“I make muffins, but I require the assistance of competent help, and I cannot possibly bother Miss Polly when she has the entire household to cook for. Perhaps I might prevail upon you, for you are obviously a discerning young lady.”
His countenance changed when he addressed the child. His eyes became clearer, and the smile dimmed to lurk around his mouth. He became not more charming, or not more charming in the way an adult woman might understand it, but… benevolent.
“Aunt Polly? Mama?” Allie turned her great green eyes on the adults. “May I? When Mr. Haddonfield bakes his muffins? May I help?”
Polly, as always, deferred to Sara on matters relating to Allie.
“You may,” Sara said, knowing it was the wrong decision. “Tonight our guest is cold, wet, hungry, and likely exhausted. We must allow him his comforts before imposing on him to teach you a muffin recipe.”
Though they had no real comforts to offer him, only the barest necessities, which added a dollop of embarrassment to Sara’s feelings toward him.
“Shall you take a tray?” Polly asked him. “You have to be famished.”
Mr. Haddonfield shrugged broad shoulders. “I can eat with the rest of the household. I don’t relish a solitary meal above stairs. Is supper served in here when Lady Warne is not in residence?”
“We eat in here,” Polly said. “We have two footmen-of-all-work, but they’ve gone into the village with Mr. North and will likely eat at the posting inn with him. The groom left at Yuletide to be with his parents over the winter but will be back when planting begins—we hope.”
“So I’m to have the company of three lovely ladies at my supper,” Mr. Haddonfield said. “I’d best get presentable then. I assume you keep country hours?”
“We do,” Sara replied, wondering how an earl’s son became presentable for eating with the servants in the kitchen. “By the time you’ve had your bath, Polly will have supper ready. Allie, you can take off your cloak and boots and help Aunt Polly while I show Mr. Haddonfield to his rooms.”
“Yes, Mama.” Allie’s tone was deferential, though her gaze still strayed speculatively to their guest. Sara could see her daughter taking him apart visually then adding his features back together, one pigment and line at a time. Polly was doing likewise, though she had of necessity grown better at hiding her skills.
* * *
Beck fell in behind the housekeeper as she departed the kitchen, his gaze fixing on the twitch of her skirts. He idly labeled it a pity a woman with such a pleasing shape and such glorious red hair—albeit glorious red hair mostly tucked up under a voluminous white cap—should be sequestered here, bailing with a teacup against an ocean tide of neglect.
“Are there writing implements to hand?” he asked as Mrs. Hunt preceded him along a chilly, darkened corridor. She held the carrying candle in one hand and shielded it with the other, there being no lit sconces that Beck could see.
“Of course.” She didn’t slow or turn to face him. “We’ve put you in the master suite, and you’ll find most amenities at your disposal. Three Springs was well appointed when Lady Warne was younger. The house is still in good condition, though the land needs attention.”
A polite way of saying yet again what the earl had put more bluntly: the estate had been neglected.
“I’m here to put the land to rights,” Beck heard himself volunteer. “If that’s possible before my father shuffles off this mortal coil.”
“I did not know the earl was indisposed.” Mrs. Hunt’s bustling progress came to a pause in the gathering gloom of a sitting room. She used the candle to light a branch on the mantel above a cold hearth.
“His lordship is quite frail. My stay here may be very brief indeed.” Though Beck shuddered to consider crossing the Downs again, much less to attend his father’s funeral.
Mrs. Hunt paused in circumnavigation of the room and gazed at him for a moment, but thank ye gods, there was no pity in her eyes. “And if the land cannot be put to rights while you’re here?”
“That is not my decision. Lady Warne can sell the place, of course. She isn’t likely to be leaving Town much when my younger sisters are poised for their come outs. This is a charming room.” Beck saw sturdy masculine furnishings, thick Turkish rugs in burgundy and green, and three large windows covered with heavy burgundy drapes.
