by Kate Moore
“What did you do to get him to agree to our marriage?”
“I told him what my wedding gift to you would be. Now, do you have any last objection to my decision to marry you?” She turned to the hearth and picked up the kettle. It was full, and she placed it on the hob.
“It’s a bad bargain for you. I come to you about as rich as Adam was when he got himself tossed out of Eden. I will not bore you with the details, but in failing my mission for Goldsworthy I end my brief spying career in considerable debt.”
“Had I been seeking a very wealthy husband or one at the center of London society, no doubt I would agree with you, but I always had a different set of criteria.”
“Did you?”
“I did.” She crossed the room and opened a small cabinet that sat against the wall between the two windows.
“What are you looking for?”
“This.” She held up a large china bowl. “There’s a protocol, you may not know, for the way in which a bridegroom in Halab approaches his bride.”
“Is there? Tell me.” He took the bowl from her. And she saw in his gaze that at last his resistance was melting. If his eyes did not yet have the dancing lights she liked so well, at least the shadows were fading.
“First, he removes her shoes and bathes her feet.”
“Ah.” He went right to work then, taking the bowl from her and placing it on the hearth, and leading her to one of the chairs and seating her. He was a man of action, after all. He stood before her and shrugged out of his greatcoat, which he draped over her cloak. He stripped off his jacket, undid his cravat, and rolled up his sleeves. Then he knelt and lifted her skirts and folded them back over her knees.
He sat back on his heels and ran his warm palms up her stocking-clad legs. He let his hands drift down again to her ankles and rested his head in her lap. She touched his hair, tangling her fingers in the dark silky strands.
When he lifted his head, his eyes had darkened again with what she recognized as desire. She knew it because she felt it, too.
He bent and concentrated on unlacing and removing her slippers. Then he reached up under her skirts along her thighs for the garters that held her stockings in place. He released them and rolled first one and then the other of her stockings down her legs, baring them to his gaze. He kissed each of her scraped knees.
The kettle whistled, and he rose to pull it off the hob and fill the bowl. With a cup from the cabinet he added cold water from the bucket to the steaming bowl. He found a pair of towels, one to lay under the bowl, and one he draped over his shoulder.
“Should I have jasmine petals to perfume the water?”
“Not required.”
He lifted each foot into the warm bath and cupped the water in his hands to pour over her legs, sliding his hands along her slick, wet skin. Jane’s eyes drifted shut as the sensation of his hands on her feet warmed her everywhere.
He surged up, leaning forward on the chair arms, kissing her. She reached up to draw him closer, and he pulled her to her feet. Her skirts dropped into the bowl of water, and he lifted her up, his arms around her back, the kiss unbroken, until he swung her around away from the bowl of cooling water, and set her down on the carpet by the hearth. She lay her head against his chest, feeling the rough rhythm of his breathing and beating of his heart. He kissed the top of her head.
“My love, we are wearing entirely too many clothes, for a bride and her groom. Do wish me to leave and give you a moment alone?”
She shook her head. “I wish you to help me with my fastenings and stays.” It was time for her to give him his gift. She turned her back and smiled over her shoulder to encourage him.
* * * *
Hazelwood’s hands closed and unclosed at her side. He undid the first of the tiny buttons up her back so that the closure of her dress gaped. His fingers felt suddenly clumsy, but he kept going, until he’d exposed the crossed laces of her stays. Her corset was plain, but far from the ugly one she’d been wearing that first day in the bank. He kissed her back between her shoulder blades. He wanted her hair down.
She reached up, as if she read his thoughts, and began to pull the pins from her hair.
He undid the laces at her waist and spread the sides of her corset when it crackled. She dropped her hands to her side and shook her hair loose and turned to smile at him over her shoulder.
“Your gift?” His fingers made contact with the edge of a folded piece of paper, sticking out of her corset casing. “This bit of paper?” He managed to take hold of the paper between his thumb and forefinger and gave a tug. “The map?”
