by Barbara Metzger, Connie Brockway, Casey Claybourne; Catherine Anderson
She sounded as sorry as a man who had won a fortune at the racetrack. Forde raised one eyebrow in a gesture that never failed to gain him respect and instant obedience to his wishes. This time the gesture won him a drop of mud in his eye. He reached for his handkerchief, which was as sodden as the rest of him, but looked at the back of Cole Cottage, as if counting the windows, and the bedrooms. “Oh?”
“We are preparing for the wedding, naturally, refurbishing the guest rooms for Mr. Wellforde’s mother and sisters. They are at sixes and sevens right now.”
Forde had no intention of staying the night here. Lud, sleep at the house of a poor widow with no chaperone in sight? He was liable to wake up as ensnared as Gerald. “I do have rooms at the inn, and my valet will have a hot bath waiting, but I would rather not ride back through the coming deluge. The roads were poor enough on my way here, and the livery horse is too excitable. We could have our conversation now, and I would not need to bother you on the morrow.”
“Oh, I am too busy right now. Today is my handyman’s afternoon off, and I have a great many chores.”
One of which seemed to be discouraging visitors. Forde was not willing to concede defeat—or to be dismissed like a lackey by a woman who kept chickens and wore a faded, moth-eaten cloak. Of course, she had been working in the barn.
He looked in that direction. “I could help. And I would like to get my horse out of the rain.”
Katie was standing there, getting colder and wetter by the minute. Her beautiful wedding gown was ruined, and this pompous, pea-brained peer was worried about his mount?
“Your horse, of course, Lord, ah, Forde.”
He smiled, looking not half as arrogant. “Ridiculous, isn’t it? Forde will do.”
She did not smile back. “I am sorry, my lord, but there is no room in the barn, either. I use it for storage, and the hens. We keep the gig and our riding mares at Squire Doddsworth’s stable.” She pointed to a cart track that passed behind the barn. “It is a short walk to his property.”
“Young Doddsworth was my nephew’s schoolmate, I believe.”
“Yes, Squire’s eldest son, Roland. He fancies himself a Tulip, to his father’s dismay. He would adore seeing you if you choose to call there. After you see your valet, of course. Otherwise he will be sorely disappointed. And Squire will be also, to miss meeting Mr. Wellforde’s uncle.”
The viscount agreed he should call there, to thank them for their hospitality to Gerald, unlike other of Brookville’s residents, who showed no such generosity at all. “You say that you stable your horses at Doddsworth’s place?”
“Yes, in exchange for trying to teach his two younger sons their manners. A useless effort, it appears, but Squire is kind enough to pretend that it is an equal trade.”
Despite her refined accent and her grand-lady hauteur, Mrs. Cole was a poor choice to give lessons in deportment, Forde thought, not offering a half-drowned, frozen fellow a cup of tea. And no man, in his experience, was simply kind to a comely female. From what he could see under the billowing, bedraggled cape, Mrs. Cole’s shape was more than pleasing, and her face would be more than attractive if she managed a smile. Her green eyes were her best feature, sparkling with intelligence. No, no man did favors for a winsome widow without expecting some better return.
“Surely teaching boys proper behavior is Mrs. Squire Doddsworth’s job.”
“She died some five years ago.”
Ah, now Forde understood Squire’s “kindness.” Instead of offering baubles, bracelets, or brooches, he bought Mrs. Cole’s affections with stalls and straw. Damn, this was no connection Forde wanted his nephew to make. His decision was made. The wedding would not take place this month, or ever, if he had his way. “I shall take my leave, then, since you are so busy, Mrs. Cole, but I shall return tomorrow for our talk. You can count on that.”
He mounted Smoky, bowed his head in farewell, and rode off into a slanting, icy rain. He wondered if the horse could keep his footing on the way back to the inn. He wondered what Mrs. Cole was hiding, that she was so desperate to see him gone and away from her house. Most of all he wondered how, when the rain was merely driving the dirt deeper into his clothing, it was rinsing that confounded white wedding gown clean?
