A Reluctant Courtship

by Laurie Alice Eakes

  Philo and Chilcott exchanged glances.

  Meric gulped a mouthful of coffee to ease the tightness across his gut. “What’s wrong?”

  “The revenue men were by,” Philo blurted out.

  “They had some nodcock from the Somerset militia with them,” Chilcott announced.

  Meric’s cup was half full. Still, coffee sloshed near the rim. He set it on the mantel and crossed his arms over his chest. “What did they want?”

  “To know where you were last night,” Chilcott said.

  “To know where I—” Meric ground his teeth. “Why? Tell me what happened,” he demanded.

  “Prisoners disappeared from Dartmoor.” Philo smiled as he reached for a sweet biscuit, but his hand shook, and he knocked two onto the table.

  Meric closed his eyes and tried not to see the endless gray of prison walls, to smell the mildew and damp of the cell, to hear the clang of ironbound doors slamming in his face. Worse was an image of him repeating his father’s actions of twenty-eight years earlier—fleeing in the night and sailing for America, his name forever blackened, unless . . .

  “You assured them I had nothing to do with this disappearance, I presume?” Meric asked.

  “I assured them you were not anywhere near the prison,” Chilcott said in a too cheery tone. “You were entertaining the vicar until at least eleven of the clock, and that would not have given you enough time to get down to Dartmoor and sneak a bunch of Frenchmen—”

  “Frenchmen?” Meric’s eyes popped open and he stared at his steward. “Why would they think I would help Frenchmen?”

  “Because the French helped Americans in the last war?” Philo suggested.

  “We weren’t anywhere near America in the last war.” Meric snatched up his now cold coffee and downed it like a foul elixir necessary for life. “Our parents weren’t anywhere near America in the last war.”

  “No, my lord,” Chilcott pointed out, “but your father was, ahem, known all too well for, ahem, being rather lawless.”

  “And that’s the rub of it, isn’t it?” Meric scrubbed one hand over his face in a vain attempt to loosen the tension around his eyes. “Our father was never proven innocent of murder, and too many people believe the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

  “Precisely, my lord.” Chilcott nodded. “From a murderer father to a traitor son is easy to accept.”

  “Then,” Meric said, “that is all the more reason I need to prove Father’s innocence.”

  If he could work out how to do so without the twenty-eight-year-old scandal rearing its head enough to cast a shadow over him.

  5

  Honore wore black for church on Sunday. Although the color—or lack thereof—enhanced the gold in her hair and the hint of roses in her cheeks, its dullness left her scowling at her reflection with displeasure. She must look fine, finer than other single ladies like Miss Carolina Devenish, if she was to persuade Lord Ashmoor to marry her.

  If she should persuade Lord Ashmoor to marry her.

  Still shaken from her brush with death and learning of her father’s plans, Honore thought Miss Morrow’s advice sound. If Honore wished to do anything to honor her father’s memory, marrying the man he’d intended for her to wed seemed like an excellent start. Despite the reputation of his father and the fact he had been raised amongst those wild and rebellious Americans, Lord Ashmoor was a fine catch. Titled and wealthy, he possessed a handsome face and fine physique. He was young too, and kind, even if his refusal to take her to wife seemed less than good of him.

  Honore did not blame him. No one wanted to marry her any longer. If her escapades with a handsome rake during her first Season had not been bad enough, getting caught kissing another gentleman in her brother-in-law’s orangery—and then that man turning out to be a murderer—sent Miss Honore Bainbridge flying beyond the bounds of acceptability.

  “It will all blow over in a year,” her sister Lydia had assured her. “A new scandal will come along and your follies will be forgotten.”

  “But I’ll be so old by then.” Honore shuddered at the idea that by the next Season, she would be nearly one and twenty, practically on the shelf.

  Lydia had been wed by twenty, and Cassandra betrothed. Honore had gone so far beyond the pale, her father had planned an alliance with a stranger, a foreigner.

  “It is the same word in French,” she murmured to her reflection. “Étranger.”

  “What is that foreign word?” Miss Morrow asked as she trotted into the room, a spill of pewter ribbon tumbling from her hands.