“Yes.” He felt her sigh of relief. “I took it from the back of the painting my first night with my cousins.”
A few more tugs, and he had the map in his hand. He turned her to face him. He had a confession to make. “I thought Malikov would take you from me. I could not let him do it whatever the cost.”
“I know.” She reached up and put her hand to his lips to silence him. Then she smiled and shrugged, and the light gown fell to the floor.
She turned to face him then. He took his time unveiling her person the way he’d first imagined when he’d been set to spy on her. Laces gave and silk slipped away until she stood straight and sure, facing him in her own shining skin as boldly as she’d faced danger. With a knowing smile she reached for him in turn. Speechlessly, she worked at buttons and closures, undoing his wedding finery as she had undone all his disguises. He let her look, and touch with trembling fingers, laughing away the layers between them. As he stepped free of the last of his garments, the frank wonder in her eyes made him new, a second self, not the idealistic youth whose honor and reputation he had squandered, but the man he’d become by loving her and being loved.
“You like what you see?” he asked.
She nodded, sliding a hand down his chest, her palm coming to rest flat against his belly. “But then,” she said, “I’ve known for some time that I would.”
He laughed for sheer joy and took her by the hand and led her to the bed he’d never thought to enter, his marriage bed. And though he felt the wonder of it, he was at heart a cheeky fellow, and so, once he had her in his bed, he did not hesitate to kiss and touch and rouse and stir until his love took his face in her hands, looking up at him, damp and disheveled and breathing as unevenly as he was, and said, “Get on with it, love.” And he did.
Stumbles and missteps are an inevitable consequence of taking one’s place in a new circle of acquaintance. The Husband Hunter cannot say or do exactly what she ought to say or do on every occasion. The very qualities of spirit, curiosity, and independence that are so much a part of any young person’s charm are apt to betray her into conduct that may produce unpleasant reflections. The blush that stains her cheek in such moments of self-scrutiny will recall her to a sense of what she ought to be doing. Should any actions of hers lead to a persistent sense of discomfort, or to a sense that some amends must be made, she should seek the counsel of a wise mentor.
—The Husband Hunter’s Guide to London
Epilogue
The proper church wedding was over. Her viscount had married another. Twice. They had come down the aisle together sharing a look of joy so bright that Miranda had put her gloved hands over her mouth to keep from crying out. No one saw. Now she was alone, or almost alone.
Above her in the choir loft the organist rustled papers, putting away his music, by the sound of it. The white-haired sexton called up to him to remind him of a coming concert, then he, too, shuffled off toward the little office at the side of the sanctuary. No one noted her.
She had chosen to sit in the very back pew of the church for the ceremony. The people there seemed to know one another, but they had made room for her, and nodded and smiled. Miranda had worn her best fir-trimmed cloak and the pale blue silk bonnet that always made gentlemen notice her eyes and turn their heads her way. The
back bench group included two gentlemen and four ladies, two of whom appeared to be twins, and one of them quite young and pretty. They had been among the last to leave the church, standing in the corner, talking and laughing, and trading books, even the men. The pretty girl was especially pleased to receive a book. And her pleasure had given Miranda an idea. She had thought to confess to someone what she had done, but now she knew she never would. Instead she would make a sacrifice. That sacrifice would be her atonement for the wrong she had done.
The club was closed. No one blamed her. No one knew what she had done, but it was her fault. If she had delivered the note to Jane Fawkener, the woman would not have been abducted from the ball and Lord Hazelwood would not have gotten himself arrested and the club would not have been shut down. It was true that the spy Malikov had been unmasked, and that Clive Walhouse had fled England, but the club remained closed, nevertheless.
