by Balogh, Mary
“My grandmother will be eighty next year,” Harry told him.
“No!” Tom said. “The dowager countess? Is she aiming for a hundred?”
“It would not surprise me,” Harry said. “Every time death comes calling, she probably gives him the evil eye and he slinks back where he came from to wait awhile longer.”
Tom laughed.
At a certain point in the evening, as usually happened at such gatherings, someone decided it was time to leave, and put the decision into effect without any fuss or fanfare, yet somehow set off everyone else too, with the result that everyone was suddenly standing and there was a flurry of voices calling for children and spouses and coats and shawls and gloves, while other voices were raised in good-night greetings to one another and renewed birthday wishes to Mr. Solway and thanks to his daughters. A great deal of hand shaking and backslapping and cheek kissing and hugging proceeded in Mr. Solway’s vicinity and then everyone was spilling outdoors more or less together and calling out to one another again with yet more farewells and last-minute messages and then dispersing to their various homes, most of them on foot, a few who lived beyond the village in gigs and chaises.
Solway looked sorry that it was over, Harry thought as he stepped outside, one of the last to leave, as the old man had wanted to wring his hand once more and thank him again for condescending to come and make his birthday party even more memorable than it would otherwise have been.
Harry half expected that Mrs. Tavernor would have set out for home alone, especially as her house was so close. But she was still outside the door, hugging each of Mrs. Franks’s three children, who were about to be hauled unwillingly home by their father while their mother and their aunt remained behind to tidy the house.
Mrs. Tavernor waved the children on their way, turned to Harry, and fell into step beside him as they made their way along the street. No one seeing them would make anything of it, he thought. They were just two neighbors taking the same direction home for a few steps before their paths diverged.
He had better make sure there was no more to it than that.
Five
Mr. Solway enjoyed himself even though he told his daughters he wanted no fuss made of his birthday,” Mrs. Tavernor said. She had clasped her hands behind her back beneath her cloak and thus discouraged Harry from offering his arm.
“He did,” he agreed. “He likes to pretend to be a crotchety old man, and I daresay he will grumble to his long-suffering daughters, but he loved being the focus of everyone’s attention. Your fruitcake, by the way, was fully appreciated. It was the best I have ever tasted.”
“You are kind,” she said. “But you flatter me. I have had very little experience as a baker. I do know, though, that a fruitcake ought to be baked considerably sooner than two days before it is consumed. The spices need time to blend together and pervade the whole, and the fruit needs time to moisten and enrich the cake. However, I had very little advance notice. I did the best I could under the circumstances.”
“Your best was actually better than that,” he said.
She turned her head to look at him. “My cake was better than the best?” she said. “How very reassuring. And how grammatically illogical.”
He laughed. He liked her quiet flashes of humor. He had no doubt most of his neighbors had no idea she was capable of them.
Her cap this evening was trimmed with a double border of delicate lace. He had noticed every detail of her appearance tonight: the neat, modest dress—long sleeved and high waisted, with a plain round neck, lavender in color— her gray shawl, the cap. She wore it now beneath her bonnet, to very pretty effect, it might be added.
Now there was a decision to make. There really ought not to be. He had told himself that quite firmly just a few minutes ago.
They walked past the copse of trees and around the curve in the road to stop outside her gate. It was not too late simply to see her to her door as he had the last time, bid her good night as soon as she was safely inside with a candle lit, and continue on his way home. No harm would have been done. He would merely have shown her the sort of neighborly courtesy any other man would have. She surely had no real expectation of more. She had not been specific last week and had immediately wanted to take back what she had said. He had not been specific yesterday morning. She probably would be relieved if he took this unspoken thing between them no further, and he would be saved from doing something he would almost certainly regret.
Alas, good sense did not prevail.
“Will you invite me inside?” he asked even before they stepped beyond the gate. “For a cup of tea, perhaps?”
She turned to him and raised her eyebrows, though in the near darkness—he had not lit his lantern when he left Solway’s house, having planned to light it from her candle—it was impossible to read the expression on her face. There was a moment of silence before she answered.
“I did not bake today,” she said.
Was that a no?
“I have already eaten far more than I ought,” he said, “including a very generous slice of your birthday cake.”
She turned back to the gate without another word, opened it, went through, and continued along the path to her door without shutting the gate behind her.
Was that a yes?
He stepped in after her and closed the gate. She had the door open by the time he caught up to her and she was bending to pat the dog, which had come dashing out to greet her with excited yips before turning its ire upon Harry.
“I know,” he said. “You are a fierce guard dog even if you do look like a mere bit of fluff. I am in fear and trembling.”
The dog barked again, decided that Harry was to be tolerated even if not welcomed, and turned to trot back into the house. Harry chuckled and stepped inside after Mrs. Tavernor, who was busy lighting the candle. He shut the door while she removed her bonnet and cloak, hung them up, and went to light two more candles on the mantelpiece in the living room. Then, still without looking at him, she disappeared through an archway into what he could see was the kitchen, where she poked the fire that had been banked in the range, built it up, and set the kettle over the heat to boil. Harry did not move from where he stood or offer to help.