  “Just musing about how stranger and foreigner are the same word in French.” Honore lifted an end of the trailing ribbons. “What is this for?”

  “I saw this in a shop yesterday and thought it might brighten up this gown without being too bold for church. See, a bit of it around your waist and a bow on your left shoulder.” Miss Morrow demonstrated, slipping the jet grosgrain ribbon from the high waist of Honore’s gown and replacing it with the satin. “Thank goodness you are out of crepe. That is so dull. And here’s a bow I have made.”

  The loops of ribbon Miss Morrow pinned to Honore’s shoulder more resembled a flower in the multiple loops of shining fabric than a mere bow. Honore stared in the mirror. Her boring black silk dress seemed to glow with a hidden light.

  Her own eyes glowed. “You are a genius, Miss Morrow. Why ever—” She stopped, not wanting to ask why her companion was so determined to make her look well enough to catch a husband.

  Unless, perhaps, she wished for an excuse to leave Honore’s employment, and getting her charge married off was the best way to do so.

  A lump surely the size of the boulder broken from the cliff settled beneath Honore’s rib cage. She started to turn from the mirror but caught another glimpse of herself from the corner of her eye.

  “Amazing how you did that.” She could not help but swing back to the mirror and stare.

  With a few yards of ribbon, Miss Morrow had transformed a dull gown of social necessity for half-mourning into an interesting gown of fashion choice. On the other side of the room, she twisted more of the pewter ribbon around the brim of Honore’s black straw hat.

  “Why?” she could not help asking.

  Miss Morrow smiled. “I like making things prettier. And you’ve been in black or white far too long. Meaning no disrespect to his lordship your father, but colors would suit you better.”

  “It has been nine months. That is more than long enough to be without colors for a parent. And Papa—” That lump under Honore’s ribs pressed into her lungs, making breathing difficult. “He always spoiled me. Gave me whatever I wanted.” She made a face. “Perhaps more than he should have.”

  Except he had not intended to give her the sort of husband she wanted—a man of refinement and polished good looks, sartorial excellence, and a sense of adventure. Papa had found a man who, if not the opposite of that, came far too close. At the same time, Ashmoor was titled and wealthy, and Miss Honore Bainbridge could no longer afford to be choosy. If Papa wanted her to wed Lord Ashmoor, then wed him she would. Even if he had changed his mind, she could change it back.

  She accepted the refurbished hat from Miss Morrow and set it atop her curls at a coquettish angle, tied the ribbons into a bow beneath her left ear, caught up her reticule, and led the way downstairs.

  Three carriages and a wagon awaited those of the Bainbridge household who wished to attend services at Clovelly All Saints. They could ride only part of the way due to the steepness of the Clovelly streets, but the two miles into town were too far to walk in one’s good clothes, especially in inclement weather. No rain clouds dimmed the blue of the sky that morning, but most of the servants appeared to be crowding into the vehicles.

  Instead of a footman holding the honors, Mr. Joseph Tuckfield, the Bainbridge steward, stood holding the family carriage door. “Ladies, may I join you?”

  “Of course.” Honore bit her tongue before she asked him what had changed his mind abo
ut going to services. She should simply be happy he was attending.

  A glance at him looking at Miss Morrow, and Honore received her answer anyway—he seemed to fancy the pretty companion, though surely he was far too old for her.

  For her part, Miss Morrow merely nodded her thanks as he handed her up the steps to the vehicle, but she said nothing to him then or on the short drive to the village. Instead, she kept her head bowed over her Book of Common Prayer.

  Honore took the opportunity to ask him another question. “Have you been out to the cliff to see what happened there?”

  “I have.” Tuckfield’s lips turned down at the corners. “I feel so responsible for what happened to you, Miss Bainbridge. If I had told you the cliff looked unstable, you never would have gone walking there.”

  “You did not know I would go for a walk on the cliffs straightaway.”

  “No, but I should have thought you might on such a fine day as we had most of Friday.” Tuckfield’s frown grew deeper. “I should have put up some sort of barrier to warn people. I had just noticed the problem that morning. Perhaps rain from the day before acted like the proverbial straw.”

