Reckless Angel

by Jane Feather

  The sweet spiced wine was one of Harry’s favorite drinks. The goodwife’s tone was brisk, yet welcoming; for all her smallness of stature, she carried an air of authority—the authority of one on her own ground. The prospect of apple tart, despite her ample supper, Harry found irrefusable. “If y’are sure I’ll not be intruding.”

  “Such nonsense, child. Sit ye down.” Dorcas gestured to the long bench beside the kitchen table. “I didn’t reckon as how Sir Daniel would wed such a young’un again, I have to say,” she observed, setting a mug of hypocras before Henrietta.

  “I don’t think he intended to,” Harry confided, quite at her ease now that the issue was in the open. “But he is kind, and my circumstances were such that…” She stopped, and shrugged a mite self-consciously. “But ye don’t wish to hear that. I do want to be a good wife, but I fear that I am not succeeding.”

  Dorcas pursed her lips, her head nodding busily so that she resembled a small bird pecking in the dust. “Sir Daniel never did summat he hadn’t thought about, not even when he was still in short coats, so don’t you fret about that, child.” She opened the bread oven, releasing a cloud of fragrant steam into the room.

  “What sort of child was he?” Harry found she could not resist the question. “Lizzie and Nan are always into mischief. I cannot believe he was not also.”

  Dorcas chuckled richly, drawing out the flat griddle with its burden of toasty brown, gently steaming apple tarts. “Aye, that he was, but always with such a smile and a twinkle you couldn’t be vexed with him for long.”

  “I can imagine.” Henrietta settled down with a sigh of pleasure, deciding that she would much prefer to be in this warm room facing apple tarts and hypocras than treading the freezing streets of London on a dark winter’s night in search of a lawyer and a matter of conflict.

  Dorcas did not skimp with her homespun wisdom lacing the stories of Daniel Drummond as child and man. As she began to talk of his first marriage, she saw Henrietta grow more serious, chin resting upon her elbow-propped hand, eyes gazing into the middle distance. Her mouth was soft, yet there was a hint of determination, of resolution, in the fine line of her jaw.

  Henrietta was hearing about a young couple deeply in love. She imagined Daniel as a young man, eagerness and passion augmenting the natural humor and gentle consideration he showed her. She knew instinctively that their own lovemaking lacked something. And she knew without a shadow of doubt that Daniel’s loving with his Nan had not lacked anything. Had he decided that one lifetime could only supply such glory once? Or did the fault lie with her? Or was it simply that if one did not truly love, one could not reach whatever heights were to be reached?

  If the latter was the case, then the future looked, if not dark, then not rosy with promise either—more a featureless, grayish landscape. Fifteen seemed very young to Henrietta to accept such a commonplace existence. If Nan had had more, why should she settle for less? Could love and passion be kindled? If they were intertwined, then creating the one should inevitably produce the other.

  That was an intriguing thought, and a novel one. Henrietta was not inclined to wait passively for things to happen, and the idea that one could invariably do something positive to change matters for the better had always been her credo. Maybe it was time she took a hand in this. She knew enough about it now, after all, to be able to exercise her imagination. Why could a wife not seduce her husband? Daniel had taught her some of the things that gave him particular pleasure, but he had never expected her to take the initiative in matters of loving. It happened when he decided it was to happen, and in the form he decided it should take. Until now, she had never questioned this, had simply assumed it was the natural order. But why should it be?

  On that thought, she took herself to bed, to a sleep enriched with formless yet stirring dreams. When Daniel finally returned, to crawl wearily into bed beside her, she curled in her sleep against his back with a whimper of satisfaction that would have startled him had he been alert enough to notice.

  Chapter 9

  Henrietta awoke before Daniel. Still infused with resolutions, she slipped carefully from bed, anxious not to disturb him. The fire was a mere ashy glow and she shivered in the frigid dawn, pulling on her clothes over her smock with more haste than care. The water in the ewer had a crust of ice and she decided rapidly to blink the sleep from her eyes. A quick comb through the corn silk massed on her shoulders and she twisted it into a knot at the nape of her neck, securing it with wooden pins. Then she crept from the chamber, running down to the kitchen from whence came sounds of life.

