The Apple Blossom Bower (Historical Romance Novella)

by Margaret Evans Porter

  Elation had so overwhelmed her that she’d hardly tasted a morsel of the food he offered her. They remained in the parlor, talking late into the night. Eventually he’d escorted her up the staircase to a guest bedchamber—on the threshold she received additional proof of his affection. Dizzy with desire, she answered his searching look with a nod that expressed her willingness to receive more than passionate kisses. Her need to become entirely his was so strong, and the invitation was too tempting.

  After discovering the wonder and beauty and mystery of his lovemaking, she felt no shame or regret—only joy.

  Murmuring unintelligibly, Edwin clutched a strand of her hair. “Annis.”

  He was awake and regarding her with warm drowsy eyes. His beatific smile was one she would remember forever.

  “If we sent for the parson straightaway, you needn’t leave.”

  She sat up, draping herself with the sheet. “He wouldn’t be at all pleased to find us like this.”

  Pulling away her covering, he said, “Let me look at you. Last night it was so dark, and I was too enraptured to light candles.”

  She blushed all over as he examined her, wishing for his sake that she were beautiful, with a clear, pale complexion. But in the night she’d learned that he liked her body, for he’d frequently placed his hands and even his lips upon her breasts, a most gratifying form of appreciation.

  His fingers trailed across her shoulder. “You’ve got freckles here, too, a few very light ones.”

  “In time they’ll fade to nothing,” she assured him. “I use a lotion made from primroses, and wash my face in water distilled from elderflowers.”

  “Don’t. I like your freckles. Every one of them.”

  “Edwin?” There was a catch in her voice.

  His hand, warm and comforting, cupped her cheek. “What is it? You aren’t sorry you stayed, I hope.”

  “After a country couple pledge to marry, it’s common for them to lie together,” she said matter-of-factly. “But you’re used to gentry ways.”

  He pulled her closer, saying, “I wanted you to, Annis. All these weeks you’ve been so aloof, so distant, I feared I’d never win you.”

  “I couldn’t let you guess how much I fancied you,” she confessed, hiding her face against his chest. “And now I’ve ruined your reputation.”

  “How so?”

  “Your stable boy knows Pippin boarded here overnight.”

  “Dawn won’t break for another hour yet—you and your pony can be on your way long before Bart leaves his bed. Be easy, I’ll take care to remove that all signs of your presence. My aged housekeeper won’t stir for a good while.”

  His kiss distracted her from worry. When his strong arms enclosed her, she made a token attempt to disengage herself, only to find that she was trapped by the thickly muscled leg he’d flung across hers.

  “Stay,” he declared in a voice thick with need.

  She sank back against the mattress, welcoming his embrace. The delicious weight of him, the heat of his skin, the feel of his hands as they traced her curves—they summoned a hunger that matched his. Soon he was making her gasp with delight, and just when she was all but delirious with sensation she felt him enter her, slowly and with infinite care.

  His fire teased and tantalized her, and before it consumed her altogether she let out a little cry, the only way she knew to express her awe at what he had done to her. And then she was melting, and it was too late to save herself from the unknown and wholly unexpected result of giving herself up to this man, body and soul.

  “My own Annis,” he murmured into her neck as the tension left him and he sank against her.

  She flattened her damp palms against his back as though to hold him there forever.

  They dressed, handing each other the various garments they had hastily removed hours earlier.

  “Will you go to Totnes fair on Monday?”

  “I can.”

  “We’ll meet there—at the enclosure where horses are bought and sold.”

  Silently they descended the great oaken staircase, wincing at every creak from the ancient wood, and crept furtively to the stable. Edwin saddled Pippin and strapped the small trunk and the single cask behind the sidesaddle.

  “What’s this?” he asked, rapping his knuckles against the side of the wooden keg.

  “Brandy,” she replied.

  Afterwards, while riding along the twisting country road, she worried that her candor might have given him a false impression. She would have been wiser to explain that the liquor she was carrying was the squire’s present to his cousin, and she regretted her failure to clarify that it had come from the cellar at Orchard Place and not off a smuggling vessel from France.