“Charming, if outdated,” Mrs. Hunt said. “Lady Warne left the house much as she inherited it, and that was some time ago. Your bedroom is in here.” She opened a discreetly paneled door and led Beck into the cold space beyond. “Had I known when to expect you, I would have lit the fire in here. My apologies for the chill.”
Maybe he was hearing irony in her apology where none was intended, and perhaps threatening a woman’s life was not the best way to make a good first impression, and yet, Beck hadn’t known what or whom to expect on the far side of that wagon. He’d been cold, tired, and in unfamiliar surroundings yet again, almost happy to consider some thief might be attempting to steal from him.
Perhaps he’d apologize. Perhaps if she unbent the least little bit he would tell her he hadn’t meant to frighten her, because that’s what all this sniffy condescension was about, whether she knew it or not—he was big, strong, male, and he’d frightened her.
The fire caught—it probably wouldn’t dare do otherwise—and Mrs. Hunt continued her speechifying.
“We typically bathe in the laundry rather than carry the water any distance in cold weather.” She used the bellows to fan the flames, her movements casual and practiced, though they called attention to uncommonly elegant hands.
“I’ll be down shortly to see to my ablutions,” Beck said, unbuttoning his coat as he spoke. “And I’ll make short work of this bath, since dinner looms like divine salvation.”
“Until dinner then,” she said, casting one last glance at him before leaving him in the chill and solitude of his comfortable, if old-fashioned, bedroom.
That last glance stayed with him as he rummaged in his luggage for clean clothes and made his way to the laundry. She was a widow, Beck recalled as he lowered his grateful, sore body into steaming water some minutes later. The look she’d shot him when he’d started on his coat buttons had been hard to decipher: fascinated, dismissive, and wistful, all
at once.
Wistful was interesting, Beck thought as he started making use of the soap. No doubt the idea of a man preparing for his bath brought back memories of her departed husband. After Devona’s passing, Beck had cast such glances at the wives being happily handed up into carts in the churchyard, at the matrons cheerfully dancing with their spouses at the assemblies.
Beck closed his eyes and shoved the memories away. He’d traveled like a demon, pushing Ulysses to the limit of the gelding’s considerable capability, wanting to get them both out of the damned miserable weather. Sooner begun was sooner done, and his every instinct was telling him there was much to do here at Three Springs.
“Mr. Haddonfield?” A soft voice pierced the haze of sleep that had descended once Beck had finished washing. “Mr. Haddonfield? Sir?” He felt a hand on his shoulder but wished it away when sleep was a heavy, comforting blanket over his awareness.
“You’ll not get supper,” the voice warned him, “and your water will get cold, so you’ll get the ague and perish without dessert.”
Beck’s eyelids lifted, just as that hand pushed a little harder against his shoulder.
“M’wake,” he muttered, realizing the water was considerably cooler. Without thinking, he stood and heard a soft female sigh as he did. As his brain caught up to his body—his naked, dripping, exhausted body—he realized Mrs. Hunt was studying him.
“Mrs. Hunt?” He reached for his bath sheet, but did so slowly, struck by the peculiar expression on the lady’s face. She wasn’t horrified, and she wasn’t attracted, but she was somehow interested.
“God above.” The housekeeper exhaled. “Surely Polly would take up sculpting could she see you thus.”
What
an odd remark for a housekeeper to make about a cook. She offered no further explanation, just turned and left with a single shake of her head.
Two
“I’ll see you to your room.” Sara made the offer out of civility. Mr. Haddonfield had been gracious over dinner and afterward had patiently explained whist to Allie, even going so far as to partner the child for a few rounds.
That did not mean Sara liked him.
“I should tell you your escort isn’t needed,” Mr. Haddonfield said. “However, because the house is unlit and I’m dead on my feet, it probably is very necessary.” He winged his arm at her as he spoke, which surprised Sara into outright staring at him, then she gingerly placed her fingers on his sleeve.
Excellent manners were no reason to like a man either—Reynard had had excellent manners, when it suited him.
“What time would you like us to bring you your tea in the morning?” she asked as they traveled the cold, dark hallways and stairs.
