“There are far too many lovely and obliging girls in the world requiring my attention. It would be selfish of me, don’t you agree, to reserve all this manly beauty for one woman?”
“Nate, you are the very limit.”
“Although I am thirty now. I suppose, sooner or later, I must marry if I want a son.” He gazed off into the distance, feigning deep thought. “Perhaps, before I’m too old and set in my ways, I ought to find a suitable young woman who doesn’t try my patience too much.”
His sister chuckled again, the breeze fluttering through her bonnet ribbons. “And what will be the qualities she must possess, apart from an ability to tolerate your antics?”
“I’m not so difficult to please.” He grinned down at her. “Any pretty, fair-haired girl between fifteen and—oh—twenty-five. Not so old that she can’t be trained to behave and not so clever that she thinks too much. Someone exceedingly grateful for all that I give her, who knows her place and never questions me.”
“Nathaniel Sherringham, I pity any woman you set your sights upon.”
Thus, joking together, they walked onward to their father’s house.
Five
Removing the last batch of Welsh cakes from the iron skillet, Diana laid them out to cool and then took up some mending. She sat beside her mother who was shelling peas, dropping empty pods into a basket by her feet and letting the little green gems cascade through her quick fingers into a china bowl in her lap.
“The first crop of the season,” said Diana, smiling. Shelling peas had been one of her favorite chores as a child, despite her mother’s complaints that she was too slow at the task. Diana, of course, had to count the peas in each pod she opened, for if she found nine, it meant she would have to marry the next man she saw. How she loved the sight of those bright green pearls nestled in their velvety purse, knowing that no human had ever laid eyes on them until she did. Her impatient mother had usually snatched the bowl away to finish the job herself.
“I suppose you saw no one of any interest at the assembly dance yesterday, Diana?”
“No, Mama. Just the usual faces. It was horribly crowded despite the entrance fee.” Diana squinted as she threaded her needle by the flickering light. The afternoon shadows stretched into the kitchen, bringing the day to a premature close with the threat of a spring storm. Her mother had already lit an oil lamp since the firelight was inadequate.
“Sarah Wainwright was much admired, no doubt.” The last two words were snapped off as another peapod was ruthlessly split open.
“Yes. She danced every dance.”
Her mother’s lips turned up at one end. “Although I cannot see much cause for her popularity. She has a sly look about her and a certain gaucheness in her manners.”
“I always thought that was shyness, Mama. I could hardly call Sarah gauche.”
“A naturally quiet, reserved girl has dignity. But she is either silent and sulking or bursting out with inappropriate questions and remarks. The appearance of shyness is merely her lying in wait, gleaning information to be used later. She’s a scheming creature, you mark my words.” Her mother glowered at the peas in her bowl.
“But her family is rich, of course, and that makes all the difference these days. Money is too often prized above breeding. We must say nothing of her illegitimacy or of her mother who once danced across a stage. That must be overlooked because she will have a fine dowry and the Wainwright name. Not that they are anything more than pirates and rum smugglers.”
“Mama, the Wainwright brothers manage a respectable shipping and import business.”
“Respectable, indeed! Men seldom come from nothing to make a fortune by legitimate means.”
With a quiet sigh, Diana continued to mend the torn trim of her best frock. She had stepped on it yesterday when she got up out of her chair in haste to give Sarah her fan and that had loosened the hem—leading to disastrous consequences later that evening. But she had better not think of him, not in her mother’s presence. Rosalind Makepiece had an uncanny ability to winkle out secrets just by reading a person’s expression.
“No sign of William Shaw and his bride at the assembly rooms now they are back from their travels abroad?” Her mother dropped another disemboweled pod to the basket by her feet.
“No.” Diana drew her needle through the material and paused a moment before adding quietly, “Mr. Shaw made his fortune through trade, Mama, and I never heard you disparage his means as you do those of the Wainwrights.”