  Miss Myra Dundridge, a middle-aged spinster, warmly welcomed her unexpected guest and received the news of an impending marriage with delight.

  “I was slightly acquainted with the late baronet, your Sir Edwin’s great-uncle,” she said one day while demonstrating how to lay the table for a dinner party. “Rather a grumpy old gentleman and inclined to show his pride. He always came to town in his chaise, though Harbourne Court is a scant three miles away. His nephew, I’ve noted, prefers to ride. A handsome young man, and such fine horses he keeps!”

  It occurred to Annis that in due course she’d be able to ride his easy-paced bay mare whenever she liked. “He’s coming to the fair to buy more,” she informed her hostess, “and he expects me to meet him there.”

  “We shall certainly go,” Miss Dundridge replied. “It’s never too soon to begin looking about for suitable servants, and many will come to town on Monday seeking new places. Sir Edwin being a bachelor, his stables are likely staffed better than his dwelling. You’ll want at least five women. How many has he now?”

  “I’m unsure,” Annis admitted. “He says his housekeeper is old and, I think, infirm.”

  “Pension her off and hire a new one, that’s my advice. No manservant, either? Well, that’s’ easily be remedied.” After studying the placement of the silver utensils, porcelain plates, and crystal goblets, Miss Dundridge nodded briskly. “Now, my dear, come and see what I’ve done. After I clear it all away, you must copy the arrange on your own. As mistress of Harbourne Court, you need to direct your servants properly.”

  Annis paid close attention to all of Miss Dundridge’s instructions, however tedious. She meant to make sure her baronet never regretted choosing her for his bride. Nor would she be haunted, as her mother was, by a terror of inadvertently disgracing her husband at a social function. The rules laid down by her instructress might seem unnecessarily rigid, but they were easily learned. In her more optimistic moments she felt confident of becoming a proper lady.

  On Monday the sky was overcast but the rains had ceased, and the fair drew hordes of town and country folk. Parting from Miss Dundridge at a cloth-maker’s stall, Annis made her way to horse paddock, but found neither Edwin nor his grooms among the farmers and dealers. She waited more than an hour, prey to a dread that his absence resulted from accident or illness.

  In the afternoon, as she and Miss Dundridge wearily traversed the town’s clean and well-paved streets, she confided her unease.

  “My dear Annis,” the older lady replied, “most likely Sir Edwin forgot that the fair would be today—you said he’s quite busy putting his house in better order. I’ve no doubt he’ll call upon you tomorrow to apologize and plead for forgiveness. Why, you might find a message awaiting you at home.”

  But Annis received no explanatory note, and she continued to ponder Edwin’s failure to meet her. Even though her hostess and her family expected her to stay for several days longer, she decided to return to Orchard Place without delay. And once more she would break her journey at Harbourne Court.

  After bidding Miss Dundridge a fond and grateful farewell, she rode toward the town’s south gate. Following the road along the Harbourne River, she noted that the sky had cleared and the faint patch of blue on the westward horizon was rapidly turnin
g pink with the setting of the sun.

  Not far from her future home she was overtaken by a traveling carriage drawn by four panting horses lathered with sweat. They swept past, splattering mud in their wake, and passed through Harbourne Court’s ivy-hung gates.

  Who was visiting Edwin so late? Annis guided Pippin to a cluster of trees and dismounted to gain a clearer view.

  The carriage stood in the forecourt—Edwin was opening the door. A young lady climbed out, and even from a distance Annis saw that her clothes were modish and probably very costly. The driver whipped up his horses, and the carriage came back along the avenue.

  She sank to the ground next to a patch of prickly gorse. For a long time after the couple vanished inside the house she remained there, distraught.

  Her dreams of marrying Edwin and living happily with him in the great Elizabethan mansion had survived Garth Corston’s spite and enmity, but at the ill-timed arrival of his sister they shriveled.