“That won’t be necessary. I can find my way to the kitchen the same as the rest of the household no doubt does. I’m a seasoned traveler, and I know how to make shift.”
“We do break our fast in the kitchen, but Polly, Allie, and I have an apartment right off the kitchen, and it’s warm and close to the larder.”
“And where does the estimable Mr. North lay his weary head?”
“Gabriel has a room in the south wing,” she said, though it was none of the gracious, considerate, polite Mr. Haddonfield’s business, and if he was going to suggest that any impropriety at all—
“Good. I would not want ladies to be without protection in the dark of night this far from any town or village. This is my room?”
Maybe she did like him, just a penny’s worth.
“Next door down.” Sara reached forward to open his door then jumped aside, a shriek escaping her as a black-and-white cannonball of fur rocketed past her skirts. In that single instant, several things happened at once.
Heifer yowled his indignation as he shot down the corridor with uncharacteristic speed.
Sara’s candle tipped off its holder when she jumped out of the cat’s path.
She tried to grab the candle as it fell, only to yelp in pain and lose her balance without catching the candle.
The candle winked out as it rolled over her knuckles and hit the floor, leaving a stygian darkness in the hallway.
“Steady.” Mr. Haddonfield’s arms caught her when she would have overbalanced, but Sara’s momentum was such that she pitched into his chest and would have fallen to her hands and knees had he not kept a firm grip on her upper arms. “Take a moment,” he urged, his voice a rumble in the inky darkness.
Up close, he smelled as good as he had in the stables, only more so for having soaked, washed his hair, and shaved. Sara wanted to die of mortification, but in the complete darkness, her balance was hard to regain, so she savored the simple, long-forgotten pleasure of being held by a man.
“I’m all right,” she insisted, except the words came out shaky and unconvincing, even to her own ears.
“Take small breaths.” His thumbs moved against her shoulders in slow circles. “You’ve had a fright. Give yourself a minute.”
She should pull away, Sara knew that, but he wasn’t taking advantage; he was being everything that was gentlemanly, almost brotherly, and she simply lacked the strength of will to stand on her own two feet.
“That’s better. Did you get burned?” He reached around and opened the door to his sitting room, letting a dim light leak into the hallway. “Let’s have a look, shall we?” His arm slipped around Sara’s shoulders as he shepherded her into the sitting room. Maudie, the maid-of-all-work, had left candles lit on the sideboard, and from the bedroom, more weak light came through the door. His rooms weren’t exactly warm, but neither did they bear the bone-chilling cold of the unheated corridor.
“There’s better light in here.” He escorted her to the bedroom, as if waltzing along with housekeepers was a common pastime for him. “I thought the candle might have struck your hand.”
“Not the candle, the wax. It’s nothing, really.”
He towed her over to the fire and examined her hand, using his thumbnail to scrape a drop of warm wax off her knuckle.
“At least the wax,” he said, pulling out his handkerchief. He crossed the room and dipped the linen in a pitcher of drinking water on his night table. “This might take a little of the sting out.”
He wrapped a startlingly cold cloth around Sara’s hand, and it did indeed take the sting out.
“Sit you down.” He pulled out the chair from his escritoire then leaned a hip on the desk, causing the wood to groan, but letting him keep hold of Sara’s hand as she took the chair. “It will likely blister, as red as it is. Have you any aloe?”
“Aloe?” Sara looked at his hand, wrapped around hers. When was the last time she’d held hands with anybody save her daughter or her sister?
“It’s a medicinal plant,” he said, his grip firm and impersonal. “I spent a summer in Virginia a few years ago, right after the hostilities with the Americans concluded, and they’ve a number of plants we don’t find here. I sent as many as I could back to my father for study and propagation.”
“What were you doing in Virginia?” Sara asked out of sheer desperation. The continued grip of his hand around hers was making her insides unsettled, and while she might like him a very little bit, she did not like being unsettled. She’d seen this man in all his naked, Greek-god glory, and now he was holding her hand in dimly lit private quarters.