“William Shaw is a perfect gentleman,” her mother grumbled, ripping open another pod. “He was raised with proper discipline by his grandmother, who came from a noble, ancient family. His shop holds a royal warrant and sells only the very best and most respectable English goods. William Shaw always behaves with impeccable manners. He knows where deference is due. By comparison the Wainwright men are wild brutes.”
“Wild brutes?” Diana almost laughed.
“There are many professed ‘gentlemen’ who could learn a thing or two from dear William Shaw,” her mother continued. “It is unfortunate that you could not see the value of his affections while you still had them.”
“Do you not wonder, Mama, how long I would have kept those affections, even if I had married him? He was, after all, affianced to another woman less than a fortnight after I ended our engagement.”
“He only did what a proud man must do to save face after being humiliated.”
“But I think—”
“A man as well settled as William needed a wife, Diana. It is the natural instinct in the male creature to seek out a worthy mate as quickly and efficiently as possible. If he is sensible and capable of affording a wife, he knows it is his duty.”
With her mother’s voice slowly fading, Diana’s mind returned to Nathaniel’s dangerous, forbidden kiss. Most unwise. Not in the least sensible. Certainly not dutiful.
Her gaze fixed on the kitchen window above her mother’s head, Diana observed the first tickle of rain against glass. The thick heat was at last breaking and the storm that had hovered for most of the afternoon was finally set free from the threatening clouds.
She set her sewing on the table. “I’ll close the parlor window, Mama. I had it open to air out the room.” On a spring day, one of Diana’s greatest pleasures was opening windows to let in the sweet scent of blossoms. If she had her way, the windows would always be open. Her mother, however, preferred the chalky fragrance of potpourri and protested that an open window let in more flies and odors than it did fresh air. Especially when the dairy farmer, Mr. Gates, had just driven his herd to the meadow by taking a shortcut past their cottage and down the Bolt.
“I should send you to our cousin Elizabeth, now she is settled near Bath, and see what she can make of you,” said Diana’s mother sharply. “A change of society—and one that is vastly improved—would do you good. Besides,” she said, sighing heavily, “there is nothing here for you now. Just those ridiculous novels. They do naught but inspire a head full of dreams.”
Thank goodness for those books, thought Diana.
She left the kitchen, entered the silent parlor, and walked to the open window. She hovered there for a while, reluctant to close it just yet, breathing in the outside air. Even speckled with damp it had a good fragrance, full of life and rejuvenation.
Her thoughts wandered back again to the summer afternoon when William Shaw had stood in that parlor with her for the last time.
* * *
“Miss Makepiece…Diana?” After an engagement of two years William had still hesitated to call her by her first name. “I’m not certain I heard you correctly.”
Tearing her gaze from the music sheets on the pianoforte, Diana had looked at him and repeated, “I’m sorry. I cannot marry you.” She’d been struggling desperately for a way to put it kindly, and in the end, simple felt best.
The man standing b
efore the cold, empty hearth straightened his shoulders, snapped the case of his fob watch shut, and looked at her with a slightly furrowed brow. “But…you are four-and-twenty, Miss Makepiece,” he had said with the ponderous solemnity she might expect from a doctor announcing she’d acquired a terminal disease. It was rather uncharitable—not to mention impolite—of him to point out her age, she thought. “Your looks will not last forever.”
Diana wondered what her mother would have made of that lapse in his much-lauded manners.
“What other prospects can you have?” he’d muttered, shaking his head. “You will be quite sunk without me.”
Diana had replied civilly, “I know you will soon recover from this disappointment.” After all, it wasn’t as if she would bring any fortune to the marriage, and if he was only marrying her to gain some benefit from a connection to grand relatives in Oxfordshire—as she suspected, having witnessed some of his humiliating attempts at social climbing—he must be better off without her. “And you will find a wife to make you far happier than I ever would.”
