A Rumored Engagement

by Lily George

  “Oh, I am fine.” Susannah managed a little laugh and rose, accepting the scones from Bess. “Funny. I just never realized anything was amiss, and I was rather taken aback. But I feel much better now.”

  “Good.” Bess gave her a quick hug, tight enough to feel warmth and friendship but without causing undue harm to the parcel that held dinner. “Off with you now. And don’t brood about this. It will all come out right in the end.”

  Susannah nodded, mumbled her thanks once more and managed to make it out to the dirt path that rang alongside the store. She had just a few yards to cross, and then she would be home. But with that would come the duties and responsibilities of being the eldest sister—a meal to make, work to put aside until the morning and evening prayer. And no one to confide in. No way to ease the sudden anxiety her conversation with Bess had provoked. She paused for a moment. She had to clear her muddled mind—to rest for a moment before she went home.

  She would have to speak with Daniel again. Even though they had successfully avoided one another for a week, she couldn’t do so forever. If she stopped speaking to him forever, without explaining why, then it might hurt him. And she had no desire to hurt Daniel. But she couldn’t very well lose everything she’d gained over their acquaintance.

  She’d go to him tomorrow and tell him the truth. No, if she did that, someone might see her. His servants might gossip or overhear their conversation. Perhaps a letter would be best. She would write a quick explanation tomorrow, when she was fresh, and then she would send it by regular post. Perhaps that would be enough to set them both free.

  Funny, it hurt to make that final resolution. It didn’t matter to her that much, did it? Surely whether she saw Daniel again or not wouldn’t change her life. After all, she’d done without him for quite a long time. There was no need to feel sad or melancholy about this decision. What she wanted was a stable future for herself and her sisters. And to keep that dream alive, she’d have to relinquish Daniel.

  It was as simple as that.

  But strange how very much her heart ached as she contemplated a future without Daniel.

  * * *

  Daniel paused before the Siddons Sisters Millinery door. A nice evening walk to visit the girls was just the thing to ward off his burgeoning loneliness. For if he stayed at Goodwin, he’d start drinking. And since his last devastating encounter with Susannah, he’d tried to stay away from liquor. He had a glass or two of wine with his meals, but that was to be expected of a gentleman. As long as he stayed away from his scotch, he would avoid the possibility of another embarrassing situation.

  So the only thing to do was to distract himself. And yet, there were few distractions, even on an estate as grand as Goodwin. He could go over the accounts, or work on the chapel a bit more, or see to one of the other hundreds of pressing matters that he was now required to care about. But, in truth, the thought of trying to stay at Goodwin tonight, and trying to be a good lord of the manor, was too much to bear.

  So he’d had the brilliant notion of seeing Susannah and her sisters again.

  He’d avoided her since that afternoon. But something pulled him back tonight. The Siddons girls worked like a tonic on a man’s nerves. They were simple, and good, and hardworking. Being near them was enough to make one feel as if one was good, too. As though the purity of their characters could rub off on a fellow.

  And here he was. Funny, the sign wasn’t hanging above the door, as it should. It leaned, propped against the bottom of their display window. How very odd.

  He raised his hand to knock, but the door flew open. Nan stuck her head around the edge with a giggle. “Well? Are you coming in or not?”

  “I will if you’ll have me.” He took off his hat and ducked inside. A fire crackled brightly in the grate, warding off the evening’s autumnal chill. Lamps glowed softly, and a pretty embroidered cloth was spread invitingly over the oaken dinner table. “Everything’s cozy. Are you girls expecting dinner? I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  “Don’t be silly.” Nan took his hat and waved him over to a chair. “Of course you’ll stay and dine with us. Sue’s just gone to get a few things.”

  “And I am preparing a little soup to go with whatever she brings,” Becky piped up from her position by the stove. “Do stay. I know Susannah would want you to.”

  He grinned. Perhaps she would, and perhaps she wouldn’t. He stretched his booted feet out to the crackling blaze. “Smells wonderful. How are you ladies faring?”

  “Very well, but quite busy.” Nan set a spoon at each place. “You are fortunate that we have just enough utensils for all of us. Otherwise, you would be drinking your soup out of a teacup.”

  “Oh, Nan.” Becky glanced up from stirring a pot. “Don’t be rude. You know even if we didn’t have a spoon for everyone, we would make Mr. Hale welcome just the same. He could use mine.”

  Becky and her sweet dreaminess, Nan with her practical and bustling ways. Already they were becoming as familiar to him as his own family. ’Twas a pity that he’d always considered his own family to be more of a burden or an obligation than a source of comfort and even joy. But he had a very different sort of family than the Siddons. Father’s dour and domineering ways stretched to the very end of his life. David was dull on his best days and sullen on his worst. And Mother, of course, died so young that his memories of her were tinged with forgetfulness. This coziness and easy banter between siblings was entirely foreign, and yet it wrapped around him like a soft, warming blanket.

  The door burst open, snapping him out of his reverie. Susannah stepped briskly over the threshold, calling out “Hello, chickens!” in a cheerful tone of voice he hardly associated with her. Spying him sitting in the most comfortable chair in the cottage, Susannah broke off her good cheer abruptly, her face turning a shade paler in the firelight. He rose. Best to breeze through this as though nothing had happened between them.

