by Lela Bay
Mr. Stinson stepped between Bitsy and Lady Rosauer, as if simply moving forward to conduct introductions. Eleanor appreciated his subtle kindness to Bitsy.
He gestured toward Eleanor. “This is Mrs. Sinclair.”
Eleanor met the other woman’s perusal with equanimity. Seeing a host of questions, and a quick scan of her garb, Eleanor decided to appease the woman’s curiosity as quickly as possible.
She stepped beside Mr. Stinson, consciously walling Bitsy further behind their protective backs.
“I am traveling as Bitsy’s companion. My husband died two years ago, and I set aside my mourning garb some months ago.”
Having made her examination, suspicion and curiosity fell prey to weariness and Lady Rosauer waved a hand to her young companion.
Recalled from craning his neck to see Bitsy, the fair youth stepped forward, freckles nearly hidden as he flushed.
“My nephew, Ryder Leon. I expect we will see you when we breakfast on the morrow?”
Agreements made, the elder lady progressed to the largest room in the establishment. Ryder entered the room beside hers and lingered in the door.
The enthusiastic, round innkeeper fluttered around them, his nightcap still in place, “Marissa will see to fresh linens and bedwarmers. She is the sole maidservant working tonight. I released the others to beat the storm home.”
“It will be fine,” said Mr. Leon from his doorway.
Lady Rosauer sniffed and shut her door with a bang.
The innkeeper wrung his hands, then seemed to remember he had other guests.
He turned to face them, addressing Mr. Stinson. “The late repast you requested for your hungry travelers has been laid out in the dining room just through that doorway. The ladies’ room is above us. You may join my family at the back. Your driver is already settled.”
Eleanor caught Mr. Leon still standing in his doorway.
“Are you hungry, Mr. Leon? You may join us.”
Coloring, the youth tore his gaze from Bitsy and shook his head. Nearly tripping over the dog’s lead, he pushed into his room and left the door ajar for the maid.
The innkeeper bustled off. Eleanor regretted the late work they had made for his household and resolved to pay well.
“Breakfast tomorrow?” Bitsy whispered in horror filled tones.
Eleanor cast a glance over her shoulder to share a relieved look with Mr. Stinson. His considering gaze pressed warmly against her, and she felt it on her shoulder blades as they retreated to freshen up. She smothered a panicky laugh, expressionless as she led the girl before her.
Under his observation, she paraded up the steps, holding her skirts with one hand, conscious of the sway of her hips. Distracted and breathless, Eleanor nearly shoved the girl through the unopened door.
“I’m so sorry!” Eleanor said inside the privacy of the bedroom, shutting the door and leaning against it.
Bitsy scowled, but Eleanor ignored it. They had already spent too long in close quarters, and Bitsy needed regular feeding. A meal would set things right again.
Eleanor admired the room. It held two narrow beds with a small table between them. Cheerful blue and white linens dressed the beds and a large cabbage rose print covered the wallpaper. At the other end of the room stood a mirrored dressing table and two armchairs with a pitcher. This inn was nicer than the last one. Mr. Stinson had chosen well.
She helped Bitsy change out of her dress. Though her fresh gown had crumpled from being packed, Eleanor deemed it too time-consuming to call the maid and press it. Smoothing the fabric with a damp cloth took out the worst wrinkles from the blush-pink, expensively trimmed gown. Far too nice, but Bitsy had no more practical dresses in her bag.
“It’s French,” said Bitsy, noticing Eleanor’s admiration. “All mama’s and my gowns are made by a modiste in Paris.”
Repentant, Eleanor offered Bitsy her knotted shawl to borrow for dinner.
“Don’t you need it?” Bitsy asked.
“I’m not very hungry.”
Bitsy snatched the shawl from Eleanor. “You’re putting yourself out for nothing. There will be no reward, you know. Unless Mr. Stinson makes a fuss, my parents will hardly know I went missing.”
“I find that unlikely,” said Eleanor.
“It’s true. They’re away.”
“Your parents aside, I hope you come to appreciate the very real danger you were in.”
Bitsy’s cheeks turned red. “I had Andre under control. We’d have been married, and I’d be setting up my own household.”