  “I give you good morrow, Dorcas,” she greeted cheerfully, entering the warm room with relief. “’Tis cold as the grave abovestairs.”

  “Aye,” Dorcas agreed, turning from the range where she was frying eggs for Joe and the goodman, sitting ready at the table. “I thought not to disturb ye for a bit with fresh coals, but seein’ as how y’are awake—”

  “Oh, but Sir Daniel is not,” Harry interrupted. “I thought to prepare him his favorite breakfast.”

  Dorcas smiled. “Veal collops and eggs.”

  “Aye,” Harry agreed with a responding smile. “If ye will direct me a little.”

  “Sit ye down and break your own fast first,” Dorcas said comfortably. “Ye’ll work better on a full stomach.”

  That was not a fact with which Henrietta would argue, so she smiled at her companions and took her place at the kitchen table. The goodman sliced sirloin for her and Dorcas slid two eggs swirled in butter upon the platter beside the beef.

  “Well, this is a fine case of neglect!”

  At the tone, only half humorous, Henrietta spun around on the bench at the table. “Oh, Daniel, I thought ye still abed.”

  “’Tis past seven,” he said, “I am not such a slugabed, as well you know. Good morrow, all.” He came into the room, rubbing a hand over his chin. “If ye’ve hot water on the range, Dorcas, I’ll take it abovestairs and shave.”

  “I would have brought it for you,” Henrietta said in apologetic tone, “but I thought to let you have your sleep. I was going to make your breakfast, also.”

  Daniel looked sharply at her, and a glint of amusement returned to his black eyes. She looked thoroughly discomfited, as if accused of dereliction of wifely duty. He had not intended to sound sharp, but if truth were told, he had been rather put out at waking to an empty bed in a freezing bedchamber, and the sight of her cheerfully addressing an enormous platter of eggs and sirloin had not lessened his sense of grievance.

  “I trust ’twas not to be cheese pudding,” he teased, turning to take the jug of hot water from Dorcas and thus missing the flash of hurt crossing the heart-shaped face.

  “Joe’ll bring a scuttle of coals up and mend the fire for ye, Sir Daniel,” Dorcas said. “And there’ll be veal collops and eggs waitin’ on ye in the parlor.”

  Harry turned back to her breakfast, her own offer having been spurned. She did not believe he’d meant the unkindness. Daniel did not know, after all, of the plan that had sent her so sweetly to sleep and that had brought her so energetically awake. A plan that was to start with evidence of her new-learned skills in the realm of domesticity, and was to proceed to a demonstration of skills and ingenuity in that other branch of wifehood. But she could hardly blame Daniel for assuming that, as usual, she had forgotten the tasks that fell to her hand—forgotten them or ignored them; either way, the result was the same.

  Daniel and Joe went abovestairs, bearing coals and hot water. “Shall I prepare the collops?” Henrietta put down knife and spoon on her clean-scraped trencher.

  “Nay, child, I’ll do it,” Dorcas said. “You run along abovestairs. Sir Daniel may have need of ye.”

  “I don’t imagine so,” she replied dolefully; then, with customary resolution, she put the setback behind her. She would simply start the day anew. Gathering up her skirts, she hurried upstairs, entering the bedchamber with eager step.

  “Did you find Master Filbert last eve
n?”

  Daniel was in the process of drawing a swath through his lather-smothered face and jumped at this precipitate arrival, nicking his chin. Irritated, he peered at his wavering image in the beaten steel mirror. “Was it necessary to startle me while I’m shaving, Harry?” he demanded crossly.

  Harry bit her lip. Picking up one of his tall boots, she began busily to shine the leather with her handkerchief. “Your pardon, I did not realize.”

  Daniel wiped his face with a warm, damp towel and turned to look at her, his expression pained. “God’s grace, child! Go down and ask Dorcas for a rag for those boots. ’Tis no work for a lace-edged handkerchief!”

