The Lord Meets His Lady

by Gina Conkle

  Heart pounding, she ducked back against the cottage and flattened herself to the wall. Cold sandstone bit her cheek. A flock of shiny-eyed crows gathered near her, cawing and flapping their wings. She glanced at her open window, but male voices carried as the footfalls ceased.

  “I offer her a new life.” Herr Wolf. His German accent was as bold as his arrogance.

  “A new life she doesn’t want.”

  “And what are you giving her, Englisch?”

  She peeked around the corner. The Prussian’s arms were spread wide as he jeered at the modest rustic setting. Both men stood by an apple tree, a flock of crows hunched on its winter-bare branches. The Wolf was taller than Lord Bowles. Queue neatly clubbed, Herr Wolf was clean-shaven, his black boots freshly polished.

  Her new husband, by contrast, sported rough whiskers, unruly hair, and a slouching cravat. But he pointed a fine pistol at his opponent’s chest.

  “I think she fancies all this. Tells me she wants to stay.”

  “As your wife,” the Prussian scoffed.

  “You saw the marriage license. Everything’s quite legal.”

  Herr Wolf’s jaw muscle ticked. A pair of birds pecked at the ground near her feet, battling over a sparkly object in the gravel.

  “I saved her from a life of hard labor. From the—what is it you say?—the decay of her old life.”

  Unfriendly laughter shot from Lord Bowles. “By introducing her to the decay of a new life in Prussia?”

  “I would treat her well.”

  “And use her,” Lord Bowles ground out.

  The giant Prussian shrugged. “For a time. She’ll live well. I’ll see to it.”

  “You see, that’s the problem. Genevieve doesn’t want what you’re offering. When you treat a woman like a whore, buying and selling her as you did, it doesn’t matter how fine a cage you put her in… It’s still a cage.”

  She flinched. There were no surprises about where she came from, but to hear it said aloud hurt. Even worse, she’d yielded to Herr Wolf in the basest way.

  Silver glinted from the Prussian’s round hatpin. He was a handsome man. Strong and well muscled. Why couldn’t she give in? Life would be far better than what she had known at the Golden Goose. She could secure funds to live richer than she’d ever imagined.

  Yet the stain of that choice would never go away.

  She shut her eyes, resting her forehead on the wall. Northern winds whispered in the trees, carrying her mother’s dying wish.

  “Don’t end up like me,” her mother rasped, straining to lift her bald head off the pillow. “Find a man. Get married.”

  Opening her eyes, Genevieve looked to the heavens. Her mother never told her to seek true love. Because she hadn’t believed it existed. Anne Turner had died, never knowing the gift of one man’s stalwart love and devotion.

  Did it truly exist?

  The cottage stone nicked her palms. Her fingers numbed. No gloves. Cold seeped into her as she listened to the men.

  “You want Genevieve for yourself,” Herr Wolf went on.

  Lord Bowles sighed as if he were the soul of patience. “Must I remind you, she’s my wife. Her name is Lady Bowles. You will address her as such.”

  The Prussian snorted.

  “And as marriage goes, she deserves my protection,” Marcus explained. “Need I defend her honor by calling out your overgrown ass?”

  Heart thudding, Genevieve peered around the corner again. Both men puffed small clouds as they spoke in the bitterly chill day. Herr Wolf eyed the weapon pointed at his chest, cold and assessing before he laughed harshly.

  “You play at being a virtuous man.”

  A click filled the silence. Herr Wolf’s eyes flared wider. Lord Bowles had cocked his pistol.

  Was he going to shoot the Prussian?

  A breeze stirred the black redingote. With his hat pulled low, her husband’s face was hard to read. This couldn’t go on. She’d beg them to see reason. Or offer to leave again. It was the only way. Poised to make her presence known, she pushed off the wall.

  “Very well, Englisch. I’ll leave.”

  Polished black boots slammed the ground, and she exhaled deeply. Crows squawked, their numbers scattering as the Wolf shouted, “Herr Thade! Wir’re jetzt verlassen.”