  “Here, let me help you with that.” He took the parcel from her arms and laid it on the table. “Smells jolly good. Bess makes excellent scones, doesn’t she?”

  Susannah murmured a noncommittal reply and turned to her sisters. “How soon will dinner be ready?”

  Becky glanced into her soup pot. “About five minutes more should do the trick.”

  “Good.” She grasped his elbow and guided him toward the door. Funny how strong she was for such a small lass. He gave a half smile and allowed himself to be propelled closer to the threshold. “I need to have a word with Mr. Hale.”

  He glanced over his shoulder at her sisters as she opened the door. “I have a feeling this is good night, ladies. I hope to see you both soon.”

  Susannah groaned and shoved him over the threshold. Then, after closing the door behind them both with a decided snap, she strode past him. “Follow me.”

  How curiously she was behaving. He turned, and with a few quick strides drew up beside her. “What is the matter?”

  “We can’t talk here. We might be seen.” She motioned him into a small clearing at the edge of the moor, where the rocky hillside blocked the view of the village. “This should help. No one could spy us here unless they really meant to.”

  “Whatever are you talking about?” He grasped both her shoulders and turned her to face him. Her brow furrowed, and the expression in her eyes shifted from caution to something like regret. He was losing her, somehow. That closeness they had hesitantly shared over the past few weeks was slipping away.

  She paused, as though gathering her wits to continue. Then—

  “We cannot be friends any longer.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  The stricken look in Daniel’s eyes was rather surprising; surely his friendship meant more to her than the other way round. Here was a man who, after all, had everything. A fine home, plenty of money, servants to do his every bidding. The friendship of a little milliner who
m he’d played with when they were both children should mean nothing to him. And yet—he compressed his lips into a thin line and dropped his hands from her shoulders. They’d warmed her through the thin wool of her gown and shawl, and once he removed them from her person, a cold chill shivered down her spine.

  “What do you mean? Don’t you want to be friends any longer? Or has my drinking disgusted you enough?” His tone was even, but a thread of anger laced through it. She drew her shawl closer.

  “It doesn’t matter what I want, or what you want. The problem is that your servants have been gossiping, and the villagers have seen your carriage at the shop one too many times. We’re being talked about, Daniel. Bess warned me this afternoon when I went to get something for dinner.” Surely if she laid everything out logically, he would understand. They would strip the matter of any emotional overtones, and then they could make sense of it together.

  “Surely you don’t care about what a lot of gossips say.” He cocked his head to one side and glanced at her with the same mischievous light in his eyes that would glow when he would dare her to climb a tree or wade through a brook when they were children. “You are made of stronger stuff than that, I daresay.”

  “I am. But my little shop is not.” She straightened her spine and looked him squarely in the eye. “You might not know this—indeed, you haven’t had the opportunity to gather it for yourself—but when you are trying to run a business, your reputation can affect how successful you are. This shop is all I have. If I lose it, my sisters and I will be destitute. We’ve started building it up, and we have a few gentry orders that are helping to ensure that we will make it through the winter.”

  “But our friendship is innocent. There is nothing to this gossip. And if we bow to it and stop being friends, then we will validate everything they have thought about us.” He shoved his hands in his coat pockets and paced a few feet away from her. “This situation is miles apart from the one we faced thanks to Paul’s drunken boasting. If it looks as though we were engaged but never wed, we face a different kind of censure. But this? Susy, why allow the gossips to ruin something good and true?”

  Anger bubbled under the surface, and Susannah struggled to keep ahold on her temper. He was treating this as though she had a real choice, and as though she was a coward for suggesting that they call an end to their friendship. He had no inkling of the disaster she faced. None at all. “The gossips are going to ruin something, Daniel. I would rather them ruin our friendship than my business.”

  He ceased his pacing and his head snapped back as though she’d slapped him. “Do you really?”

  Oh, bother. She hadn’t meant for that to sound quite so cutting. If only he could understand how very precarious her position was—if only he knew how one slip would cause her to lose her foothold forever. “Daniel, don’t look so,” she pleaded. “You must understand how difficult this is for me.”

  “I understand completely, Susannah.”

  ’Twas the first time in ages he’d used her full name instead of her nickname, and from his lips at this moment it sounded cold and forbidding. She clasped her arms together to keep from shivering. This was dreadful. If only she could find a way to break things more gently, to make him see and feel the looming catastrophe she faced.

  “I think,” he added, “that my reputation as the master of Goodwin Hall is enough to protect both of us in the event of any kind of village gossip. Talk from town—that could be different. Let the villagers think what they want, but if the gentry does start to talk, then surely we could stand together...”

  He wasn’t making sense. And he was sounding rather a snob. She cut him short with a wave of her hand. “It doesn’t matter. Villagers, gentry or anyone else. Gossip is gossip. And when people begin talking about a woman, ’tis as damaging as—oh, I don’t know—’tis as damaging as a ship taking on water at sea. A man may be talked about, and his mystique only grows. But if a woman is talked about, she suffers. And since I am a shop owner, so, too, would my business.” If only she could bridge the gap between them. She reached out and touched his arm. “You must know that this is difficult for me, too.”

