school and Sunday services in town.”

  “And somehow Adam has survived? Astonishing.” He came to stand in the shadows beside her. In spite of the brief joke, his stance was wary and alert, like a soldier on sentry duty. She ventured a glance at his stern profile. She would like to see him laugh once, really laugh, be helpless with it.

  He was not like Adam or Papa or the bench sitters, and it was more than the uniform that set him apart. Though he came from the world of her London friends and spoke with their accents, and though Margaret had mentioned him as charming in her letter, there was something unyielding about him that said he wasn’t entirely at home in London society either, a man who still wore a uniform. Probably, she reasoned, because he was not a man to bend, and certainly not to please a girl. He was about as comfortable as a sheathed sword, and his presence stirred her to vast impatience. “You are quite difficult,” she said.

  “Am I? Here I thought I was helpful.” He continued to look out over the garden.

  “You want me to turn my back on my friends.”

  “I suggested that you go to your friends.”

  “Not those friends. Adam,” she said. “He listens to me and laughs at my jokes, you know.”

  “I thought that was a husband’s job.”

  She laughed. “Is that what husbands do? I’ll have to consult my guide.”

  “Wise, I’m sure, if you plan to hunt a husband in London.”

  “I suppose I must, and there’s no putting it off.”

  “Then you’ll go tomorrow?”

  She laughed. He was that quick to take up the opening she’d left him. “Allow me to make some arrangements, please. And I must find the cat. Either she’s gone off mousing, or she’s more deeply offended than I thought.”

  She turned to enter the kitchen, and he caught her by the arm, pulling her into the shadows. Her whole body waited, skin and nerves and breath, for what he might do next.

  “I’m not worried about the cat,” he said.

  He really was a most irksome person. “Is there anyone who can claim your loyalty, Captain? A fellow soldier? A friend? A brother?”

  “Or a lover?” he asked, his breath warm against her ear.

  She shivered at it. “Oh, pardon me. I should have thought.” She turned her face to his.

  “There is no lover,” he said. This time his breath mingled with hers, his mouth inches from hers, unspoken intention hung in the frosty air. He released her arm, and she hurried into the kitchen.

  The husband hunter might imagine that husbands can be found anywhere and that she might spare the expense of a trip to London for the Season. She might consider instead the delights of a fashionable watering hole to which the best of society now and then escapes. Or she might content herself with the gentlemen available in her own circle of four and twenty families. Surely among them are brothers and cousins enough to supply some choice and stir some excitement. Furthermore, she may feel that she can proceed more directly to the altar with a gentleman whose relations are known to her. Here, this writer must speak a word of caution, for such thinking sounds too much like settling, like putting up with inferior accommodations, enduring a smoking chimney, damp sheets, and a lumpy mattress when with a little effort one might have a perfect bed.

  —The Husband Hunter’s Guide to London

  Chapter 9

  In the morning it was not Queenie who greeted Lucy from the kitchen, but Mrs. Vell. With a blue pinny cove
ring her usual brown-and-white-checked gown, and her stout, well-muscled forearms bare, Mrs. Vell was rolling out dough on the big pine table in the center of the kitchen.

  “Now, miss,” she said, applying her rolling pin vigorously to the lump of dough, “I’ve agreed to forget our differences and keep matters in hand here while you try your luck at finding a husband in London. Mind, you’ll want a gentleman that’s not too high, nor too low, neither. I’m sure the good captain can steer you right.” Mrs. Vell’s assistants, Delilah and Sampson, bobbed their heads in agreement.

  The good captain? The good captain was going to determine her choice of a husband. Lucy would have a word with him directly. Apparently a red coat gave a man permission to arrange other persons’ lives.

  As she passed Adam on his bench polishing a tea tray, Frank Blodget assured her he could handle the inn in her absence, and Hannah said, “Captain’s in ’is room if ye need ’im, miss.”

  Lucy marched up the stairs. His door was open, but remembering their last encounter, she halted and knocked.