  Slumping against the cottage, Genevieve blinked at gray skies. Was it true? The Wolf would chase her no more? Voices drifted on the wind, but she couldn’t make out what was said because of the blood rushing through her ears. Carts rumbled. Hooves pounded the earth. New voices mingled in the air. A familiar feminine titter rang from the driveway. Ruby Dutton flirting with Lord Bowles, no doubt.

  It was washday. How…normal.

  It’d be good to lose herself in mundane work. She hurried to the open window and climbed back in, her heart racing as though she’d sprinted hard. She plopped onto her lonely bed, needing a few seconds to collect herself. The Dutton sisters’ voices echoed in the cottage. The water pump squeaked on the other side of her wall. Someone dragged the washtub across the floor. The sisters were talking, their chatter light and easy. How pleasant and secure their lives were. They had family and a home.

  Icy air whipped into her room. Genevieve cupped her cheeks, unease creeping up her back. Reinhard had given up quickly with Lord Bowles. Too quickly. The window, so perfect to steal in and out of, needed closing. Locking the sash, she eyed the dark forest where the Wolf had chased her.

  The chill wouldn’t go away.

  Twenty-three

  “Miss, you’ve been rubbing that finial a long time now,” said Lily.

  “Finial?” Genevieve ceased her polishing.

  “The carved piece you’re cleaning.” Lily Dutton pointed at the urn-shaped carving atop the stair’s bottom rail. “It’s called a finial.”

  “Seems like a housekeeper’d know that.” Ruby smirked. “A proper one, leastways.” The maid slouched in the parlor doorway, the ash pail in hand. “Gossip in the village says you were born on the wrong side of the blanket. Daughter of an actress.”

  “Ruby!” Lily gasped.

  “You heard it too. It’s why that foreigner and his friend came north. Word is he wants his fancy girl back.” Her insolent gaze swept over Genevieve. “Some in the village is scratchin’ their heads on her runnin’ from the Beckworth cottage to here so quick-like.”

  Genevieve’s spine straightened. She’d seen that sneer all her life on the faces of proper girls with proper parents. Time had thickened her skin and sharpened her tongue.

  She stepped forward, and brazen Miss Dutton shrank against the doorframe.

  “I hope they keep scratching till they find something in those heads of theirs. Until then, finish cleaning the hearths. All of them.” She pointed at the ash pail. “From this day forward, the chore is yours. If you want to keep your position.”

  The maid’s lips pursed.

  Genevieve smiled, cool and brittle. “Off with you now. Dump those ashes and fill the woodbins for the whole cottage.”

  Ruby Dutton grabbed her cloak and left the cottage in a snit.

  “Please don’t mind her, miss,” Lily said.

  Genevieve went back to the finial and took her time dusting a pristine crevice. “Why take her venom out on me?”

  “It’s the way his lordship watches you. She’s jealous, is all.”

  “What do you mean?” Genevieve dropped her rag in the cleaning bucket.

  “She’s got it bad for Lord Bowles.”

  Lily took the bucket from her and went to the kitchen. Genevieve followed because there was no use cleaning. Her mind wasn’t in the work. Since Herr Wolf’s visit, she’d burned the noonday meal, knocked over a bucket of soapy water, and mistook a lump of beeswax for butter.

  She touched a new taper to the kitchen fire, craving calm from the storm inside her. She usually
liked this time of day, lighting the household and the peace that came from a full day’s labor. She couldn’t say what bothered her more. Herr Wolf? Or that her sins were unraveling for gossips to pick at? Perhaps she wasn’t so thick-skinned.

  Charred flares marked the whitewashed wall above the kitchen’s plain iron sconce where she set the lit taper. She wiped the smoky haze for good measure, accepting the truth. The jig was up. The people of Cornhill-on-Tweed knew where she came from, or at least had a good idea.

  The whitewashed wall was no more pristine than her. Charcoal smeared the limestone. Like her, the damage was done. She’d never truly erase what had made her who she was today. Behind her, Lily Dutton’s heels clicked across the flagstone. Water splashed in the scullery. His lordship’s bath. Evening was nearly upon them, the whole day a blur because another question went round and round in Genevieve’s head.

