“Here ya be, I tol’ ya my man would keep them busy a while and you could have plenty of time for a bath,” Maisie said smiling down on Sarah seated in the slipper tub in the best guest room, “I’ll just nip out and freshen up this other dress.”
Maisie went down the back stairs to the kitchen and started airing and pressing Sarah’s brown cotton dress. When she heard the men return she wiped her hands and went out to meet them.
“Your wife is upstairs, freshin’ up. I’ll be bringin’ tea and a nice meat pie for you both. Why don’t you join her?” she said, “Room up the stairs, end of the hall.”
Sarah heard the door open up, “Maisie, my hands are all soapy, could you please poor that can of water over my shoulders? I am not going to wash my hair, a good brushing should get the leaves and twigs out.”
Marcus could not believe his eyes, Sarah was naked it this tiny excuse for a tub. She was tempting enough in her night rail but pink skin glistening with water and soap and rose bud nipples tipping tilted breasts made her more so. Then to make the vision complete, she stood up in all of her naked glory. “Maisie?” Sarah looked around seeing Marcus, squeaked and sank back into the inadequate protection of the tub grabbing a drying linen to give herself cover. She bit her lip, “I thought you were Maisie.”
He walked over quietly with a glazed look in his eyes, “Obviously, I am not.”
He picked up the can of warm water, took the linen from her loose grip and proceeded to pour water all over shoulders and breasts. Sarah was very aware of him as a man; she felt her breasts tingle and warmth in her thighs that had nothing to do with the water being poured on her. She attempted to cover herself with her hands and flushed a deep shade of pink. “Captain Derning,” she hissed, “This situation is just not proper. Please leave. I will be done momentarily.”
“Oh, I do not know, this situation has just become very interesting,” he said coolly with just a hint of amusement in his voice, “It’s amazing what you’re hiding under those ugly gowns of yours.”
“Remember that you are an officer and a gentleman…” she sputtered.
“At this moment, I am remembering that I am a man in the room with a comely, young naked woman.”
“Well I never…”
“Yes an more’s the pity,” he said with a touch more wicked amusement to his voice, “Are you sure you don’t want some help oh, say, scrubbing your back?”
“My back is fine,” Sarah was getting irritated she grasped the bar of soap just under the water and quickly shied it at his head. She scored a direct hit and Marcus eyes were temporarily blinded by soap. She flung one of the drying linens at his head and while his eyes were covered she quickly left the slipper tub. She hastily toweled herself off using the other linen and dressed in her chemise and corset over her still damp body. There was a knock at the door, “Just a minute, Captain Derning decided to wash up as well.”
“I’ll just leave the tray out here in the hall, until you two have finished washin’”, Maisie said with a snort.
Marcus’ eyes finally stopped stinging and he gave her an enigmatic look and finally left the room.
Maisie brought her only wearable dress back into the room and helped Sarah into it. Sarah briefly dreamed a delightful little daydream that Marcus really was her husband. Her odious practical nature reasserted itself and she realized the hurt and pain if she let her heart fixate on Marcus. She would be lucky to marry a common laborer with her sullied reputation. She gave a wry smile and tortured herself with the sort of woman Marcus would some day wed: a beautiful accomplished woman of a noble family. She wondered if the someday Mrs. Derning would recognize her man for the diamond he was. Maisie looked at Sarah’s wistful face, “Here now, it’s not much but it will do until your man can get you to a town and get you somethin’ proper. I’d give ya one of my or Liza’s dresses if I could but ye stands head and shoulders above me and Liza is jist a slight child.”
Sarah did not correct her friend, she could not say, sorry but I wished the gentleman I was traveling with was really my husband. Maisie said, “Here, lovey, let’s me gives your hair a good brushin’” Sarah sighed as she had not the benefit of another female to help her dress since Miss Marberry’s Bath School for Girls.
“Your man wants to get on the road again, he said to finish your meal and come straight down. Samuel’s got our coach to lend ya.”