Eleanor listened to the girl’s tone, rather than her words. They’d covered this ground before, and she suspected Bitsy had realized the truth, but refused to admit it aloud. An elopement was romantic. A tryst, sordid.
“Would you like me at supper?” asked Eleanor.
Bitsy’s throat worked, holding back surprising emotion. She nodded.
Eleanor wrapped the shawl around Bitsy’s shoulders and hugged her.
“I know it’s not about the reward,” Bitsy said into her hair. “I just have trouble accounting for it.”
“Think on it, and you’ll understand. You care about others, too. We’re not so different.”
Eleanor and Bitsy giggled and parted. The two women were very different. She was glad to make the child laugh, but Eleanor hadn’t meant it entirely as a joke.
They descended the stairs. In the dining room stood Mr. Stinson, changed from his riding coat into something more formal. Though he must have dashed from his house, he had evidently packed well. His back was to them, hands crossed beneath the tails of his coat. His shoulders were stern and imposing. Lightning flashed in the windows.
“You’d have left me to dine alone with Mr. Stinson?” Bitsy murmured under her breath. “And throw all your good work out the window?”
Bitsy shivered with fear. Eleanor’s shiver rose from a different source.
Eleanor’s appetite had deserted her, nor did Mr. Stinson seem to hunger for the quickly warmed beef, potatoes, and pudding. However, conversation flowed, and they discovered several acquaintances in common.
“I have recently returned to the country. My husband and I lived overseas for a time.” Eleanor remarked.
“You mentioned you are widowed?” he inquired politely.
“Seems too young, don’t she?” Bitsy interjected, leaning forward over the table. The empire waistline of her dress fit a bit too low and snugly. Allowing that it was likely Bitsy had grown since the gown was made, and not that it was a sign of poor breeding, Eleanor made a mental note to ask the girl to tuck one of her lace handkerchiefs into the neckline. The shawl was inadequate.
While Eleanor brooded over her young charge, Bitsy continued to ramble. Mr. Stinson made one-word replies.
Eleanor ate her pudding in silence.
Despite the long day, she wasn’t tired. The clean and efficient innkeeper, very different from the owner of her last inn, closed shutters against the storm and lit candles. He had obviously payed extra for beeswax in the dining area, and their sweetness cleansed the fragrance of horses and dust. The cheerful maid, Marissa, bustled around the table filling their glasses. She wore a sparkling clean apron and a white mob cap over her brown curls
The soft lighting relaxed Eleanor. She could observe the others without their notice. Flickering lights traveled across Mr. Stinson’s cheekbones. Evening stubble darkened his chin. The jade colored coat he’d worn to supper brought out the green flecks in his eyes. She stared, fascinated to watch his eyes change.
Bitsy sat back from the table, still talking, and observed, “She can’t be much older than I am, though she acts like a bluestocking, and that ages her.”
Speechless, Eleanor wiped her mouth so that she didn’t retort.
Mr. Stinson’s eyes passed to her, lit with amusement. He seemed to sense her restraint, which merely tugged the corners of his lips up further.
Eleanor glared.
His cough, muffled in a fist, sounded suspiciously li
ke a laugh.
Bitsy flirted and batted her eyes, becoming more of a pest than she had ever been at her most sullen.
As the plates were cleared, Mr. Stinson caught the eye of their server. “I understand you provide a bath.”
“Oh, surely. We’ve scented soaps and rose oil for the ladies as well,” Marissa agreed.
Thrilled at the idea of a bubble bath, Bitsy squealed and left on the maidservant’s arm. Marissa struggled to balance their plates despite Bitsy’s quivering enthusiasm.
As they reached the door, the maid added, “You’re the last up, I expect. Unless you’ll be needing it, I’ll bank the fire in the main room.”
Mr. Stinson nodded at the girl, who disappeared. Thunder cracked and rain pattered outside the snug dining room.
Eleanor rose as well, her mouth dry. “I should attend her.”
Dropping his napkin, Mr. Stinson walked around the table. “She’ll be in her bath. Let her enjoy it. We should all take time to savor pleasures.”