  “It can’t be.” He stared down at her, his anger palpable. Beneath her hand, his forearm tensed. “You always know what you desire to achieve, and you do so every time, Susannah Siddons. You don’t need anyone or anything else, do you?” He shook off her touch and strode across the moor toward Goodwin.

  “Daniel—do wait,” she called, but the echo of her voice off the moors brought her up short. Someone could hear her, and then all this heartache would be for naught. She wrapped her shawl tighter and ducked around the corner of the hillside. The path leading back to the shop was empty of any creatures, human or otherwise. She must be safe.

  Susannah dared one last glance over her shoulder at Daniel. Gracious, he was walking fast. Striding away from her with the same curiously loping stride that a farmer might use to step off rows of maize. What would he do once he reached Goodwin? Would he dive right back into a bottle of scotch to drown his anger? Even if he did, ’twas no concern of hers. He could send round carriage after carriage stuffed with worried servants, and she would have to turn them all away.

  Her heart ached, and she rubbed a weary hand over her brow. The rapidly gathering twilight darkened the road, and the welcome glow of the lamp in the shop window spilled out onto the path. She would feel better when she was warm and had something to eat. That’s all this was. Fatigue and hunger. She had made the right decision, and in time, Daniel would come to see it that way, too.

  She let herself into the shop, breathing deeply of the wonderfully subtle, rich scent of soup Becky had made. Nan and Becky, seated together at the table, looked up with twin glances of concern as she came in. Susannah scanned the table and gave a halfhearted smile. Ever true to their upbringing, even in times of crisis, none of the girls had started to eat until she returned home.

  “Fill your bowls. You must be famished.” She removed her wrap and tossed it lightly in a chair. Then she crossed the room and held her hands out to the blazing fire in the grate. “I took a bit of a chill on my walk. Must warm up a bit.” Yes, and compose her nerves before facing their questions.

  “Is everything quite all right?” Of course, Becky, the most emotionally astute member of the family, ventured to speak first.

  Susannah sighed. She must tell her sisters the truth. After all, the shop was not hers alone. ’Twas a family venture, and the more her sisters knew about how difficult circumstances could be the better. They would all have to begin conducting themselves in a more circumspect manner. She was not the only one who had to mind her own behavior.

  “Let us give thanks first. And then, let’s eat. I am famished.” She strode over to the stove and ladled out three steaming bowls of soup, whilst Nan tucked the scones into a bread basket. After a brief blessing, the three sisters sat, eating in silence for just a moment.

  Susannah gathered her courage. Why was this so difficult? She was the eldest; it fell to her to lead the family after Mama’s death. Bess’s advice was eminently practical and sound, and she had already broken matters off with Daniel. Why was it so terribly hard to tell her sisters that he wouldn’t be coming around any longer?

  The only way to begin...was to begin.

  “I’ve had to break off my friendship with Daniel,” she ventured.

  Nan and Becky gasped. “Why?” Nan demanded, setting her spoon down with a clank.

  “I know this is difficult to grasp at first, but do try to hear what I am saying.” Susannah assumed her “eldest sister” expression and kept her tone even but stern. The more in command she sounded, the less likely ’twas that her sisters would question her. “Our friendship with Daniel is being talked about in the village. And Bess warned me that it could hurt our shop.”

  “Could it really?” Becky opened her lovely violet eyes wider. “But su
rely if people knew—”

  “There’s more.” Better to tell them everything. Make a clean slate of it. “Daniel told his friend Paul about our engagement. And though it has been a long time since Daniel and I were betrothed, and we’ve released each other from our engagement, Paul told half of London society about the matter.”

  “How dare he?” Nan bit into a scone with vehemence, as though she could bite through Paul and his meddling ways. “What made him do such a thing?”

  “He was drinking,” Susannah stated flatly. “I am sure that you have gathered that drinking oneself into oblivion is a popular pastime among these young men. It loosened Paul’s tongue enough that he spilled all of Daniel’s confidences to most of the ton.”

  “That’s dreadful.” Becky propped her elbows on the table and sipped slowly at her tea. “But are you sure that we must break off all contact with Daniel? I agree that greater discretion is necessary—but do we really need to stop talking to the poor boy altogether?”

  “We are in a very precarious position.” Susannah helped herself to a lemon scone and broke it in half. “If we only had to worry about the townspeople gossiping or the ton knowing about the engagement, then I might not be as concerned. But with both...” She paused a moment so she could take a bite of the scone—how delightful, it fairly melted in one’s mouth. “I don’t know. It’s just too much. If we err on the side of being too cautious, then we could very well slip by without the gossip harming us in any way.”

  “But it could cause harm to Daniel.” Becky set her teacup down with a clink. “And to us. His friendship was good for you, Susannah. And I know you worked on his nerves like a tonic. I feel sorry for him, alone at Goodwin. Do you think he’ll be all right?”

  “He’ll probably turn to drinking again,” Nan pronounced calmly, as though trying to predict the weather.