Chapter Four
The chances of Susannah’s wedding gown coming clean were as good as the chances of a god falling from the sky into Katie Cole’s chicken yard. Yet that was precisely what had happened, or as near as made no difference in her mind.
Even filthy and foul-tempered, Viscount Forde had to be the most handsome man Katie had seen in decades, certainly one who wore his middle age well. His wavy black hair had no gray in it, and his complexion had no red-veined, raddled splotches. His physique would have been the envy of a man half his years, as would his strength and his agility, as the viscount leaped into the saddle without a mounting block. And his smile . . . ah, his smile could warm the coldest day and melt the hardest heart, even one that had stopped feeling almost twenty years ago.
Katie chided herself. She was a widow of a certain age, with a grown daughter and a respectable standing in her neighborhood. She had no business being moonstruck by a chance-met stranger, and no business noticing his broad shoulders, his muscular thighs in the tightly fitting breeches he wore, or his trim derriere. Heavens, a lady did not acknowledge that a gentleman had that part of anatomy, much less appreciate it! And she was far better off burying those wayward, wanton thoughts, because Tanyon Wellforde, Viscount Forde, meant her no good.
Katie had caught his glance of assessment, all right, although his lordship was more subtle than the oafs she often encountered at the local assemblies, or travelers passing through the village. She supposed in London the viscount might have taken out his quizzing glass to make the inspection, like others of his elite kind. Here his dark eyes had briefly traveled up and down her worn cloak and scuffed boots and unwinding braids at the back of her neck, with a pause for the bodice of her gown where the cloak fell open.
She had seen enough such calculating looks on enough men’s faces to recognize being measured for his bed. His lordship had made it plain that Mrs. Katherine Cole was good for nothing else.
He did not approve of her tidy house, her thriving garden, or her profitable chickens, and he did not approve of his nephew marrying Susannah. That was as obvious as the mud on his handsome, chiseled face. So, no, Katie should not be feeling the slightest shiver in her smallest toe for such a man, not even if he had fallen practically at her feet. No, not even if he was rich and titled and unmarried. He was as out of her reach as if he’d truly tumbled off Mount Olympus. He would leave after their talk, or after the wedding, and Katie would be left wanting.
It was trying on the unworn wedding dress that was bringing back wicked memories of her heated courtship, reminding her of warm kisses and fevered embraces, as if her long-buried passions had come out of storage along with the gown. She had put it on that very morning to check for moth holes and stains, to see if the size and style could be altered for Susannah—and to revisit her past. The shimmery thing had once made her think that the future was rosy, that fairy tales did come true, that true love was waiting for her. It still did. The gown fit perfectly; the pipe dreams did not.
Foolish girl, foolish woman, foolish dress. Her heart’s unwise feelings and her body’s unwanted stir-rings were simply her imagination playing tricks again. They had nothing to do with his lordship. Nothing, Katie told herself. Touching the gown had always made her tingle, that was all.
That was not all, not by half. An unattainable aristocrat had assaulted her laundry line and lost, but Viscount Forde’s visit was not so startling, considering he was Gerald’s uncle and guardian. But the gown was clean, and that was far more difficult to explain.
Katie’s hands were filthy, her own cloak looked and smelled like low tide despite the pouring rain, but the wedding gown was ivory white, smelling of springtime. Without soaking or scrubbing or the use of fuller’s earth, not
a single streak, spot, or stain remained on it by the time Katie hung the garment next to the chimney. The lace overskirt did not have one torn thread, nor did a single button dangle.
She stepped back and murmured a quick prayer, for there was definitely some power beyond her own ken behind this work. Perhaps Susannah should not wear the gown after all? Truth be told, Katie could not be entirely comfortable with a fabric that never aged and that shed soil like a duck’s feathers shed water. And she had never discovered where the gown had come from or who had sewn it so meticulously for what lucky bride.
Then again, the fabric was richer than any she could purchase, and the gown was more beautiful than anything the village seamstress could create, with finer stitching. The style might be out of the current mode, but Susannah was pretty enough to set her own fashion and impress the fine London guests.