  He looked up from placing folded linens in an open case on the end of the bed, his red coat vivid against the somber colors of the room. The disturbing intimacy of catching him once again in a personal act made Lucy’s stomach dip in a queer way. He had told her there was no lover. A lover could watch a man shave or pack or... She wrapped her hand around the doorpost and clung.

  “Do you think I can just leave the inn, today?”

  He glanced at her, but his hands did not pause in their work. “Yes. A chaise will take us to your friends this afternoon.”

  Lucy tightened her grip on the doorpost. “You are hurrying me, Captain. I’ll go when I’m ready.”

  He looked briefly at the contents of the case, appeared satisfied with them, and closed it up, his hands quick and sure on the fastenings. He swung the bag to the floor as if it weighed nothing. “Then you’d best be ready at two. Your friends expect you in town for tea.”

  Lucy let out an exasperated breath. “You seem to have taken everything in hand, but it’s my inn.” And my life, she wanted to add.

  His steady gaze met hers. “Take one of the girls to help you pack. Unless you require my assistance.”

  “Your assistance?” In spite of herself she took a step backward.

  “If there’s one thing army life teaches, Miss Holbrook, it’s packing.”

  She looked away, fixing her gaze on a long curved sword in a black sheath, lying on the counterpane, its handle glinting in the light. Some senseless, giddy part of her that had no business making decisions welcomed the rush into which he’d thrown her. It was decided. She was going to London. Today. But she wanted the last word in their exchange, a quip or sally of wit that would show him she was seizing the moment, not merely bowing to his will.

  He watched her with that unmoved gaze of his that felt anything but cool. No quip came. “And Adam?” she asked.

  One eyebrow came up. “Does he have a case?”

  “He can have one of Papa’s.”

  “Leave me the key to your father’s room, and I’ll see to Adam.”

  She turned on her heel.

  “And, Miss Holbrook, be sure to pack your husband hunter’s guide.”

  * * * *

  In the end leaving the inn happened so swiftly that Lucy had no time to fix the impression in her mind. With Hannah’s help she’d packed so quickly that she hardly knew what was in her two cases. She glanced at her laughing lady as she closed the door to her room. Her lady seemed to urge her to go, and she tried to remember those questions she always asked of her lady. Surely, Papa never meant that in living with her friends in Mayfair she would get above her home. The least forgetfulness of the inn’s plain comforts would be fatal to her plan of returning.

  When she descended the steps to the waiting coach, the driver was on the box with Adam seated inside. The captain simply offered his hand, lifting her up. Her bottom touched the cushions, the captain sprang in after her, and the horses began to move.

  It was the longest seven-mile journey Lucy could remember. The captain took the backward-facing seat, his hands resting on his knees, while she and Adam faced forward. He had that rigid wary posture, his head slightly inclined for listening. In the enclosed space one of his episodes would be harder than ever to handle. Mrs. Vell might consider the captain ruin in a red coat, and as much as his presence unsettled Lucy, she had to admit that he steadied Adam.

  Once the coach reached the London road, her old friend fell into a restless state of repetition. She let him know she was by his side with a squeeze of his hand or a word in his ear as he repeated a series of new phrases. She half suspected that Harry Clare had something to do with the new sayings. Horses very fast. Captain Clare has his sword. Later—Adam stays with the captain. Lucy stays with friends. Each brief speaking spell would end with—Lucy is the lady now. The phrases took on the rhythm of the wheels and ran together until Adam fell into a doze.

  Lucy wished she could do the same. There was nowhere to look but at Harry Clare’s harsh, compelling face and broad shoulders. He could scrutinize her at will, as well, and she suspected he could read her impatience for the journey to end and her London time to begin. If he must judge her, he must.

  In Brook Street, the captain’s hand in managing her affairs was once again visible. The coach pulled up at the charcoal brick townhouse with its tall windows. Instantly, the door opened, and the butler appeared, directing two liveried footmen to collect Lucy’s cases. Captain Clare handed her down to the pavement and offered his arm to help her into the elegant vestibule. Her three friends met her with warm embraces.