  “Only that straw turned out to be me breaking the cliff’s back.” Honore shuddered and flexed her still aching shoulders, then made herself smile. “Can we do anything about it? I mean, can the cliff be shored up somehow?”

  Tuckfield tapped his fingertips against his cleft chin, his most attractive feature. “It might be best to blast off all the loose bits.”

  “Could we get a mining engineer in to look at doing that?”

  Miss Morrow raised her head from her prayer book long enough to give Honore a surprised look at that comment.

  Tuckfield’s dark eyebrows shot up to nearly join his hairline. “That is an excellent idea, Miss Bainbridge. I shall see who I can find.”

  “Whom,” Miss Morrow murmured.

  Honore snapped a glance in her direction, but the carriage stopped at that moment. They had arrived at the edge of the square, and they needed to walk downhill to the church. On a fine day, the walk invigorated Honore, giving her an alert mind for the service. On rainy days, dragging herself out of the carriage to descend the hill proved nigh on impossible. This bright, crisp morning sent her feet skimming over the stones, past gardens falling dormant with the first frost in the near future, up to the church, and—

  She skidded to a halt like a runaway wagon whose brake had just engaged. Lord Ashmoor stood in the church porch, talking to the vicar. Beside them stood a young man who looked so much like his lordship that he must be a brother, and Mr. Chilcott, the Ashmoor steward.

  “Come along, Miss Bainbridge.” Miss Morrow tugged Honore’s arm. “We will be late if we dally.”

  “We will not be late. The vicar is not even inside yet.”

  “And you want to greet his lordship, do you not?” Miss Morrow whispered in Honore’s ear.

  No, in truth, she did not. That lump beneath her ribs had increased, and an image of herself cradled in his arms as he’d carried her blurred her vision. His arms did not appear so brawny inside his fashionable coat, but she had seen the muscles through his shirt and felt their strength. Her cheeks heated despite the sharp wind off the sea.

  “What was I thinking?” she murmured back to her companion. “I cannot persuade him to wed me if he does not wish to. Look at him. I doubt anyone makes him do what he does not wish to.”

  Miss Morrow tucked her arm through Honore’s and propelled her forward by sheer force of will. “You are to persuade him, not make him.”

  They reached the steps to the porch. Ashmoor and the rest of his party left their post near the church door and swept forward to bow in greeting and receive introductions.

  Honore held out her gloved hand to Mr. Philemon Poole. “Welcome to Devonshire. I hope you find it comfortable.”

  “Yes, it’s . . . um . . . yes, ma’am, it’s fine.” The young man turned the color of a beetroot.

  Beside him, Mr. Chilcott had also colored up to the line of his silvering hair, and Miss Morrow, forthright lady that she was, had fallen silent, her gaze cast somewhere between the first and third steps.

  Honore narrowed her eyes in speculation, then snapped her attention around to the vicar, avoiding dialogue with his lordship. “Mr. Stanbury, we have a lovely day for a service, do we not?”

  “Quite. Quite.” He touched her outstretched fingers, his pale blue eyes gazing at her with adoration from a pleasantly plain face. “Must take advantage of these fine days before the autumn doldrums set in.”

  “I like autumn in the country.”

  From the corner of her eye, Honore regarded Mrs. Devenish and her gaggle of daughters swarming around Ashmoor like hens after a pile of grain.

  “My sister,” Mr. Stanbury was saying, “requested me to invite you and your companion to join us for a cold collation after service. Forgive the lack of notice, do, but we would so love to have you come.”

  The adoring look, not in the least faded since before she rode off to her first disastrous Season, warned her to say no. Honore understood what Miss Stanbury was up to—matchmaking Miss Bainbridge, with her dowry and connections, to her brother. Apparently those traits outweighed her unforgiven sins.

  Not a yard away, the Devenish ladies tittered behind fans or gloved fingers. Miss Devenish actually simpered.

  Honore felt ill. “I will have to ask Miss Morrow.” She raised her own fan so she could observe the others without appearing to do so.

  “Lord Ashmoor and his party are coming,” Stanbury added as though that were an enticement.

  Miss Morrow elbowed Honore in the ribs.

  “We would be delighted to come,” Honore said.