Neither of them had spoken a word since they were outside the gate.
There seemed to be a bit of a shortage of air in the house.
Harry had never been gauche or uncomfortable with women. But then he could not remember a time when he had been completely alone in a house with a respectable female, especially late in the evening when both of them were aware that they were considering having an affair.
She was the first to break the silence. “The kettle will not take long,” she called. “The water has been keeping warm while I have been away.”
Harry had never seen the inside of the house before, though he must have passed it hundreds of times. The dressmaker who used to live here had retired when he was still a boy and become something of a recluse, though she had always nodded and smiled sweetly at him and his sisters when she saw them go past. She had died a couple of years or so ago.
It was a well-designed house, furnished for comfort as well as elegance. The living room looked inviting and cozy. There was a workbox on one side of the chair by the fireplace, a knitting bag on the other. Two needles poked out of the top of the latter, displaying something soft and warm-looking and sunshine yellow. There were three books rather haphazardly spread on one cushion of the sofa facing the fireplace. Two of them had well-worn leather covers. The third looked newer. Cheerfully bright and pleasingly mismatched cushions were strewn against the backs of the sofa and the two chairs. Those on the chair that was obviously her favorite had not been plumped when she last got up from it.
She was tidy, then, but not fanatical about it.
She came to stand in the archway, and Harry realized he was still just inside the door, wearing his coat, with his hat clutched in his hand. He would give anything, he thought at that moment, to be st
riding alone up the drive to his house. It had been a cardinal rule of his mother’s—one with which he had always concurred without question—that one did not become sexually or even romantically involved with anyone who lived within five miles of Hinsford Manor. Not unless she— or he in the case of his sisters—was being given serious consideration for matrimony. That, of course, had been in the days when his mother was the Countess of Riverdale and he was heir to the earl’s title and his sisters were Lady Camille and Lady Abigail Westcott. His status had changed since then, but he had continued to observe the rule.
One’s reputation was a precious commodity and virtually impossible to retrieve once it was lost. That would apply doubly to Mrs. Tavernor, of course. A man’s reputation was usually more durable than a woman’s. But not much more in a village like this.
Yet here he was.
They looked at each other, and he wondered if she was having similar thoughts. But how could she not be? She was not only a woman. She had been the vicar’s wife. Briefly he considered flight.
“Major Westcott,” she said, “will you have a seat?”
He did not move immediately. Then he took off his greatcoat and hung it, with his hat, on an empty hook beside her cloak and turned to look into the room. She had not told him where to sit. He considered one of the chairs, the one that was not hers, but then chose the sofa instead after first stacking the books on the table beside it.
The newer book was a Bible.
He waited to see where she would sit. But the kettle was beginning to hum and she returned to the kitchen.
“I do beg your pardon after just inviting you to be seated,” she called a few moments later, “but would you be good enough to light the fire, Major Westcott? It is made up ready. All it needs is a spark.”
All it needs is a spark. Unfortunate choice of words. And was it really cold enough in here to make a fire necessary? Harry felt quite warm enough. A bit too warm.
He got up to do her bidding. He remained on one knee to make sure the spark had caught the kindling and would spread to the wood. Soon he could feel a thread of warmth against his face. He could hear the clinking of china as she came back in from the kitchen, and he rose to his feet to take the tray from her hands. There was a teapot covered with a knitted cozy and two cups and saucers of fine bone china with a matching milk jug and sugar bowl and two silver spoons. He set the tray down on the low table before the sofa and resumed his seat while she poured their tea, standing on the other side of the table while she did so.
Neither of them spoke—again. Firelight and candlelight flickered behind her.
When she straightened up, she looked at him, her face in shadow, and he was aware that she was hesitating. Her chair was to one side of the hearth behind her. The sofa had only two cushions upon which to sit. It was actually more a love seat than a sofa. Then she came around the table and sat beside him, and half the remaining air went from the room, and that fire had surely warmed to an inferno. Their shoulders did not quite touch, but he felt her closeness as a physical thing. She smelled of a faintly floral soap or perfume. It was an enticing scent, whatever it was.
The dog, which had followed its mistress everywhere, stood in the narrow space between them and the table and eyed Harry through the white fluff that almost hid its eyes before yipping a halfhearted threat and plopping down across one of her slippers. It did so in such a way, however, that it could gaze up at Harry to make sure he behaved himself.
He felt a bit as though there were a chaperon in the house after all—and one who was not about to tolerate any nonsense.
“It is still a little chilly in the evenings without a fire,” Mrs. Tavernor said, breaking the lengthy silence at last. Her voice was stilted and just a bit too loud.
“Yes,” he agreed, his own voice far too hearty. “It is.”
The conversation—what conversation?—threatened to die a well-deserved death.
“Major Westcott—” she began again, arranging her cup and saucer before her.
“It is Harry,” he said.
“Oh.” She turned her head to glance at him before biting her lip and looking away again. “I am Lydia.”
It suited her, he thought. He did not know anyone else of that name.