  “Lucy, dear, you’ve come.” Cordelia sighed.

  Margaret gave her a hug and a smile.

  “Come, dear,” Cassandra invited, “let’s warm you up from the journey.”

  Lucy started forward, then turned back for the door. She made a dash and caught the captain with his hand on the carriage door. “You didn’t tell me where you are taking him.”

  “I’ll report to you tomorrow evening. He’ll be safe.”

  She heard Adam from inside the coach. “Lucy is the lady now.”

  She stood on the pavement, watching as the coach pulled away. It looked as if Adam were leaving her, rather than she leaving him. She realized that that, too, had been part of the captain’s plan. The March wind tugged at her hat and cloak, and she quietly vowed not to let London change her.

  * * * *

  A farmer took Nate and Miranda in his cart down a few miles of country lane from the coaching inn where they’d left the stage. In a thick accent the farmer told Nate how to find the turning to enter the Hartwood grounds. You can’t miss it, the farmer assured them. Nate and Miranda had been arguing over the man’s words ever since.

  Because Miranda had not trusted the inn to keep their belongings, Nate carried their cases. Miranda limped along behind him. She was having a tough time of it, and he was grateful for the sharp wind that whipped her cloak around her and took away half her words.

  “Why haven’t we reached the turning yet? You must have missed it.”

  He wanted to say that they’d be there if she had worn sensible half boots instead of fashionable slippers.

  “If you have a stone in your shoe,” he said, “I can help you take care of it.”

  “I don’t need your help. I need you to find the fogged duck or whatever it is we’re supposed to find before night.”

  Fogged duck was their agreed upon interpretation of the farmer’s words. Nate had tried several times to reproduce the man’s exact syllables, but he could make no other sense of the sound. He repeated the mystery phrase in his head and kept his gaze trained on the dusty hedge lining the road. It would be cold again tonight, and he hadn’t seen anything that looked like a barn. As if Miranda would consent to sleep in a barn.

  At the top of a
little rise he stopped, waiting for her to catch up. He tried not to look at her. She hadn’t told him the real reason she agreed to come with him, but he hoped to get it out of her. As he gazed out over the endless hedge, he saw a tree apparently blasted by lightning at some time in its life. The farmer’s fogged duck suddenly made sense—forked oak. Just beyond the blighted tree a turning opened. Nate gave a whoop of satisfaction and hurried forward, the cases banging against his knees.

  “Found it,” he called back to Miranda.

  In front of him the road sloped down through a little wood to a tree-dotted park in the center of which stood a wide-fronted, three-story house of mellow golden stone. Its rows of tall windows blazed a fiery orange in the light of the late afternoon sun. A stone balustrade crowned its top, and the square tower of a small church rose up behind the building. When Miranda reached his side, she gasped. It was her first view of a grand country house, the sort that looked like an entire street of posh London houses smashed together.

  “We’re not going in the front door, are we?” she asked in a hushed voice.

  “Visitors go round to the housekeeper,” he said. Captain Clare had explained the custom and given them the housekeeper’s name, and Nate guessed they’d find her in the one-story service wing extending north of the house.

  “What if they turn us in for impersonating Mr. Pickersgill’s relations?”

  “They won’t. Come on.” They had planned what they would say. As long as Miranda didn’t lose her nerve, they’d be fine.

  As they came down the long drive, Miranda’s limp grew more pronounced, and Nate slowed his pace. No one came out to stop them. When they reached level ground, he led Miranda around to a likely looking door and rang the bell. A pimply girl in a blue pinny and white mobcap answered his ring and stared out at them from a long plain passageway.

  “Good afternoon,” he said. “We’ve come to see Mrs. Wellby.”

  “Well, it’s not a public day, ye know,” she said. The girl looked warm with work and fires, wispy curls of damp hair curling out from her cap, while Nate was conscious of Miranda standing in the March chill.