Though Mr. Haddonfield himself seemed oblivious to every one of those facts.
“My stated task was to assess the viability of investing in tobacco on behalf of my father’s earldom.” He let go of her hand, unwrapped it, peered at it, frowned, and soaked the cloth in cold water again. “I really ought to get you some ointment for this.”
Tending to minor hurts was the housekeeper’s province—her exclusive province. “You really ought not. Is your father raising tobacco now?”
“He is not.” He let her scold go unremarked as he wrapped her hand once again, “Tobacco is profitable. It becomes a habit, and those who indulge in it are loyal to their habit, but it’s hard on the land.”
“Is that why the plantations are so large? Because they have to fallow a lot of acreage?”
“Everything in America is large. We think Cornwall is far from civilization, but consider that the distance from Penzance to London—not quite three hundred miles—might be little over a tenth the distance from Atlantic to Pacific coasts, and the Americans intend to lay claim to it all.”
“One tenth? That is incomprehensible.”
“Not to them. It takes half-savage people to deal with so much wilderness, and they will deal with it, inevitably.”
“But you decided not to invest there. Why not?”
“The government isn’t stable, for one thing.” He let go of her hand to soak the handkerchief yet again. “Americans are terminally wary of kings and despots, elected or otherwise, and so they are miserly with their own government, haggling over every tax and tithe, clutching every little power tightly away from their own leaders. Then too, British enterprises are not regarded fondly in the current American climate, and finally, there is the issue of slavery.”
That he would discuss his foreign travels with her was oddly flattering. Maybe she liked him two pennies’ worth. “So no tobacco farming.”
“No tobacco, but I did bring back a number of medicinal plants, some trees, and a few wildflowers to see if they might be grown profitably here.”
“Enterprising of you,” Sara murmured, watching as he unwrapped her hand again.
“It doesn’t look as angry,” he decided. “I’d still feel better if you put something on it.”
Sara took back her hand. “Then I will, when I get to the kitchen. I see Maudie turned down your sheets. The warmer for your sheets is by the hearth, and your wash water is in that ewer
.”
He smiled at her, making it even more imperative that Sara get herself down to the kitchen. “And my eyes grow heavier by the second. Good night, Mrs. Hunt, and my thanks for a pleasant welcome to Three Springs.”
“Good night, Mr. Haddonfield, sleep well.”
* * *
Beckman watched the formidable Mrs. Hunt take her leave, watched the graceful way she reached up to appropriate the candle on his mantel. Did she realize she’d lost her cap in the scuffle with the cat?
Her hair was a glorious, vibrant red, though she’d caught it back in a severe bun. The sight of that hair had evoked a sense of déjà vu, the peculiar and unfounded certainty that he’d seen Sara Hunt somewhere else, her hair uncovered and the grace of her hands in evidence.
Which made no sense. She put him in mind of nothing so much as home, bearing about her person the scents of lavender, lemon oil, laundry starch, and other domestic fragrances. Then too, she had hands that were both feminine and competent, not the hands of a debutante but the hands of a grown woman.
His hands had developed an itch to take down that hair and stroke it free and loose down her back. He recognized it as a remnant of the sailor’s reaction to making port after a long, hard voyage, hardly an apt analogy for a little jaunt over the Downs. If he were lusting after a skittish, widowed—albeit pretty and curvaceous—housekeeper, then deprivation and fatigue were making him as indiscriminately randy as his older brother, Nicholas.
* * *
“That was the last of the wine.” Sara let her head rest against the back of the armchair nearest the fire in her tiny sitting room. To call the space where she, Allie, and Polly dwelled an apartment was generous. They had three very small rooms and a sleeping alcove for Allie, though they’d shared far worse on the Continent and been grateful for it.
“She’s asleep,” Polly reported, peeking behind the curtain that provided Allie’s bed a bit of privacy. “I’m surprised you were able to save a bottle so long—it was from Lady Warne’s basket at Christmas, wasn’t it?”
Beckman: Lord of Sins ll-4 Page 2