by Rose Lerner
“Yes, she mentioned that. Only you can’t ask her to wait. Sounds like a lot of excuses to me.”
“I’m not asking her to wait.” He took a deep breath. “I’m asking her if we can post the banns this Sunday.” Saying it felt like diving into cold water on a hot day, the way you came up to the surface shocked and laughing.
She blinked. “Really?”
He nodded. “And…er…of course you’d be welcome in our home whenever you liked?”
Miss Midwinter raised her eyebrows. “How generous of you.” She chewed her lip. “You promise? About the banns?”
“I’ll take my oath, if you’ve got a Bible about you.”
She shrugged, turning and walking back the way she’d come. He followed her into the back garden, through a cramped kitchen, and up a flight of stairs to the Pipers’ room. It was homey, with pictures tacked to the wall, and that was all he had time to notice because Betsy sat on one of the beds, eyes red with tears. Her mother and sister watched him silently from either side of her.
“What do you want?” Betsy asked, voice thick.
“I changed my mind.”
She went white as powdered sugar. “What?” she whispered.
“I changed my mind. Can we…can we talk in private?”
“You don’t have to,” Miss Midwinter told her. “I could push him down the stairs instead.”
Nan, sitting beside Betsy, gave her a gentle nudge in his direction and whispered something in her ear.
“You’d better not make my daughter cry again, young man,” Mrs. Piper said.
Betsy sniffled behind her handkerchief. “Why don’t you talk to me here,” she said. “Jemima might need witnesses. You know, that it was an accident.”
He looked at her blotchy, wary face. He’d never wanted anything so much. “I changed my mind,” he said again. “I’ve been as bad as Mrs. Lovejoy, haven’t I? Expecting to get the things I want now, and just the way I like them, and if I don’t, I’ll pack up my things and go.”
He got to his knees, so her face would be closer. “While I’m at it, I’m that sorry about Mrs. Dymond. It was a mistake to think of marrying her. It was counter to everything I want to do with the shop, and I’d have been unhappy. But that isn’t the worst of it, is it? It was cruel to you. I didn’t understand how much it hurt you, but I did—I did know you liked me, and I’m sorry.”
Jemima snorted.
“No,” Betsy told her. “It feels nice to hear him admit it.”
“I shouldn’t have taken Mrs. Lovejoy’s order, and I knew it when I took it, but I took it anyway, because I wanted—” He remembered suddenly. “Because I wanted to marry you quicker.”
Her mouth made a small round O, and her eyes flew to his face—but only for a moment, a flash of green and honey.
“I got myself into this pickle,” he said, “and here I am asking you to go snacks with me. But…”
It wasn’t easy to go on, not knowing how she’d take his words. But at the same time, he couldn’t understand how, but it was easy. Maybe because he knew what he felt, and nothing could change it.
“I’ve never been so happy as I was with you this week, and it made me afeared. Of losing it, aye, but not deserving it too, I reckon. Not sufficing. Not paying it back.” He didn’t think of all the people he wasn’t going to pay back. Shops went bankrupt sometimes. That was life.
He thought about Betsy, and what she wanted, because they were both allowed to want things. “Happiness hadn’t ought to frighten a man. He should be strong enough for it. Strong enough for sorrow too. I love you, and to hell with it. You’re a grown woman, aren’t you? You know what you’re risking, and you can say yes or no as you like, but I’m asking you. Will you marry me? If you say yes we’ll post the banns on Sunday and be married inside a month.”
Nan make a small squealing nose, and Jemima sighed in resignation. But Betsy met his gaze, finally, and he sagged with relief at the look in her eyes. “You mean it, don’t you?” she said. “Please mean it. Oh drat, I’ve used up my handkerchief.”
He gave her his. “I mean it.”
She threw herself into his arms. Her lips tasted like salt, but it was a wonderful kiss. A kiss that didn’t have to lead to anything naughtier, that was just a kiss, just a way of saying how he felt about her.