  How many days before she had to leave Cornhill-on-Tweed?

  She’d have to start fresh somewhere, but Pallinsburn and all the pretty horses had grown on her.

  Or was it Pallinsburn’s master with his lazy smile and fast quips?

  And his hands with their expert caresses?

  Her hand brushed her hip, sliding into the folds of her skirt. She rubbed her thigh, same as he had last night. Heat prickled her hairline despite the chill emanating from the stone. She could seek him out and climb into his bed at midnight. To be with him in his chamber would be far safer than her tiny room with its garden window. And more desirable than being alone in her narrow bed.

  Herr Wolf could sneak in during the dark of night.

  “Miss, want me to take the pea soup off the fire? I think it’s done,” Lily called from the scullery.

  “The soup. Yes, please.”

  Genevieve pulled a chair from the table. She was tired of being afraid of what Herr Wolf might do. Wiping her apron’s hem across her face, she didn’t believe for a second the Wolf was gone. He’d given up too easily.

  “Are you well?” Lily took the cooking pot off its hook over the fire and set it on the table.

  Genevieve planted both elbows on the table, her palms cradling her cheeks.

  “Miss Abbott?”

  “Can you sit with me?”

  Lily took the seat opposite her. The maid’s head dipped, her blue-gray eyes rounding beneath her patched mobcap. “What’s wrong, miss?”

  Genevieve leaned in. “Can you keep a secret?”

  The cottage door banged shut. Both women startled, their attention shooting to the kitchen doorway. Heels slammed the cottage floor before stomping up the stairs. Loud, dramatic huffs accompanied the upward march.

  “Ruby.” Lily giggled and rolled her eyes. “Mind you, she’ll be back to her old self by tomorrow.”

  “I’m glad. She’s a good worker most of the time.”

  “Now what’s this about a secret?”

  Beyond the kitchen’s small window, more crows gathered, cawing and flapping their wings. One landed on the windowsill, its beady-eyed stare taking in the kitchen. This running away and having to be nimble about her past and her deceptions had worn Genevieve down. She needed a friend, a woman she could trust.

  “What people assume about me and my family is true. My mother was an actress at a bawdy house.”

  “Ahhh, miss,” the charwoman said, her hand batting off the revelation. “You’re a decent, hardworking woman. Some will care. Some won’t. I wouldn’t pay them any mind.”

  Genevieve’s thumbnail scratched a spot on the table’s wood grain. “As long as they don’t find out what else I did.”

  Lily’s eyes rounded again. “Wh-what do you mean?”

  “I ran away from my indenture…from Herr Wolf, the foreigner.”

  “And he’s come to get you.”

  “That’s not the worst of it.” Genevieve whispered, “Lord Bowles married me last night to save me.”

  The maid gasped. “Married you?”

  “Please. Keep this between you and me.”

  “Oh, I will.”

  Genevieve folded her arms on the table. “We’re keeping it quiet.”

  “Then you went across the river to Coldstream?”

  “Yes.”

  The charwoman’s face scrunched. “It’ll be hard to keep that quiet with the villages so close. Right now, everyone’s talking about the foreigners. One of them is staying at the Red Swan.” She shivered visibly and hugged herself. “He stares at me sometimes…got strange dark eyes.”

  Herr Avo Thade.

  “Between the foreigners and the baron’s sister causing a stir, you might escape their notice.” She chuckled. “The baron’s sister is a corky one, very bright and lively…too lively for most if you know what I mean.”

  “The baron’s sister?”

  “She was married fifteen years. To a shipbuilder in Sunderland. Gossip says she was planning to divorce him but then he died.”

  “Oh.”

  “But that’s not the worst.”

  “No?”

  “It’s said her husband already had a wife in Ireland. A woman he’d married twenty years ago,” Lily said, hissing the news.

  “How awful.”

  Lily leaned in close. “You see? Even though it’s not her fault, her reputation’s so tainted you’ve nothing to worry about. Tongues’ll wag about her. They already are.”