When William left the house for that last time, Diana had taken a moment to prepare herself before she went out to give her mama the news. She must not be smiling with relief. Think of something tragic instead, she had chided herself crossly.
Not that the effort saved her from chastisement.
“I blame this entirely on those silly novels you read and the rash marriages your friends have lately made!” her mother cried. “That has influenced you to make a terrible misjudgment. Well, I don’t know who you think I can get for you now. We’ve wasted years on this engagement. Your prime is gone. I don’t know why you’re putting that bread crust out for the birds. We can’t afford to feed them now too!”
* * *
Breaking through these memories, a breeze kicked up and rustled the music sheets atop the old pianoforte. She picked up the papers and tidied them.
Her fingers hovered over a tattered edition of Campbell’s Country Dances and Jigs. Usually kept hidden behind the other music, it contained a tune to which she and that reckless, flirtatious, entirely unsuitable gambler Captain Nathaniel Sherringham had once danced. She never played it now, but Diana could run her gaze across the notes on the paper and hear it in her mind, where it could not be spoiled by one of her mother’s scornful comments about how clumsily that young man had danced.
Listening to the music in her head was one of Diana’s naughty little secrets. She didn’t have many. But for her, the sweet notes of music were a treasured escape from chores. Rain now dampened the music sheets, so she closed the parlor window and twisted the latch shut.
If Nathaniel returned to Hawcombe Prior, she would undoubtedly see him again, even be thrust into the same society on occasion. But she would be calm, ladylike. She’d greet him as an old acquaintance, as she should have done yesterday evening if she had not been flustered and embarrassed about her pimple and so many other indescribable, inexplicable things.
So determined, she hastily drew the curtains closed.
* * *
Nathaniel flung open his bedchamber curtains and opened the window. Restless and hot, he couldn’t sleep. Pacing in only his buckskins, he welcomed the cooling, gentle raindrops as they blew in. With his father’s merry encouragement he’d imbibed a little too much brandy after dinner, and that wouldn’t do at all. He refused to fall into old habits. Coming back to Hawcombe Prior was bound to reopen some wounds, but really he should be strong enough to bear it without needing alcohol to dull the pain. He would not make childish excuses for his bad behavior. He was an adult, a man—no longer a boy shirking his responsibilities.
He smiled wryly. Took him long enough to get there, didn’t it?
Caroline Sayles must wonder what had happened to him, for he’d expected to be back in Manderson by nightfall, instead of spending the night at his father’s house. He would send her a message in the morning and warn her that their journey to Bath must be delayed a few days. He couldn’t very well approach the tavern keeper about business while the man was in deep mourning. Keeping Caroline away a few more days might also do her aunt a favor, he mused grimly. That unfortunate lady had so recently lost a daughter and probably had no idea she was about to be descended upon by a niece with more imaginary illnesses than a child hoping to escape an algebra lesson.
Besides, necessary delay gave him an excuse to linger a few days more in Hawcombe Prior.
It was quiet there, peaceful, comfortable. He’d lived in many places in his thirty years and never stayed anywhere long, but somehow that village felt like home. His father had retired there almost ten years ago, purchasing some land and property and then settling in to enjoy his last years in comfort. Sadly, it had not turned out quite as the major hoped. Thanks to an overgenerous temperament and a kind heart easily tapped by the unscrupulous, he could never bring himself to charge his tenants full rent and had soon run through his savings.
As Nathaniel had recently learned, Rebecca’s husband had gotten the major out of a sticky spot a few years ago by buying up some of his fields and assuming landlord duties. Now the major was happier, with less stress hanging over his head and his accounts managed ably by his son-in-law at Willow Tree Farm. No one dared try to cheat “Lucky” Luke Wainwright out of the rent due.
Apparently, only the residents of that short row of cottages at the end of the High Street still paid rent directly to the major. Nathaniel thought his father probably insisted on that because he enjoyed making haughty Mrs. Makepiece pay him. Her superior attitude had always grated on the major’s nerves, as it did on his son’s.