  She dropped the boot abruptly, her mouth taut. “I will not polish them if you do not wish it.”

  “But I do wish it,” he replied calmly, oblivious of her vexation. “Only not with your handkerchief. ’Tis all black now, and you are bound to forget and use it at some point, transferring all that dirt to your face.”

  Tight-lipped, Henrietta went down to the kitchen, fetched a rag, and returned to the bedchamber. In silence, she resumed her task.

  Daniel finished buttoning his shirt, then stood examining her as she sat on the edge of the bed, head bent over his boots. “Y’are most dreadfully untidy this morning, Henrietta.”

  It was the last straw. “There was ice on the water in the ewer and the chamber was freezing!” she exclaimed in indignant defense. “I am sorry if my appearance causes offense.”

  Daniel just laughed. “Nay, elf! That it could never do. Y’are far too pretty.”

  She blushed rosily at this unexpected compliment, coming as it did so hard upon the heels of his criticisms so relentlessly heaped upon her this morning. She set to polishing me buttons on his doublet with unwonted fierceness and changed the subject. “But will you tell me about Master Filbert?”

  “Ah.” Daniel frowned, straightening the falling band of lace-trimmed lawn at the collar of his shirt. “Master Filbert is a most cautious lawyer. However, your father’s signature as witness to the marriage document convinced him that y’are wed truly with his permission. He has undertaken to go into Oxfordshire and visit your father on your behalf.”

  “When will he do so?”

  “I trust within the week,” Daniel told her, taking his doublet, nodding at the shine on the silver buttons. “I will visit him again this morning so that we may draw up documents of formal request for the release of your jointure. How your father responds to the request will dictate what we do next.”

  “But does Master Filbert believe that I may recover the monies?”

  “Aye,” Daniel said, hooking the waistband of his britches onto the underside of his doublet before stepping into his boots. “But how long it will take for your father to concede is another matter. He could drag the issue out for months, if he so chooses, and while he does so we must kick our heels in London.”

  “Which is an additional expense,” Harry said slowly. “And you must pay Master Filbert for his services, also.”

  “Aye,” Daniel agreed. He arranged the falling band of lawn over the small collar of the doublet. “But ’tis an outlay I must bear if there’s to be three thousand pounds at the end of it.”

  “I will accompany you this morning.” There was the faintest hint of challenge in the statement.

  Daniel regarded her with mock gravity as he turned the lace edging of his boot hose over the tops of the freshly shined leather boots. “In your present state of untidiness, my child, unwashed and unbrushed, with the sleep still in your eyes, you will not.”

  “Now there is hot water, I may tidy myself,” she said, tossing her head, abandoning her attempts to respond with mature dignity. “If you have left me any, that is. Do you go for your breakfast before it spoils.”

  “Yes, madam,” he said solemnly, bowing with teasing formality before taking himself off, leaving Henrietta to wonder what devils were about this morning to render stillborn her every effort to show herself in a new light.

  She washed and dressed anew in a fresh gown of russet velvet with a crisp but plain lawn collar. The material was rich, although the flowing, high-waisted style was simple enough not to offend Puritan sensibilities, and the color deepened her eyes and set off her hair most satisfactorily. She braided her hair and secured it in the coronet that framed her face in pleasing fashion, put on her sturdy leather shoes with the silver buckles, took up her hooded cloak and gloves, and ran down to the parlor.

  “Some considerable improvement,” Daniel observed, setting his empty ale mug upon the table. “That gown suits you. I would have you pay more attention to your wardrobe when we return home.”

  “There seems little point dressing up in the country,” Henrietta pointed out, standing on tiptoe to check her reflection in the glass above the mantel.

  “When y’are about your household duties in the daytime, then obviously you should dress accordingly. But in the evening, I would have you dress to please me.”

  Henrietta looked at him in surprise. “You have never said such a thing before.”

  “No.” Daniel gave a puzzled shake of his head. “I never concerned myself about it before.” Then he smiled. “I daresay it is because you look so fetching at the moment, I have just realized what I have been missing.”