  London saw its share of bigamists and marriage deserters. Genevieve scratched a circle in the pine table. Desertion of marriage. If one person deserted another, left for seven years, the injured husband or wife could remarry. She could disappear, and Lord Bowles would eventually be free of her. It was one of the ideas tossed about last night.

  She could run now.

  “People say he was an awful man,” Lily said, warming to her tale. “Mrs. Grey, the baron’s sister, came in yesterday. Plans to stay.” She smiled. “She’s as brazen as they come, or so I’ve heard.”

  “She sounds like a force of nature.”

  “I’m sure you’ll meet her, miss…or should I call you ‘my lady’?” Lily winked, and they both laughed.

  “No. We’ll carry on as usual.” Genevieve breathed easier because of the conversation. “Remember, it’s a secret.”

  Outside the kitchen window, the Pallinsburn forest loomed beyond the garden. The skies darkened, heralding the day’s end. The cottage door opened. Boots brushed the boot wipe. From the stairs, Ruby called down a greeting to Alexander Beckworth.

  Alexander’s broad shoulders filled the kitchen doorway. “Miss Dutton, your brother’s here to collect you.”

  Water glistened at his hairline. He must’ve splashed his face and retied his queue, because not a single dark strand of hair was loose after the day’s labor. He stood, hat in hand, giving both women a close-lipped smile before slipping away.

  Lily gawked at his retreating back. “Looks like I need to leave.”

  “Perhaps I’m not the only one with secrets.”

  Lily fussed with her neckerchief, her cheeks shading pink. “Alexander Beckworth is a fine man, but he’s not long for our village.” She pushed off the seat. “Seems all the good men have other places to go.”

  * * *

  Hot water rinsed his chest, cleansing him of the day’s trials. Several stones had crumbled on the eastern fence. Alexander and Adam had gotten into scuffles as brothers did, and an ancient mare with cracked hooves was close to foundering. The old dame patiently let him run his hands along her spine and check her hooves. Her trusting brown eyes soaked up his every move. He’d examined her hoof, but letting it drop to the ground, she knew. So did he. She wouldn’t be long for this world.

  The crowning thorn of his day was the Prussian’s accusation.

  “You play at being a virtuous man.”

  He soaked the washcloth in the tub. Was it bad to want Genevieve Tu
rner for himself? For however long she’d have him? To indulge in a dalliance with his housekeeper would be wrong.

  But a man could have a tryst or two with his wife.

  A dark-blue skirt sashayed past the scullery. The word wife tasted good in his mouth with Genevieve in the role. Wooing her to his bed was one thing. Keeping her there was another. That was what he wanted. Sitting tall in the bath, he craned his neck for a better view of her. Genevieve leaned over the table, checking a bread bowl, her skirts swaying. Low-heeled shoes peeked from the hem of a drooping cream-colored underskirt.

  He wanted to tug it.

  Black wool covered slender ankles. He’d yet to see her bare skin there. He’d seen her bottom, her breasts. Caressed them. Kissed them. Yet, despite last night’s intimacy, his new wife came and went as if he wasn’t there.

  He picked up the sodden cloth and rolled the soap in it, following her quiet, ignoring-his-existence back. “How are we going to address each other?”

  Genevieve turned around and planted her bottom on the table’s edge, bracing both hands beside her. She cocked her head to see him through the scullery doorway. “By our names. It’s what people usually do.”

  His wife caught her bottom lip between her teeth. The motion excited his nether regions.

  “I meant by what names.”

  “Same as before, milord. I’m still Miss Turner.”

  “Haven’t I earned the boon of addressing you by your Christian name?” He set his elbows on the side of the tub and sat up taller. “Winter can be a very long, cold season.”

  Laughing softly, she sauntered to the scullery. “As it always has been.”

  She pressed against the lintel, half her body in sight, the other half hidden. Genevieve’s dark-blue gown sported a higher bodice. The most modest one his housekeeper-cum-wife owned. Her braid was coming loose, and strands of hair fell around her face.

  “You’ve done me a great kindness,” she said, removing her apron. “Letting you call me by my Christian name is a small thing.”

  “I am allowed to call you Genevieve, then?”