“Come, darling,” she told Susannah early the next morning, “try on the gown before you dress. It is all aired and freshened.” And wondrously dried overnight, considering the fire in the hearth was dampened. “So you cannot complain of any musty odors. We must give Mrs. Peebles time to make alterations if they are necessary. We have lost days as is, waiting on the weather, and she will be busy, I am sure. Every lady in the neighborhood will be ordering a new ensemble when they hear that Mr. Wellforde’s uncle will be attending the wedding breakfast in your honor.”
Susannah protested, as Katie knew she would. The girl’s heart was set on the blue velvet at the linen-draper’s, far beyond their meager budget.
“Fine,” Katie told her, too busy to waste time in useless argument. “Order the new gown. Then you must tell his lordship that your dowry has diminished from negligible to naught. Or we might sell Blossom.”
Susannah had raised the cow herself from an orphaned calf and was horrified at the idea. “Can you not ask the storekeepers to wait for their money?”
“Until the new year when the annuity check arrives? How shall they pay their own bills until then, pray tell me? Or what if the barn collapses this winter and I need the funds for that? I know, we can tell Mr. Roundtree at the inn to cancel our order for champagne. I cannot imagine what Mr. Wellforde’s friends and relatives will think, our serving home-brewed ale as a toast to the happy couple, but if you must have that new gown instead of this one, which is free of cost except for taking in a seam or such and means so much to your own mother . . .”
Susannah put on the gown. And started crying.
“There, I told you the dress was wrong for me! I never did look good in any kind of white, you know that. My coloring is too pale. This ugly thing makes me look like I am waiting for burial, not my bride-groom,” she wailed.
Katie pinched her daughter’s cheeks to bring color to them, but Susannah was right. The gown was wrong. When Katie held it up to her own face, her cheeks took on a rosy glow, her green eyes sparkled, and her fair hair gleamed with golden highlights. When Susannah put it on, her complexion turned pasty, her blue eyes faded to gray, and her soft blond curls looked dirty and dingy. Oh, dear.
Then Mrs. Cole had a brilliant idea, better than butchering Blossom. “I know the perfect solution, darling! We can dye it! We can make it a pale blue to match your eyes, just what you wished. Remember how we dyed two of our old gowns when Lord Martindale passed on?”
“They looked rusty and drab.”
“That was because they were black and the fabrics were already old. Besides, I had never done it before. The gown will be stunning in blue, and Cook can help to make sure we get it right. It won’t be the velvet you wanted, but you will look beautiful. Don’t you feel it?”
Susannah felt itchy. She snatched the dress off as soon as she could unfasten the buttons, without waiting for Katie to check the fit or the hem. “If you insist,” she said with a martyr’s sniff.
“I must, darling. Now hurry, do, for we have much to accomplish before tonight’s dinner, especially if we need time to work on the gown. I can purchase the dye this morning when I take Cook’s shopping list into the village, if you look after the chickens and then set the table.”
“For how many?”
How many indeed?
Katie had decided that his lordship could wait for his private conversation—until doomsday. Once the banns were called, she believed, not even an interfering, arrogant snob like Viscount Forde would try to stop the wedding. She had, therefore, already sent a note around to the inn saying she would be regrettably too busy for his call today, with music lessons and the ladies’ guild. Susannah was promised to her friends in the morning, and fittings on her trousseau in the afternoon, so she was not available either, also regrettably. But they would be delighted—the pen left an ink blot at all the lies—to have him join them for dinner. Too bad she could not put him off for another day or two, when his nephew might have returned. The viscount should see how devoted Gerald and Susannah were to each other before he condemned the match out of hand.
Meantime, she meant him to see what a well-brought-up miss her daughter was, and how suited to polite company.