She kissed him back, wordlessly telling him she felt the same. He expanded into light and air until he thought he might split open, like a meringue put in an oven too hot for it. But he didn’t. He was strong enough for this. She trembled, and he rubbed her back until she stopped.
When he could stop kissing her, her mother and sister cried and embraced her. Jemima Midwinter embraced her too, and regarded him over Betsy’s shoulder with a flat, menacing Don’t make me regret this look.
Robert beamed at her.
“Don’t—don’t sell the shop,” Betsy said suddenly. “Please. I think we can save it.”
He blinked, afraid again. It was one thing to be gloriously happy, but to be gloriously happy twice over… “Do you think so?”
“She as good as runs that shop,” Jemima said. “I’d trust her opinion over yours.”
“Jemima. I love the Honey Moon,” she told him. “I hate the thought of it being gone.”
He took a deep breath. “All right,” he told her. “If that’s what you want.”
“We’ll sell everything at the market tomorrow. It will be an awful hot day.”
“Pfft,” Mrs. Piper said. “Go tonight and set up a cart outside the Assembly Rooms. Everyone will be hungry enough, you could charge double.”
His eyes met Betsy’s. The awed expression on her face probably matched his own.
“Could we really?” she said, almost wistfully. “Mrs. Lovejoy will be furious.”
He shrugged. “Then she shouldn’t have canceled her order.” He looked around the room. “Would you all mind awfully coming back to the shop for a few hours?”
* * *
“Ices,” Betsy called out. “Cold ices for a shilling! Pineapple, lemon, peach, coffee ices! Trifle! Blancmange! Jellies! Burnt cream!”
Robert settled the blancmange dome atop the temple, grinning when it balanced. It looked magnificent, and a small crowd had already gathered to watch.
Betsy thought privately that Robert looked magnificent too.
It was a hot night, especially for gentlemen in evening dress. Young Lord Wheatcroft, handsome in his black tails, stopped to buy an ice. His sister and her husband hung back, too staunchly Tory to have ever come in the shop.
“Made with our pineapples!” the baron told them proudly, and grinned at his sister. “You’re red as a lobster, Lydia. Take care you don’t swoon.”
Mrs. Cahill did look hot even in frothy yellow muslin, her careful copper curls wilting at the back of her neck.
Betsy opened the ice chest halfway, sending cool air wafting in the lady’s direction. Mrs. Cahill glanced indecisively at her husband, who tossed a shilling in the air and caught it before dropping it in Betsy’s hand.
“A coffee ice, if you please,” he said. “Thank you. Will you share it with me, Mrs. Cahill? That’s only half a wickedness.”
Mrs. Cahill’s mouth curved up, and she whispered something in his ear that made them both laugh.
“You can borrow a spoon if you eat it here, sir,” Betsy said.
Soon their little table was surrounded by gentlefolk in their Sunday best, eating ices with borrowed spoons and laughing and talking and not going inside at all. The Dymonds stopped to say good evening, and then stayed to wish Betsy and Robert joy, and the next thing Betsy knew, their friend the new Lord Ilfracombe had bought the entire sugar temple and spent most of an hour happily divvying up the choicest bits among himself, his friends, and attractive young ladies passing by.
It all felt rather like a fair, and no one showed any inclination to leave the cheerful open-air bustle for the stifling assembly rooms.
“That’s three I owe you,” Robert told the Dymonds rueful
ly.
Mr. Dymond looked surprised. “You know that was all my mother’s money, don’t you?”
Robert blinked.
“We’d rather you had it than her,” Mrs. Dymond assured him, and for the first time, Betsy liked her. “Just vote Orange-and-Purple next election.”
At last Mrs. Lovejoy appeared on the porch to find out what was keeping everyone. Seeing their cart, she flushed a hectic red, mouth trembling. Her eyes glistened. For a moment Betsy was afraid she’d come down and shout at them, and then she thought—and what if she does?
“We’re getting married, ma’am!” she called cheerfully. Robert laughed and waved.
Mrs. Lovejoy jerked back as if she’d been slapped.