  Matters were improving, Henrietta decided, contentedly giving her hair a pat. “Shall we visit Master Filbert now?”

  “Aye.” Daniel stood up, frowning. “But if y’are to accompany me, Harry, you must understand that there are to be no intemperate accusations against your father. They will embarrass Master Filbert and are not his business.”

  “But he must realize that my father has deliberately withheld my portion,” exclaimed Harry. “Why else would we be consulting a lawyer?”

  “What he realizes for himself and what he is told are separate issues,” Daniel said firmly. “I have simply presented the situation as one of misunderstanding. You will sit quiet, if you please, offer smiles and soft words, and answer any questions in moderate language and accents. The affair is unpleasant enough as ’tis.”

  Henrietta made a face. “I do not see why we should pretend that my father is simply absentminded or—”

  “If you do not see why, then you must remain here,” Daniel interrupted brusquely. “That look of a thwarted child ill becomes you, and most certainly does not go with your attire.”

  Henrietta rearranged her expression, showing him a bright smile and wide, innocent eyes. “I will speak only when spoken to and will refer to my father only in the most dutiful terms.”

  Daniel’s lips twitched, but he said gravely, “I trust so. Let us go.”

  A few flakes of snow broke loose from the leaden sky as they hurried along the streets. The faces they passed seemed as sullen as the sky, but Harry was looking around her eagerly, absorbing the sights, sounds, and smells of the city. She was also in search of a vendor of specific merchandise and found what she sought some quarter of a mile from their lodgings. She took due note, reflecting that the opportunity to slip out without Daniel’s being aware was bound to present itself.

  Master Filbert was to be found in a dim little room above a tailor’s shop. “My congratulations, Lady Drummond,” he offered, ponderous and punctilious. “Pray be seated. May I offer you a morning draught of sack?”

  Henrietta realized with a shock that this was the first time anyone who had known her in the past had treated her with the deference accorded a married lady. If the lawyer remembered the straggle-haired, untidy, rebellious girl of last spring, he gave no indication. She accepted both seat and refreshment with a gracious smile and an inquiry about Master Filbert’s health.

  Daniel had little difficulty understanding what was happening and was both amused and relieved. It would seem that if his wife was treated as a grown woman of some status, she could be trusted to respond accordingly.

  Her temperance was sorely tried, however, as the discussion continued. Master Filbert had had in his possession documents
relating to the disposition of Mistress Ashby’s inheritance, entrusted to him by the late Lady Ashby, but Sir Gerald had since claimed them. Master Filbert coughed awkwardly. Sir Gerald was the young lady’s father, and there was no reason for the lawyer to refuse to hand over the charge to such a one.

  “But surely you know my—” Harry’s impassioned beginning died a sudden death under an icy glare from Daniel. She subsided, gazing intently at an intricate series of cracks in the plaster wall.

  “Of course,” Daniel said smoothly. “You acted quite correctly, Master Filbert. As I have said, I am sure this is simply a misunderstanding. But am I to understand that without those documents, my wife cannot lay legal claim to her inheritance?”

  “That is so,” the lawyer said, as ponderous as ever. “I will journey to Thame and present your claim to your father-in-law. I have drawn up a letter stating the facts of your marriage, Sir Gerald’s approval of such, and the terms of the jointure. I am certain there will be no difficulty.”

  “Of course there will be,” Henrietta stated impatiently. “Surely you should be preparing to begin legal action. It could drag on for years, and the sooner tis begun the better.”

  “Come now, Lady Drummond. I am sure, as your husband says, there has simply been a misunderstanding, something overlooked,” said the lawyer in soothing accents.

  Henrietta glanced at Daniel, who was looking most annoyed. She spoke up resolutely. “I did not mean to embarrass you, Master Filbert, but I see little point in prevarication. There are only the three of us here, and we all know what is the true situation. What virtue can there be in beating about the bush?” She was speaking to the lawyer, but looking at her husband.