  Who was she to stand in the way of a flirtation between her companion and the Ashmoor steward? At least it answered the question as to why Miss Morrow encouraged Honore to set her cap for the earl despite his declaration not to wed her. The more time Honore spent in his lordship’s company, the more time Miss Morrow could spend in Nigel Chilcott’s presence—theoretically. Mr. Tuckfield had better make hay while the sun shone if he did not wish to lose out.

  The thought made Honore smile, and she bowed her head in acquiescence. “Please thank Miss Stanbury for me.”

  Miss Stanbury was inside the church, managing the barrel organ with the same three hymns the machine played every Sunday morning, signaling the congregation to move from the fresh, clear air on the porch to the dank stuffiness of the five-hundred-year-old stone building. That crowd on the porch had grown oddly silent. Instead of gazing at Lord Ashmoor, the Devenish girls now glared at Honore.

  She shrank back a few inches at the power of those scowls. Her foot slipped off the step, and Lord Ashmoor grasped her elbow. “Chilcott told me that I have to escort you in because we are the two highest-ranked personages present.”

  “You needn’t,” Honore replied, her lips barely moving. “It is not a formal dinner party.”

  “But I do everything Chilcott says I must.” Ashmoor released her elbow and held out his forearm.

  Honore took it and understood why he had managed to lift her up that cliff and then carry her through the orchard. Beneath the smooth wool of his coat, his arm muscle was as solid as the stone beneath her feet, but far warmer.

  Such an unholy thought to have before service. If she had not indulged in so many unholy thoughts and too many actions against her conscience’s prompting, she would not be walking up the stone floor worn smooth after half a millennium’s worth of churchgoers’ soles had trod over them. Instead, she would be yawning her way through a service at St George’s, Hanover Square, after a night of balls and routs.

  Well, perhaps not balls and routs. More like a musicale or soirée, as she was still in half-mourning. Regardless, she would have been socializing in London instead of having had a quiet night in her brother’s countryseat working on her Gothic novel.

  She would not be enduring the stares of the local gentry on her way to the Bainbr
idge pew. Like the Devenish ladies, every female Honore passed began to whisper and giggle behind a fan or gloved hand. A few words rang off the cold rock around them. “Little more than she deserves” was followed by “Worst misalliance yet.”

  Not all glances were unfriendly. The local folk—the tradesmen from whom she purchased supplies, a few farmers’ wives and daughters, even one or two of their sons—caught Honore’s eye and smiled or nodded. They recalled the untamed, undisciplined, unfettered child she had been not so long ago, eluding her governess to fish or explore the caves. Now her status demanded that she do no more than nod in return, nearly shunning the only persons showing her kindness.

  Not until Ashmoor opened the door to the Bainbridge pew for Honore and someone said far too loudly, “I cannot believe Prudence Devenish is considering a match for her daughter there,” did Honore realize the nasty remarks were directed as much at her escort as her.

  She glanced up at him, trying to form an apology for her fellow Englishmen. She expected to see hurt or exaggerated indifference. Instead, he smiled broadly enough for it to reach his eyes, bowed to her with the stiffness of someone unused to the action, and crossed the aisle to the Poole pew.

  Light-headed, she stepped up into the pew and slid across to make room for Miss Morrow. Mr. Tuckfield never joined the family in their pew, unlike the steward from Ashmoor. But then, Mr. Chilcott was the sixth son of a good if relatively poor family, and was more a secretary than was Tuckfield—a better match for Miss Morrow than was the Bainbridge steward. Honore must promote the union. Perhaps if she lost her companion to matrimony, her sisters would feel obligated to invite her back despite their confinements, and she could forget about her scheme to ensnare Lord Ashmoor.

  That notion had seemed like a good one with rain lashing at the windows and her cliff ordeal mere hours behind her. She did not wish to die a spinster and wanted to marry immediately. She wanted to do something of which Papa would have approved. Marrying Ashmoor would indeed solve both of those goals. But a good night’s sleep had compelled her to reconsider. Two good nights’ sleep and his presence confirmed that she should not for a moment consider him as husband material. He was good-looking enough. To be honest, he was better than that. He seemed polite and had been considerate enough to give her the marriage contract—unsigned by him. And yet . . .