“Two raspberry ices, if you please,” Jack Sparks said, pushing his wife up in her wheelchair, and by the time Betsy looked back up at the porch, Mrs. Lovejoy was disappearing inside, posture rigid.
“Thank you,” Caroline Sparks said, eyes gleaming as she took a bite. “Firstly for this ambrosia, and secondly because this is much more fun than watching people dance.” She passed Robert her memorandum book and a pencil. “Can you write down a copy of the menu for the paper?”
In a few hours, all that was left were a few drifts of cream, some overturned sugar pillars, and an empty crystal trifle bowl.
“Maybe I should go back to the shop and see if I can fetch anything out of the cupboard,” Robert said. But the sun was setting, and after all that sugar the townsfolk were finally ready to dance; they drifted into the Assembly Rooms in twos and threes. Lord Ilfracombe wrapped the rock candy boulders in his handkerchief, kissed Betsy on the cheek, and went inside.
Robert and Betsy beamed tiredly at each other. “How much did we make?” he asked.
“Thirty pounds, five shillings, and sixpence,” she said. “We ought to have charged triple for everything.”
He shrugged. “It’s more than enough to pay the milkwoman. What do you say we go home and wash all these spoons?”
But somehow they ended up splashing each other at the pump and then helping each other out of their wet things, and the spoons had to wait until morning.
Epilogue:
Wednesday
Betsy couldn’t stop smiling as she opened the shop for the first time in a week. This is mine now, she thought, fussing over the small display of fresh-baked cakes and buffing the counter till it shone.
Mine, mine, mine, she hummed as she dusted each jar of candy in the window.
Mornings were slow, even on market day when folks came from out of town. She had plenty of time to get everything in order, maybe even take the jars down and really wash the window—
The doorbell jangled. In came a young matron with a nursemaid and a young boy of three or four. “Do you have any more of those lemon ices you were selling at the assembly last night?” she asked. “Peregrine was heartbroken to have missed them.”
The boy smiled hopefully at Betsy.
Betsy smiled back. “No more lemon ices today,” she told him. “But I promise we’ll have more tomorrow. Do you think you might like a lemon cheesecake in the meantime?”
She polished the sixpence on her apron before she dropped it in the till. Mine.
The doorbell rang again. “I could barely sleep for thinking of that trifle,” the new customer said. “Have you got any more?”
“Not with strawberries, but what would you say to peaches and Madeira?”
At eleven, Mr. Foley, the bookshop owner, stopped by for his wife’s weekly seedcake. He looked around suspiciously. “When did it get so damned crowded in here?”
Robert carried a freshly glazed lavender cake through the door just in time to hear that. He smiled so wide Betsy thought her heart would burst.
“We’ll just have to get used to it, Mr. Foley,” he said. “Betsy’s agreed to marry me, did she tell you?”
Author’s Note
Thank you for reading A Taste of Honey! I hope you enjoyed Betsy and Robert’s story.
Would you like to know when my next book is available? Sign up for my newsletter at roselerner.com, follow me on twitter at @RoseLerner, or find me on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/roselernerromance.
Reviews help other readers find books. I appreciate all reviews, positive and negative.
This is book 4 in my series about the little market town of Lively St. Lemeston. Mr. Moon was first introduced in Book 1, Sweet Disorder, about Phoebe and Nick Dymond. Book 2, True Pretenses, is a marriage of convenience story about Ash and Lydia Cahill, who shared a coffee ice. Book 3, Listen to the Moon, is about Phoebe’s irrepressible maid-of-all-work and Nick’s very proper valet, who marry to get a plum job.
Visit my website for free short reads (including a mini-story where Robert and Betsy compete on a reality baking show), plus A Taste of Honey DVD extras like Pinterest boards, recipes, and historical research. There’s information about Regency ice cream, Sussex slang, shop window displays, box pews, and much more.
Turn the page to learn more about my other Regency romances.