Now there would be no more spies coming to be fitted and measured in the back room of her father’s shop. Her father would return to the counter, and she would return to their rooms, doing for him, cooking and cleaning and mending for him. She would not have her time in the shop to tell her mother’s story to gentlemen customers. She had listened as her father sighed over the story of where all the fine lords had gone. Only big old Mr. Goldsworthy was left to rattle around in the empty club. Lord Blackstone had gone with his wife into the country for the birth of their child. Captain Clare had moved into an inn on the south edge of town, and Nate Wilde had gone to live with his grand friends.
If there was one good thing that came out of the whole trouble, it was that. Nate Wilde could not come strolling through the back of the shop to tell her how wrong she’d been to love Lord Hazelwood. He could not remind her that he’d been right all along that she had set her sights too high. Nate Wilde must never know what she had done or how she felt. She would hold her head as high as ever.
She would forget fine lords with laughing eyes. There were other gentlemen in London, and she would judge better now. She opened her bag and drew out the little book, The Husband Hunter’s Guide to London. It had failed her. She laid it on the bench for some other girl to find, a girl with better luck than Miranda Kirby.
Dear Reader,
The slim blue volume with gold lettering, entitled The Husband Hunter’s Guide to London, next falls into the hands of Lucy Holbrook, who is on the verge of losing her inn…
Read on for a preview of Kate Moore’s next Husband Hunter’s Guide Romance, available in summer 2017.
Most readers of this slim volume are, no doubt, young women whose families have made some provision for them however modest. Now we must consider two special cases from the ranks of Husband Hunters—the woman of property and the woman who possesses nothing but her shift. A woman who inherits a house, an income, or an estate may wrongly assume that she need not follow the practices outlined in this guide because she has suitors aplenty. Such thinking will be fatal to her happiness. Indeed, the woman of property must actively engage in husband hunting lest she mistake the ardor of her many suitors as desire to possess her rather than that most common of male desires—the desire to possess a pretty piece of property.
—The Husband Hunter’s Guide to London
Chapter One
The Tooth and Nail Inn
London, 1826
At the crunch of carriage wheels on gravel, Lucy Holbrook stuck a last branch of golden forsythia in a black jug on the sideboard of the Tooth and Nail’s only private dining room. By placing the forsythia just so, she concealed a spot where the edge of the ivy wallpaper curled away from the wall. To Lucy the inn’s flaws were as dear as its comforts, but she didn’t want her home to appear shabby or rustic in her friends’ eyes, and worse she didn’t want them to blame Papa for the inn’s defects. She knew her father had meant to get to the wallpaper, and she was sure he had given her a childhood as golden as the flowers in the jug. She took a quick look around the dining room, prayed that its faults would be overlooked in the pleasure of the company, and descended to meet her guests.
The usual crowd of neighborhood men, who came for their daily pint and a smoke, had ceased their talk to gawk at the visitors on the landing as if the curtain had opened on a wonder at the St Botolph’s Fair sideshow.
The ladies, for their part, took no notice of the bench sitters. The twins, Cassandra and Cordelia Fawkener, in matching dark green, fur-lined cloaks, concentrated on removing blue kid gloves and black bonnets. The sisters were used to being remarked upon from their habit of dressing in matching outfits since their come out some twenty years earlier.
Only Margaret Leach turned to Lucy with a broad smile and opened her arms. Lucy stepped without hesitation into her friend’s embrace. A brief flood of memories washed over her. So many times at school when the subject of a girl’s connections had arisen, Margaret had offered kindness and wisdom. Lucy had come to appreciate the distinctly feminine nature of such comfort. While he was alive, Papa had patted her shoulder and told her she would be a lady someday. And old Adam had mutely squeezed her hand when he sensed her distress. But her friend Margaret knew when to hold her. Enfolded in that familiar embrace against a silken scented bosom, Lucy felt yet unshed tears threaten. She pulled back. Tears could wait.
“Dear Lucy,” Cassandra began, turning her back on the public room, “we’ve been so worried.”
Lucy smiled at that. “Surely not, though I expect you’ve been eager for me to return that third volume of Mrs. Raby’s romance.”