She invited Squire Doddsworth and his eldest son, Roland, to join the dinner party, and the Reverend Mr. Carlson and his family. Miss Louisa Carlson was Susannah’s best friend and was au anges, she’d sworn out of her mother’s hearing, to meet a real London swell. Katie also invited the Dowager Lady Martindale, the highest-ranking female in the neighborhood and a particular favorite of both the Cole women. They listened to the lonely old countess’s tales of her younger days, and in return, she let them borrow the latest novels from her extensive library.
There, a peeress, a magistrate, and a vicar were all pleased to sup at Cole Cottage. Let Lord Forde—Katie could not stifle a chuckle—lift his nose—which was slightly beaked—at that country society. And let him try to find a private moment for his inquisition.
“Oh,” she added before hurrying off on her errands, “I forgot to mention yesterday that his lordship noticed the wedding gown when he came to call.”
Susannah looked up from her glum contemplation of her wardrobe, hoping against hope to find a more suitable outfit. “What did he say?”
What he’d said were words her daughter should never hear. What Katie said was, “He was vastly impressed. One might even say he was knocked off his feet by it.”
“Another ruse to keep me away from the place,” Forde grumbled when he received another note, this one postponing the dinner and the confrontation for another night, due to a sudden illness. “Sick with fear I will put a spoke in her plans, more like.”
The innkeeper was waiting to send a reply back to Cole Cottage. Mr. Roundtree shook his head. “No, they say Mrs. Tarrant what cooks and keeps house for the ladies was a-dying this afternoon. They sent for the apothecary and all. She must’ve lived, iffen they are holding the dinner tomorrow.”
Mrs. Tarrant had been dying, all right. She’d decided to start the ivory gown in its dye bath while the joint of beef was roasting, the soup was simmering, the potatoes were baking, the pudding was setting, and the wine was chilling. Most of all, she wanted to get the job done while her mistresses were at their toilettes. That way they wouldn’t be getting in her way, like they’d been doing all day. You’d think they’d never had the vicar or the squire over for supper afore. As for the viscount, well, he was just a man like the others, and he’d eat the good, honest food what Cook put in front of him or she’d send him back to London herself. Upsetting her ladies that way, setting the house on its ear and missy into the fidgets over a silly gown just wasn’t right.
Neither was the dye. Mrs. Tarrant had the silk and lace colored perfectly—darker than Mrs. Cole wanted, of course, so they would lighten when they dried. Everyone knew that, everyone but Mrs. Cole, that was. Then she used a wooden broom handle to move the gown into another tub, with cold water and the setting agent. Finally she used her stick to lift the finished gown out for rinsing under the pump. But the gown needed no rinsing—the perfectly white gown.
So she did it all
again, adding a bit more of this and another dash of that. Hotter water, more mordant, longer time in the dye bath, more stirring with her broom handle. The dress was still ivory-colored at the end.
This was all the fault of that fancy toff and his uppity ways. Cook being an undeclared sympathizer with the French revolutionaries, she had no use for the English aristocracy, who had so much while the rest of the country had so little. If Lord Forde and his fussy kin weren’t coming to the wedding, missy could get hitched in her Sunday best, the same way Mrs. Tarrant and her daughters had done.
Cook went at that gown with her broom handle as if it were mad King George and his profligate son both. Soon her apron, her shoes, and her hands were blue, and the floor was awash. The roast was burning, the potatoes were charred, the soup had boiled away to a thick porridge, and the wine . . . well, she drank the wine. Then she passed out, right in the bowl of pudding.
Katie could only postpone the dinner and calculate how much of her egg money had been lost, and how much more she was going to have to spend tomorrow, once Cook got over her headache and her hysteria. Katie was going to have to do something about her daughter’s wedding gown, too.
“No, darling, kicking at the dress will not change its color. I was afraid something like that might happen, because the fabric seems to be coated with a protective substance. You know, like an oiled cloth?”
“You want me to wear a raincovering for my wedding?”
“No, that is not what I meant. But no matter, we can trim it with ribbons and silk flowers, and make a wreath to match for you to wear in your hair. That way the ivory will be less stark against your skin. Now come, help me clean up this mess so we can plan on tomorrow’s dinner for our guests.”