Eleanor nodded, gripping the back of her chair. “I can’t thank you enough for your understanding. Bitsy is a good girl.”
“Bitsy is a child,” he said. “She has been coddled and maintained like a pretty doll, with all the sense that a head of stuffing can hold, but there is no malice in her.”
Since this mirrored her own opinion, she smiled faintly and took the arm he offered. He did not escort her out the door, as she had expected. Instead, he turned his gaze on her, and rather than chocolate his eyes reminded her of cups of Turkish espresso—heated and molten. She could taste the promise hidden in them.
She was experienced enough to recognize the question lying within. Had she been thinking—if the night had not been so quiet and close and her muscles so relaxed—she might have found the strength to make a small gesture. Lowering her chin, looking away, or brushing her hair aside to cover the longing written across her face would stop him.
She did none of these things. The intensity of his gaze held her.
He pulled her around and bent his head to hers, and she gasped. His firm lips moved across hers. She welcomed the heaviness of his embrace. The press of his chest promised to soothe the ache that made her arch into him and moan. His hands slid along her sides to her narrow waist, and cupped the flare of her hips to draw her toward him.
She broke off, stepping back. His hands caught her skirt, letting her move away but keeping them connected with the soft layers of fabric.
“This is unseemly,” she said.
He raised an eyebrow. “It is what we both want.”
He stepped forward into the cage of fabric, yanking her to him with a fist twisted in the material, drawing the length tight against the naked skin at the back of her knees where her stockings ended.
She longed to throw caution to the wind—he must read the flickers of desire hidden in her heavily lidded eyes—but she couldn’t be weak willed.
“There can be no hint of scandal. Bitsy’s reputation may very well depend on the strength of my own. I cannot endanger the both of us,” Eleanor said.
“No?” he asked, feathering kisses along her jaw. His beard stubble scraped her skin like the rasp of a cat’s tongue, the tingle insisting on additional brushes. The first stroke incited a tickle that needed scratching, the next a rasp needed soothing, and finally the third brush ignited her skin and sent fingers of flame through her neck and into her tingling body. She gasped slightly, releasing a moan.
“No?” he asked again, regretfully. Her words had gotten through to him.
They pulled apart. He released her skirts, though the fabric hung twisted and wrinkled beneath her knees. She smoothed it, glancing upward at him. Her chest heaved within her tight neckline.
His eyes raced over her. With a groan, he turned away, gripping the chair she’d recently released.
She slipped out the door.
Bitsy had bolted their room from the inside. Sighing, Eleanor knocked and called to her.
Through the thick door Bitsy’s high voice sang, “Oh, darling, I’ve only just gotten started, and it is wonderfully hot. Can’t you come back again later?”
Mr. Stinson’s heavy tread at the base of the steps paused, as if he waited for Eleanor’s answer. She leaned her forehead against the wood of the door, fearing the heat from her body would burn a brand into the dry wood. “Come, now. I’m quite tired.”
Muttering and squishing, Bitsy reached the door from the inside and opened it. Eleanor slipped around her dripping form.
Glancing into the hall, Bitsy squealed and slammed the door shut, falling against it with peals of laughter. “Mr. Stinson was out there and with such a thunderous expression I should nearly faint!”
No one was ever further from fainting than bouncy Bitsy, pink from the hot water. She dashed back to her bath and splashed in, settling with a sigh. “I declare, the look in his eyes has set my mind reeling.”
Wisely silent, Eleanor released the pins from her hair and rubbed at the fair skin of her chin. Brushing a knuckle over the reddened curve of her cheek, she turned her palms in and scrubbed, wiping away the remnants of sensation left from his caresses.
Had she really rejected him out of concern for her reputation? She smothered a laugh. That was the least of it. To have given in would have been to become a different person. Though she had told him she was familiar with the ways of the world, she was not a merry widow. Bitsy called her a bluestocking, and she wasn’t wrong. Eleanor was always restrained and proper. Although her husband had appreciated her educated mind, she sometimes wished she knew how to be something else. Something pink, and bouncy, and… She realized she was gazing at Bitsy where she sat blowing bubbles from her hands.