“To think of you here, alone, child,” Cassandra added, draping her cloak on the growing stack in her footman’s arms.
“Which, you see I am not.”
“Lucy,” Cordelia thrust a brown paper wrapped package at her, “we’ve brought you a gift. You must open it.”
“Don’t rush the girl, Cordelia,” Cassandra advised.
Lucy thanked Cordelia and took the package. “I’ve a private room ready for our luncheon.” The ladies exchanged a glance of obvious relief as they turned their backs on the common room. As they climbed the stairs, Lucy took a moment to summon Hannah to help the footman with the cloaks, and tell him that he might make himself at home in the taproom or the stables.
In the little room that she and Hannah and Ariel had done their best to smarten up, the ladies studied the cold collation Mrs. Vell, the inn cook, had consented to serve on a Sunday. Pigeon pie, sliced tongue, pickled eggs, and a glistening apricot pudding filled the inn’s best plates arranged on a clean white linen cloth with shining silver serving spoons. While the ladies filled their plates, Lucy poured glasses of a raspberry cordial she had persuaded Mrs. Vell to uncork.
“We have not put you to any trouble, I hope,” Margaret said, looking up from the sideboard. Lucy saw where Margaret’s glance caught a yellowing water stain like a lace fringe above the bow window.
“None,” Lucy insisted, unless one counted persuading Mrs. Vell to alter her time-honored patterns. “It’s a cold collation, as our cook has strong feelings about Sunday cooking.”
The ladies settled themselves at the table and gingerly picked at the food.
“We’ve missed you at services, dear. Our little readers group is not complete without you,” Margaret said. Their group called itself the Back Bench Lending Library from their habit of exchanging novels after services each week at the chapel in South Audley Street. Lucy had not joined them since her father’s death a fortnight past.
“But we’ve brought you a book,” Cordelia added, breaking off at a look from her sister. “Well, Cassandra, really, Lucy, can see without unwrapping it that it is in fact a book, and what else, pray, would we be bringing?”
Most people could not tell the fashionable dark-haired twins apart until they spoke. Then Cassandra’s forcefulness of personality made one notice the sharper arch of her brows and jut of her chin. And Cordelia’s eagerness to please made one conscious of t
he softness about her mouth and eyes.
“Nevertheless, Cordelia,” Cassandra said turning to Lucy. “Before we get to the book, we must talk about your situation, dear girl.”
“My situation?” Lucy held her fork suspended above a pickled egg. It was a careful word, a word that meant there was a problem to be dealt with, something that could be fixed or altered or improved, the way one cleaned a chimney that smoked or moved one’s seat away from a draft.
The three ladies nodded in vigorous unity. Cassandra looked to the other two and clearly received some signal to proceed. “You do see that you must leave the inn.”
Lucy put down her fork and slid her hand into her lap. She did not want her friends to see that hand tremble. She should not be surprised that they judged the inn as an unacceptable setting for a lady of their acquaintance.
“Yes, now that your dear father is gone,” Cordelia added, “you may not stay in a common inn.”
“But the inn is my home. It’s where I live.”
“It is what you’ve been accustomed to, to be sure,” said Cordelia, “while your father was alive. However, a gentlewoman does not stay in a public house without a male relation on the premises and indeed without a female companion.”
“Surely, my case is different, as I am now the innkeeper.” Lucy watched Margaret for any sign that her dearest friend was on her side in the matter, but Margaret seemed intent on cutting a piece of tongue into the smallest possible bites. Margaret had been an instructor at Mrs. Thwayte’s Seminary for Young Ladies in Hammersmith until she left to become the companion of the twins’ elderly mother, Lady Eliza Fawkener. It was Margaret who had introduced Lucy to the twins and the Back Bench Lending Library group.
Cassandra pushed her untouched plate aside. “What you are, Lucy, is a woman of . . . property. You’ll sell the inn of course,” she announced.