Sarah hurried down the stairs in time to see Marcus arguing with Samuel about payment. “No, no and no,” Samuel said waving his hands in front of Marcus, “I likes sleepin’ in a bed and not the stables. Maisie’d have me head if I accepted yer blunt. She be jist that grateful for the help Miss Montague, I means Mrs. Derning gave her.”
Marcus sighed and turned to Sarah standing in the doorway by the stairs, “He won’t take payment for anything, not even the coach.”
“That’s ridiculous, we have to pay the man,” Sarah remonstrated.
“Nonsense, my man will not take a bloody farthing from ye,” Maisie said firmly.
Sarah knew when she was defeated and gave in gracefully and went out to be helped into the surprising well appointed carriage. The outside was very unprepossessing, but the seats were amazingly well sprung. Samuel had explained that when his wife and he had to go for supplies he relished his creature comforts but did not wish to draw attention to themselves.
Sarah waved out the window to her friends as the coach bowled out of the inn yard. She thought how some people finally get the life that they deserve. If McTavish was perceptive enough to appreciate Maisie, then his life experiences had made a wise man of him. She put her foolish daydreams of Marcus out of her head and concentrated on the future she prayed she would have. In the last letter she’d had from her cousins, they had given her an open invitation to visit. Sarah hoped she could extend it until she found herself a situation. Perhaps her cousin could give her a reference and she could take a position as a maid. Sarah sighed, she was a little long in the tooth to be starting on a household staff but life did not always follow the normal guidelines.
Marcus was having his own thoughts for the future. As a career military man he could have use a female who was used to the rigors of the campaign and would not cry over the latest fashions. At camp he remembered that Sergeant Montague was always clean and mended with all of his buttons in place. He was not always strictly in uniform. But who was? This last campaign he had seen everything from canvas overalls to kilts on the men. He looked down on his own battered tunic where one of his own buttons was hanging by a thread.
Sarah saw him pick at one of his buttons and said, “Captain Derning, I have my sewing kit here in my reticule and a few spare buttons for that matter. Give me your tunic and I shall tighten up your buttons and replace a few, as well.”
He looked across the carriage at her with her battered bonnet and well mended dress. He had never seen a prettier sight. He handed her over his worse-for-wear tunic. He watched as she pulled a sewing kit from her voluminous reticule. She carefully threaded a needle with the proper color thread, very difficult to do in a moving coach and started reinforcing his button.
“You know all there is to know about me, Captain, tell me about your family,” Sarah said, not looking up from her sewing.
He looked at her suspiciously, thinking here is another woman who wants to know about my ducal relations, “What do you want to know?”
“Do you have brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins?”
“I have no siblings, but my mother was blessed with several sisters, I have three female cousins and a multitude of male cousins on that side of the family,” Marcus said thinking she really wanted to know about his father’s family.
“Are you all close? I always missed the fact that both sides of my family were so small,” she said conversationally.
“I usually stay with my Aunt Minerva when I am in town,” he said quietly.
“Did you all get together on the holidays?” she looked wistful, “I always wanted to have a rea
l English Christmas. The only time I spent in England I spent in school in Bath.”
“Your father never brought you home on leave?”
“Ceylon was a long way from England,” she said with a sigh. “The only way he was able to bring me home to England after Mama died was when they were setting up the second division and they needed an excellent supply sergeant.”
He thought of the family Christmases when he was a little boy at Allendale; cold, formal occasions with his mother being treated as less valuable than the servants. Then he smiled and thought of the warm Christmases spent with various of his mother’s sisters and their families.
“You have some mixed memories of family holidays?” she said as she bit the thread at the secured button and drawing out a spare button to place on a spot he did not even realize was missing.
“My father’s family was very formal—not a place for an active boy to spend Christmas…”he said diffidently.
“One could imagine,” Sarah said noncommittally starting to reattach a loose piece of braid taking small almost imperceptible stitches.