At dinner last night his father had had news to share on any and everything except Diana, and Nathaniel had not felt able to raise the subject in a casual way. The conversation never seemed to come close enough to be diverted in that direction.
He should simply have asked after her and been done with it. One quick, nonchalant remark could have ended this pain, but instead he was drawing it out, like a slow blade scraped over his skin. Self-punishment, he supposed, for his sins.
She was another man’s wife. What else could they possibly tell him about her now? And why should he care to hear it?
He had kissed her under the trees of the Bolt. How sweet her lips had tasted, even directly after rejecting his proposal. Their taste did not match the bitter words that came out of them, probably because those words were her mother’s, not her own.
Nathaniel laughed contemptuously and shook his head. What asinine fellow would kiss a woman after she rejected him? A fool who didn’t know when to give up, when to quit the battlefield.
But despite his intention to hate her, other feelings, raw and primal, dominated his thoughts.
She should be with him now. She should be his wife. He’d wanted her from the first moment her hand was placed upon his. That first dance in Manderson when they were so young. Nathaniel couldn’t account for it, couldn’t understand it, but back then he had not been the sort of man who studied reasons. He’d acted on impulse, driven entirely by his bodily instincts. He’d known immediately that she was special, the one woman who made him feel calm, who made that busy, reckless young man want to stop, sit down, and put his boots up. Perhaps even get fat and surround himself with children.
Diana and her mother had had other plans. He was not good enough for them.
The injustice bit cruelly into his flesh and clung there. He could not shake it off. His desire for her had been too great.
Often at night, in need of comfort and release, Nathaniel lay in bed with his eyes closed and pictured Diana beside him. That’s where she belonged—naked, with open eyes, her lips damp from his kisses, her cheeks flushed, her hair spilled loose over her shoulders. Given the chance, he would have made love to her in such a manner that she knew her place was with him, that she felt as he did and understood they were made for each other.
Really it was r
idiculous that he’d ever proposed marriage to her. He wished he could forget it. Undoubtedly she had. If he saw her again, he would treat her with as much chilly disinterest as she had shown him.
In the years since he’d left Hawcombe Prior, Nathaniel had learned to be less transparent about his thoughts and feelings. He kept his instincts and his hot blood reined in. Usually.
Alas, his mind and his limbs were too restless tonight.
Storming back across the room to the washstand, he poured water into the bowl and splashed his face. Unfortunately the water was frigid cold, so it woke him further, rather than soothing him into drowsiness.
Nathaniel dropped heavily onto his back across the narrow bed and gazed up at the low ceiling, memories of the green-eyed girl plaguing his thoughts.
* * *
“I certainly would never marry you, Captain. It is quite out of the question. What can you be thinking?”
“I know I’m a rogue with a repertoire of wicked jokes, absolutely no sense of propriety, and the grace of a plow horse on the dance floor”—he grinned—“but I do not believe you can say you have no feelings for me whatsoever. Say that you do not, Diana. Say it and I’ll believe you.”
“Don’t be so ridiculous. Of course I have feelings for you.”
In that second his heart had lifted. Only to be trampled and shattered in the next instant when she added, “I find you annoying, provoking, petulant, spoiled, and slightly unhinged. My feelings are that and only that.”
Recovering as best he could, he replied on a short exhale, “I suppose some feelings are better than none.”
She’d looked at him then in surprise, those expressive brows arched high. “If you can be content with that, it is no wonder you’re always pleased with yourself. I daresay if I didn’t care what people thought of me I could be eternally smug too and congratulate myself at every opportunity on my faults.”
* * *
Proving herself a mercenary, Diana had sacrificed herself to another instead. A man of “stability” and wealth, handpicked by her mother; a man for whom she felt even less than she had for Nathaniel.
How To Rescue A Rake (Book Club Belles Society 3) Page 5