More books by
Rose Lerner
Lively St. Lemeston series
Sweet Disorder
True Pretenses
Listen to the Moon
To find out when new Lively St. Lemeston books release, sign up for my newsletter at roselerner.com!
Not in any series
In for a Penny
A Lily Among Thorns
All or Nothing (a novella)
* * *
Turn the page to learn more about Sweet Disorder, in which a wounded officer tries to find a husband for a prickly widow to help win a local election.
Sweet Disorder
Campaigning has never been sweeter...
Prickly newspaperman’s widow Phoebe Sparks has vowed never to marry again. Unfortunately, the election in Lively St. Lemeston is hotly contested, and the little town’s charter gives Phoebe the right to make her husband a voter—if she had one.
The Honorable Nicholas Dymond has vowed never to get involved in his family’s aristocratic politicking. But now his army career is over for good, his leg and his self-confidence both shattered in the war against Napoleon. Helping his little brother win an election could be just what the doctor ordered.
So Nick decamps to the country, under strict orders to marry Phoebe off to somebody before the polls open. He’s intrigued by the lovely widow from the moment she shuts the door in his face.
Phoebe is determined not to be persuaded by the handsome earl’s son, no matter how charming he is. But when disaster strikes her young sister, she is forced to consider selling her vote—and her hand—to the highest bidder.
As election intrigue thickens, bringing them face to face with their own deepest desires, Phoebe and Nick must decide which vows are worth keeping, and which must be broken…
Contains elections, confections, and a number of erections.
Turn the page for an excerpt from Sweet Disorder.
Excerpt: Sweet Disorder
Chapter 1
Phoebe sat at the foot of her bed, her elbows propped on the deal table she’d placed under the window. She was supposed to be writing her next Improving Tale for Young People. But the shingled wall and gabled roof of Mrs. Humphrey’s boarding house across the way were so much more absorbing than the tragic tale of poor Ann, who had been got with child by a faithless young laird and was now starving in a ditch.
If Phoebe strained, she could even see a sliver of street two stories below.
The problem was that she couldn’t quite decide what would happen to Ann next. Tradition dictated that either the girl die there, or that her patient suffering inspire the young laird to reform and carry her off to a church, but…that was so boring. Every Improving Tale-teller in England had already written it. It had been old when Richardson did it seventy years ago.
But she couldn’t afford to waste this precious time in daydreams. It was washing day, and Sukey, the maid she and her landlady shared wit
h Mrs. Humphrey, would soon be back from her shopping to help. Then tomorrow Phoebe had to piece her quilt for the Society for Bettering the Condition of the Poor’s auction in December, and what with one thing and another, she wouldn’t have any more time to write until Tuesday. She had promised this story to the editor of the Girl’s Companion in time for typesetting three weeks from now.
There were footsteps on the stairs and a knock at her door. I do not feel relieved, she thought firmly. Standing and crossing into her sitting room, she opened the door to discover—
“Mr. Gilchrist.” She felt much less relieved.
The dapper Tory election agent stood at the top of the narrow spiral of stairs leading to her attic. A few drops of rain glistened in his sleek brown hair, on his broadcloth shoulders, and on the petals of the pink-and-white carnation—the colors of the local Tory party—in his buttonhole.
Drat. If it was raining, washing would have to be put off until she had Sukey again next Friday. And she’d have to keep a careful eye on the bucket under the leak in her roof to make sure it didn’t overflow.
“Ah, you know of me,” he said with an oily smile. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mrs. Sparks.”
Oh, his smile is not oily. Prejudice combined with the urge to narrate is a terrible thing. She smiled back. “And I’m pleased to make yours. But I should warn you, I’m Orange-and-Purple, and so are my voting friends.” There was a general election on in England to choose a new Parliament. While many districts could go decades with the same old MPs, the Lively St. Lemeston seats always seemed to be hotly contested.
He tilted his head. “Your father and your husband were Whigs. But from what I hear, you’re an independent woman. Decide for yourself.” His expression turned rueful. He couldn’t be more than twenty. “Besides, it’s starting to rain and I’d rather not go outside again just yet.”