“Harry,” she said, “I do not know quite what this is about.”
Neither, God help him, did he. Though they both knew only too well. Actually he had no idea why he was behaving so much like a gauche schoolboy.
“Perhaps,” he said, “it would be as well if you were to think of me just as a neighbor whom you have been kind enough to invite inside for a cup of tea before he walks home along a dark, winding drive.”
“Is that what it is?” she asked.
Yet even that would be improper.
“If you choose,” he said. “It can be anything you wish it to be. It could be the beginning of a closer acquaintance than we have yet had. Even a friendship. Or it could be the beginning of something else. Whatever you wish.”
“Something else,” she said, and frowned down into her cup. “What does that mean, Major Westcott?” But she held up a hand, palm out, before he could answer and turned to look fully at him, still frowning. “That was an unfair question. And a stupid one too, for after all I am the one who started all this last week. Whatever all this is. Oh dear, I—”
She stopped and drew a sharp breath.
It was time for some plain speaking.
“You made it clear on that occasion,” he said, “that you do not wish for a second husband. Not yet, at least. You are happy here in this cottage in this village with your freedom and your independence, and I cannot blame you. Sometimes it must be hard to be a woman, or so I would imagine. But there are needs all of us share, men and women alike, cravings it is hard to deny and not so easy to satisfy—especially for an unmarried woman. Perhaps you believe you have detected a kindred spirit in me since I too live alone and am single. Perhaps finding yourself unexpectedly in company with me that night gave you the idea to broach the possibility of a mutual understanding, though you lost your courage before you could be fully specific. I do not believe I misunderstood your meaning, however, Lydia. You want a lover. Perhaps I do too. Perhaps that is why I asked to be invited in tonight and why you did invite me.”
“Did I?” she asked him. But she answered her own question before he could. “Yes, of course I did, but I did not want the responsibility of having done so. I left the gate open.”
Even in the flickering light of the fire and the candles he was aware that her cheeks had flamed red. But to her credit she had admitted the truth and she did not look away from him. Neither did she stop frowning.
“It seemed like such a splendid idea when I was simply dreaming it,” she said. “But when I was presented with the unexpected opportunity to actually say it, I realized how totally outrageous and unthinkable it was. I hoped I had stopped before you understood, but of course I had not. I am mortified. Oh, what a colossal understatement. I am sorry.”
“Sorry you made the suggestion?” he asked her. “Or sorry that I understood it and asked you to invite me in tonight?”
“I—Oh, I really do not know what to say,” she protested— and smiled so unexpectedly that Harry moved his head back an inch. Good God, she looked suddenly vivid and very pretty, that prim, lacy cap notwithstanding. “I keep waiting and hoping to wake up, actually. I am so dreadfully embarrassed.”
“You need not be,” he said. “I am flattered that you focused your dream upon me.”
She laughed and bit her lip again. That wide mouth, he thought, would be lovely to kiss. How the devil had she kept herself so virtually invisible all these years? That it had been at least partly deliberate he no longer doubted.
“I find that hard to believe,” she said.
“Why?” he asked. “Lydia, you must not underestimate yourself. If we are to have an affair, it will be between equals. Neither of us will be condescending to the other. Neither of us will be inferior or
beholden to the other. Or superior either and merely conferring a favor.”
“An affair.” She did what he had done a few moments ago. She jerked her head back a fraction and then looked down at the hands spread across her lap, her eyebrows raised. Her vivid smile was long gone. “That sounds awfully … wicked.”
The dog had nodded off to sleep and was snoring slightly. It looked like a large white pompon on her slipper. Some chaperon.
“It is by no means inevitable,” he told her. If he were to press matters now and they ended up in bed together, they might be forever sorry. They would be, surely. They would find it impossible to face each other tomorrow and forever after. They were just not ready, if they ever would be. “I can drink my tea and go on my way, and we can forget the whole thing.”
She attempted to raise her cup from the saucer, but her hand was shaking. She set it back and put both cup and saucer on the table beside the tray.
Harry drew a slow breath. “We do not even know each other, do we?” he said. “Though we have been acquainted for several years. I suppose you know some basic facts about me. And I know that you were the wife of the Reverend Isaiah Tavernor and are now his widow. I have heard that you are the daughter of a gentleman of some substance. That is all I know, though. Perhaps before we make any decision neither of us seems quite ready to make we ought to learn more about each other and find out if we can be in any way comfortable together. If we can like each other at the very least. Tell me about yourself. Or is that too broad a request? Tell me who you were before your marriage.”
She sat back against one of the bright cushions and spread her hands in her lap again. They were bare except for the narrow gold band of her wedding ring. Her fingernails were short and neatly kept.
“I was Lydia Winterbourne,” she said. “My father is indeed a gentleman of property and fortune. He likes people to know that his grandfather was a viscount. I have three brothers, two older than I, one younger. The eldest was married two years ago. I have met my sister-in-law only once, at their wedding. Isaiah took me. My mother died when I was eight. She never fully recovered from giving birth to my youngest brother. My father has never remarried.”