He looked at her warily, “Aren’t you going to ask about the family celebrations at Allendale?”
“Is that the name of your mother’s family seat?” she asked absently holding the tunic up in the bright afternoon sunshine to check for further areas of concern.
“No, that’s my great uncle the Duke’s family seat,” he said abruptly.
“Not really, I imagine you had more fun with your mother’s family.”
He looked thoughtful, “I did actually.”
“Did you hang stockings, have plum pudding with trinkets to find?”
“Why, yes we did,” he smiled at her question, “we played snap dragon, as well.”
She glowed at him, “Sounds like enormous fun and like the Christmases my cousin Amelia used to write of in her letters,” she handed him back his newly mended tunic.
“Why did you not go to your cousins for holidays?” Marcus said.
She gazed out the window taking in the English countryside her work worn hands sitting idle in her lap for once, “Mama’s brother did not approve of my Papa. I was never invited.”
“What changed that you are now welcome in your cousin’s home?” Marcus prompted.
“My Uncle was a country squire, my oldest cousin inherited the country property and my youngest cousin became a vicar,” Sarah said with a smile, “My cousin Ambrose? has a vicarage, more like a mission really, in the stews of London. My oldest cousin Anthony did not approve of his choice of career just as my uncle disapproved of my mother’s choice of husband.”
“To be a shepherd of the Lord’s flock is a noble calling surely…” Marcus said with surprise.
“My cousin did not wish to minister to the complacent country gentry,” Sarah said, “He felt the need to seek out and do something for the forgotten ones, the children of London. He is a bit of a radical. My cousin Amelia keeps house for him.”
“Your cousin Amelia, she is a widow?”
“No, she has never been married, her fiancé fell at Ulm. He was actually a captain on General Mack’s staff,” Sarah said solemnly, the laughter gone from her eyes.
Marcus knew she was reminded of her father’s death to looters after Waterloo. He reached out his hand and touched her, “I think even Wellington was sad at your father’s death, so senseless to looters.”
“I heard he had them hanged,” she said a brief glimmer of bitterness in her eyes, “If I’d had anyone to take me to where they were hanged, I would have gladly spat on them.”
They were not further bothered by ruffians as they rolled down the road towards London. At the next stop he made sure he arranged for the rooms for the night and a private parlor for their evening meal. The inn was not so well appointed as the previous one, but it had the advantage of no one knowing Sarah or her father. Marcus still referred to Sarah as his wife but did arrange for two rooms. One of the men in the taproom overheard him arranging for two rooms and turned to stare insolently at Sarah as she made her way through the room to the stair.
The man walked over to where Sarah was waiting for the Innkeeper to show her to her room. “Wife, you b’ain’t no wife to no fancy c’ptan,” he slurred his words slightly, “Wot’s he tired of you already my prup-retty bird?” the last being said with a belch.
Sarah eyed the man with disgust and dismay, Marcus had walked outside to get his traveling kit from the coach. She had demurred at the coachman carrying her bag and had her portmanteau in her hand. She decided to ignore him and walk towards the innkeeper. “Sir, I trust that there is a connecting door between our rooms and thick walls so that when my husband shouts…er…in his sleep no one else would be disturbed,” Sarah improvised trying to hint delicately that noisy lovemaking could be possible.
The innkeeper’s wife said from the door of the kitchen, “Your man relives some of his battles at night does he, dearie?”
Sarah thought this is a much better ploy, “Why yes, ma’am, he has a tendency to fling his arms out at night while sleeping.”
The woman nodded knowledgably, “My brother was at Trafalgar with Nelson, he used to dream of when the ship was shot out from underneath him and falling in the water, he’d wake his wife up frantically tryin’ ta swim.”
“Look at ‘er hands she b’ain’t no officers wife,” the drunk repeated belligerently as he reached out to grab Sarah’s arm as if to show the innkeepers wife her work roughened hands.