  Edwin would seek her out again, eventually, to explain that a prior commitment prevented him from making her his wife. At this very moment he might be comparing her to Miss Corston, whose birth and breeding more closely matched his. He would think back to the night at the Castle Inn in Dartmouth and recall her reckless and unladylike behavior. And that her father had been flung into prison for receiving and transporting contraband.

  Annis couldn’t imagine that he’d deliberately and ruthlessly set out to seduce and then abandon her. No man could be so false—or so predatory. Perhaps he’d quarreled with Miss Corston and had believed himself free to offer marriage.

  “Miss Kelland?”

  She crept out of the thicket. While spying she’d been spied upon herself, by Captain Harper of the Excise Service.

  “Why are you hiding?” he asked suspiciously. “Come out so I can see you. If you’re armed, throw down your weapon.” The officer stalked toward her purposefully, his bearing stiff and his face set in forbidding lines.

  Narrowing his eyes, he asked again, “Why were you lurking in the furze bushes? Have you concealed something there?”

  Her lover was lost to her, yet Annis laughed—is accusations were absurd. “No, Captain Harper. I paused here to gaze upon Harbourne Court. Arrest me if you must. It won’t be the worst thing that’s happened to me this day.”

  “Apparently I’ve no cause to arrest you,” he said testily. “If you’re bound for Orchard Place, I’ll ride with you—it’s on my way to Harbertonford.”

  He helped her mount her pony with more impatience than gallantry, and together they followed the winding hedge-lined roadway. Strangely, his company was not distasteful to Annis, she was glad to be distracted from her woes. In the hours and days to come she would have a surfeit of solitude in which to reflect upon them.

  “Have you been at the fair?” he asked as they rode side by side. “I wanted to go but was ordered to pass the entire day at the Bay Horse.”

  With a pang, she remembered Edwin’s lovely bay mare.

  He continued, “It’s the worst of the taverns in Totnes, storing and selling smuggled liquors.”

  “Is it? I didn’t know.”

  To her surprise, he chuckled. “Your father did, I’ll wager. Fortunate for me his heyday was over before I ever joined the Excise. By all accounts he was a slippery fellow. And a clever one.”

  A contrary pride in her parent’s reputation raised her sagging spirits ever so slightly.

  “’Twill be a clear night,” he predicted, “and tomorrow is like to be dry.”

  His ability to read the sky impressed her, countrywoman that she was. Curious about her enigmatic escort, she asked, “Are you a native of Devonshire, Captain?”

  “Nay, I’m Somerset born. Like Sir Edwin Page.” His speculative glance was as unwelcome as his allusion to the baronet, and he prevented her from introducing a less sensitive topic of conversation by adding, “I don’t suppose you’ll tell me the real reason you were watching his house.”

  “I meant no harm by it.”

  “He’s your sweetheart, isn’t he? I guessed it the day we met on the road to Dartmouth, when I accused you of transporting contraband and he defended you so forcefully.”

  Her mind returning to that mild April afternoon, Annis recalled her anger at the gentleman riding beside her and her mortification when Edwin had appeared upon the scene.

  “He’s a good sort,” the Captain went on. “He and the squire are among the few landowners in this district who won’t condone or support the free-trading. But neither do they lay information against their neighbors. To be sure, it hampers my ability to carry out my duties, but somehow I can’t fault them for it.”

  At Orchard Place Annis parted from him cordially, despite his obnoxious profession. Her animosity had faded to the point that she could even feel sympathy for one whose work was as difficult and dangerous as it was unpopular.

  The barton was deserted. It was well past the dinner hour; the orchard laborers and stable boys had already abandoned their daily tasks. In her exhausted and emotional state, she wanted no witnesses to her return.

  She removed her sidesaddle and the cloth beneath it, and rubbed Pippin with a cloth. Going to the feed box, she drew out a measure of oats. As she passed along the row of stalls, the working horses pressed their noses against the rails, seeking attention.

  After latching the storeroom door, she heard a sound in a stall that had long been empty. Going over to investigate, she was amazed to find it occupied by a bay mare—one known to her.

  “How did you come to be here?” she wondered, stroking the smooth muzzle. Taking a handful of oats from her wooden pail, she offered it to the mare.