Eleanor sat on the bed and raised her skirts to remove her shoes, pausing. They said you didn’t become a bluestocking until men no longer wished to look at your legs. She rubbed a finger along hers, remembering Mr. Stinson’s hot, approving gaze. Feeling considerably better, she prepared for the night before her, resigned to the fact she would spend most of it thinking about him and rather looking forward to it.
Although propriety dictated her actions, it could not dictate her dreams.
Chapter 4
Spying Eleanor flex her bare feet, Bitsy cried out, “Surely you’re not for bed!”
Water splashed and fabric swished as Bitsy slipped out of the bath and appeared at Eleanor’s side in her robe. “I’ve been cooped up for ever so long. Please, let’s go to the common rooms for tea, or perhaps Mr. Stinson will take us somewhere.”
Eleanor smiled at the girl. “Darling, it is very late. We stopped because there’s a storm and nowhere else nearby to go. Mr. Stinson cannot make entertainment from the ethers like some fairy prince.”
“No,” Bitsy drawled, flopping next to Eleanor. “Yet being in his company could be stimulating enough, don’t you think? Perhaps he is a fairy prince, for I find myself wholly engaged when he speaks to me or looks at me.”
At his mention, a rush of heat colored Eleanor’s cheeks. She occupied herself by pushing a towel with her bare foot to mop up trails of water Bitsy had left.
“Being betrothed to him may not be the burden I always supposed,” Bitsy mused, rolling onto her back.
Eleanor’s motions ceased. “Oh?”
The silly little sound did not encompass the shattering thoughts battering Eleanor. She turned away to compose herself, still feeling where his hands had slipped up her hips and cradled her waist. He hadn’t acted like a man betrothed.
Bitsy pulled on a chemise and drew out a wide-toothed brush as she spoke.
“It isn’t that they think we’d suit. Hardly that. Our families’ lands border each other, and our parents were friends. The Stinson’s had Earnest Stinson and plans held ready, but the DeMontrey boys kept coming. Years passed. I am the youngest of six and the only girl.”
“Earnest,” Eleanor repeated, as if that were the most surprising news.
The air went out of her lungs. Their acquaintance had
been brief, but she’d built up a whole character for him. She didn’t know him at all. The noble savior who’d swept in to rescue Bitsy and, by extension, taken on Eleanor’s burdens, had ulterior motives. He hadn’t been a concerned neighbor doing a good deed. He’d been the jilted betrothed, come to reclaim the blonde beauty whose lands completed his family’s estate.
Of course his caresses had stopped when she’d mentioned Bitsy. He had to protect her reputation for his own selfish reasons. Even the biggest reprobate couldn’t risk seducing Eleanor and dashing Bitsy’s last gasp at respectability all at once.
Bitsy flopped onto the dressing table bench and made a face, possibly over the knot she found in her wet hair, though it pleased Eleanor to think it was over Mr. Stinson. Perhaps not every woman found him irresistible.
A wiser, calmer woman than Eleanor would protest that Mr. Stinson was an excellent match for a young girl. That was the right thing to say, but her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth.
Could she trust herself not to be guided by jealousy? Despite her reckless actions with Mr. Stinson, she would redeem her honor by putting Bitsy first. She could not face herself if she did not.
A betrothal at a young age was not uncommon. Families often had understandings. Bitsy’s vivaciousness made her a little wild. Sometimes marriage was a necessary calming influence. Eleanor, of all people, understood Bitsy’s urge to buck such conventions. Who wouldn’t enjoy being young and free? It was delightful. Or at least, Eleanor supposed so.
She guarded her words. She did not want to be the voice responsible for pushing or blocking Bitsy from Mr. Stinson.
“Is that why you ran off with your young man?” Eleanor asked. She sounded old.
She felt old.
Bitsy bit the tip of her tongue, measuring Eleanor, who met her gaze with curiosity. She didn’t have the energy to be angry. Considering how close she had come to succumbing to a man’s seduction at this very inn, she couldn’t throw stones.
Releasing her breath, Bitsy pulled out a ribbon-wrapped stack of letters. She slid a page loose, sighing over it in a way Eleanor recognized instantly. Love letters made Bitsy limp and starry-eyed.