Sarah was just about to hit him with her bag when a cold male voice said, “You know that many officers’ wives do you?” Sarah thought this was the second time in almost as many days she has seen him come to her rescue like an avenging angel, his light brown hair backlit by the early evening setting sun. It was an arresting sight. Marcus approached the drunken man with his best supercilious look on his face. At that moment, Sarah knew that Marcus must closely resemble his father’s side of the family in demeanor, if not looks. The man was drunk enough to approach a lone woman but not so cast away as to challenge a large irritated man, he glanced malevolently at Sarah and then backed away.
Marcus turned to the innkeeper’s wife, “I noticed that there is a seamstress shop in the small village we passed through, there was an accident with my wife’s luggage…”
Sarah was aghast, “No, Marcus something ready made like that would be too dear—I can just make do with this…” indicating her worse-for-wear dress, “ Until I can make another.”
Marcus turned his cool gaze on her, “Wife, I have quite made up my mind. We cannot show up at your relatives me resplendent in my regimentals,” gesturing to his somewhat worn uniform, “And you dressed in that rag.”
The drunk’s eyes widened as he backed away from an apparent marital spat and the innkeeper said to him in an aside, “Barty, tha’ be no dollybird, tha’ be a wife, a real nipcheese to hear him tell it. Dollybirds try and take a fella as well heeled as that’n appear to be and wring ‘em dry, not argue with ‘em about spendin’ too much.”
Sarah waited until the innkeeper’s wife was out of earshot after they had adjourned to the private parlor before she turned to Marcus with a smile, “That was inspired of you, sir, now they really feel that I am your wife—hopefully the poor dressmaker is unavailable. I would hate to make her come to the inn just for nothing…”
Marcus raised an eyebrow, “It will not be for nothing, you have need of a new dress and I mean to see that you get one. That one is about to fall apart.”
“Nonsense, a few stitches maybe a patch and…”
Marcus gave her an exasperated look, and Sarah flushed, and amended, “I will get some fabric from a draper’s tomorrow and make it up as soon as I get to my cousin’s vicarage.”
The food soon arrived and as soon as they were finished the dressmaker arrived with several finished dresses. The innkeeper’s wife said, “This be Mrs. Peabody, she supports herself and her three children by makin’ dresses. I tol’ her, your height and she brought t
hese here. You’d be doin’ her a favor ,mum, she b’ain’t so fortunate as you and me and lost her man last winter to weak chest.”
There was nothing Sarah could do; the woman obviously needed the money, she dressed only somewhat better than Sarah herself. The dresses though were of much better quality than any she had ever seen. She said as much to the woman.
“Beg pardon, Miss, the village bein’ on the main coachin’ line betwixt Portsmouth and London, the freight man al’ays know that I’ll barter for first pick at some o’ those fabrics and they also bring me the latest fashion plates from London.” The woman had a faint Irish lilt to her voice her hair was liberally streaked with grey. The lightness of her step indicating a woman not defeated by life but one who met it every day with energy.
“I hate to cavil at the captain’s generosity but do you have anything in black? I just lost my father and I hadn’t had time to either dye my clothes or make new.”
The lady sent her son running back to her shop for the black dresses she had just finished that morning. She had made up some black dresses knowing that many families would be touched by grief after the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo.
The dresses needed very little in the way of adjustment and the dressmaker pressed her card on Sarah saying, “You never know when someone might need a seamstress.” The woman gathered her wares and left the inn with a wave and a smile.
The innkeeper’s wife came into the room to announce that the bath was set up in their sleeping accommodations. Sarah turned to Marcus, “I had a bath this noon when we stopped. Why do you not bathe while I savor another cup of tea?”
“I suppose the gentlemanly thing would be to insist that you have the bath water but as you said, you cleaned up at your friend’s inn and I really would relish getting the travel grime off of me before turning into my bed,” Marcus said stretching his arms over his head and standing to leave the room.
Only In Her Dreams Page 3