  Intent upon solving the mystery, she made her way to the house. Led to the dining room by the sound of voices, she discovered her stepfather in the act of carving a roasted spring lamb.

  “What are you doing home so soon?” Mrs. Dundridge cried. “We didn’t expect you back from Totnes before week’s end.”

  “Were Myra’s ladyship lessons so tiresome?” the squire teased.

  It was too soon to inform him that she wouldn’t have a chance to use her new expertise. “Why is Sir Edwin’s bay horse in our stable?”

  He set lowered his carving knife and two-pronged fork. “Because she’s yours. I wanted you to have a nicer mount, and arranged for you to try Sir Edwin’s horses. ’Twas a conspiracy between us.”

  “It’s most kind of you, sir. She’s a lovely creature.” And, thought Annis bleakly, a constant reminder of loss and disappointment.

  “Do sit down,” Mrs. Dundridge invited her. “You look as if you need food.”

  “I’m not hungry.” The aroma of cooked meat and potatoes failed to revive her flagging appetite. She started for the door, then turned back to say to the squire, “Tomorrow we can ride together.”

  Beaming at her friendly overture he replied, “Aye, ’twould be my pleasure.”

  In the privacy of her own bedchamber, with the door safely shut, she released the tears she’d held in so stoically ever since she’d seen Miss Corston’s dainty foot cross Harbourne Court’s threshold.

  At least, she told herself, her parents would never forsake her. She was assured of her mother’s love whether or not she married, and her stepfather could be a source of wise and helpful counsel. If she carried a child as a result of her night with Edwin, she trusted them both to shield her from the scandal. She could go to her grandfather in Brixham, or to one of her Exeter aunts. None of her Kelland relatives would judge her harshly. Compared to her father’s crimes, which had cost him his life, her fall from grace was insignificant. Like many a girl before her, she’d placed too much faith in enticing promises and sweet caresses.

  Crossing to the washstand, she bathed her damp cheeks. She was reaching for a linen towel when she spied the bottle of elderflower water that she and her mother had distilled—an age ago, it seemed. Her hand moved toward it, fell back, then reached out again. She would continue using her concoction, and afte
rwards she’d apply the primrose lotion to her face. But from that moment on she’d be doing it to please herself, and no one else.

  “Your parents are well, I trust,” said Edwin to Elizabeth Corston, who occupied the only uncluttered chair in his sadly disarranged parlor.

  “Well enough,” she answered. “They’ll be startled to find the note I left behind, informing them of my sudden visit to Devonshire. Garth instructed me to say nothing beforehand, or give a reason for the journey. But how could I? His letter gave no explanation of why I must come here in such haste and secrecy, and without my maid. Where is he?”

  “By this time he must be in Torquay, where his yacht has been moored these three weeks.”

  She bounded up from the chair. “Torquay? But he insisted that I meet him here. How long ago did he leave you? And why?”

  Edwin could have given her the most probable answer but thought it best not to share his suspicion. Evidently Garth had sent for the Elizabeth to compromise her reputation. He’d made a blatant attempt to force Edwin’s hand—at his sister’s expense—by luring her to Harborne Court without a servant or chaperone.

  Swallowing his outrage on the young woman’s behalf, he said soothingly, “Garth departed in haste, and rather unexpectedly.”

  “How like him.” She frowned.

  “Let me direct your coachman to the most comfortable and respectable inn at Totnes. As you see, my house is in no fit state for receiving company. Even if it were, your parents wouldn’t approve of your staying here.”

  With a charming smile she said, “Indeed they would not. I’ll have difficulty enough accounting for my abrupt departure and swift return to Lyme.”

  With the matter settled, they exchanged news of mutual friends. Miss Corston apologized for her small store of gossip, saying she’d been living very quietly.

  “No matter,” said Edwin. “I shall travel to town myself in summer. I’m about to be married, and look forward to showing my bride all the wonders that you, a Londoner, take for granted. I depend upon your advice on which sights will most appeal to Annis.”