It was all a bit much, even as Margaret admitted that Hawthorne’s family and their consequence had been part of her motivation for marrying him.
“Perhaps we need a schedule,” Hawthorne said, his arms wrapping Margaret gently. “A list of priorities and tasks. With haying coming up, my time will not be my own, though you are my wife—my new wife. My time should be at least partly yours.”
I hate lists and schedules. At the end of his life, Charles’s whole day had been a list of medications, tisanes, and tinctures, all administered on a strict schedule. Greta’s day was bounded by a looser framework, but one that still constrained the household beyond the nursery. Even Adriana grew restive without some semblance of a routine, while Margaret…
I want to take a long walk, by myself, to no particular destination. She did not dare admit that. A groom with a perfectly good set of eyes and ears hovered by the horse’s head.
“Shall we take advantage of the weather and tarry on a certain bench?” she said, stepping back.
“You can take the carriage back to Dorning Hall,” Hawthorne said to the groom. “I’ll walk home.”
The man climbed aboard and, with a touch of his cap in Margaret’s direction, guided the horse down the drive.
“You refer to the bench in the woods where I kissed you?” Hawthorne asked.
“The very one.” While Hawthorne referred to Dorning Hall, where he no longer lived, as home.
Margaret linked arms with him and crossed the drive. The children were doubtless watching from the nursery windows and half the servants from other vantage points. Fenny had been instructed to say nothing to anybody, other than that she had accompanied Margaret on a social call to Dorning Hall.
When they’d gained the privacy of the woods, Hawthorne handed her onto the bench and came down beside her. “Where shall we start?”
Gracious of him to even ask. By law, the husband was a domestic tyrant, and all a woman could hope for was that he’d be a benevolent dictator. Margaret should have anticipated that Hawthorne would expect his wife to remove to his domicile.
“I’d like to start by doing nothing,” Margaret said. “I need some time to think about our options, discuss them, perhaps try them on. The children are easily upset, Bancroft will descend any day, and his reaction to our nuptials will matter.”
Hawthorne sat forward, resting his elbow on his knees. That posture accentuated the breadth of his shoulders and the long line of his back. “I did not marry Bancroft, Margaret.”
I married you because of Bancroft, though that was not entirely honest. Hawthorne was attractive in his own right, and for much more than his broad shoulders.
“You did marry me in haste, for which I will be forever grateful. I would rather we deliberate on our course for a short while than strike out in a direction that becomes hard to reverse once embraced. Children can adjust to much, but not if changes are thrown at them haphazard.”
He sat back and ranged an arm along the bench. “I want a wedding night.” His tone was half determined, half self-conscious, and all dear.
“I want that too. Did you have tonight in mind?”
“Part of me has this very moment in mind. Part of me knows that you’re right. We must consider our next steps carefully, and that you’d think of the children first is one of the many reasons I esteem you. I’m also aware, though, that I now have two brothers underfoot, both doubtless willing to tell me how to be a husband, how to manage acres and acres of haying—though I’ve been managing the haying in this shire for ten years—how to get the damned botanical venture launched. And I honestly do not care what Bancroft Summerfield has to say to our nuptials. Your consequence now exceeds his, and that should be an end to his meddling.”
“Your brothers will give you some peace, or I will have a word with them.”
Hawthorne took her hand and kissed her knuckles. “A word, Margaret? Should I be concerned for my siblings?”
“You are newly wed, entitled to some privacy about your affairs, and much concerned with projects that benefit Dorning Hall generally. Your brothers will either respect that you are a busy man with much on your plate, or I will correct their misapprehensions.”
His arm came around her shoulders. “They don’t correct easily.”
“I have amused you. Listen to me, Hawthorne: When I joined Charles’s household, everybody—from his housekeeper, to his butler, to his physician, to the gardener—thwarted my attempts to keep Charles healthy. Bancroft scoffed openly at my expertise, even though the physicians Charles consulted supported my recommendations. Nobody thought he was well enough to travel, but he desperately wanted to see something of the world beyond Dorset before he died. Every time I ordered my husband a hot bath, I got mutterings from the footmen about cold baths being healthier, as if the footmen knew more than I did.”
She rose, propelled by old anger. “Bancroft belittled me in front of the staff, referring dismissively to the potions I plied my husband with. The butler went so far as to remark in my hearing that Mr. Summerfield continued to decline, proof that I had nothing of value to contribute to my husband’s care. I had Charles sack the rotter the next day, with little severance and a very sparing character. Your brothers will learn to respect my wishes where you are concerned, or I will make them rue their inconsideration.”
Hawthorne got to his feet. “I did not mean to vex you, and I’m sorry Charles’s situation was so challenging for you. Haying lasts only a month or so, but for that duration, I will ensure my brothers are too exhausted to cross swords with you.”
A month… a month of Hawthorne being exhausted, spending his days in this or that distant field, lending his strength to neighbors and tenants alike, while Margaret hadn’t even thought as far ahead as the wedding night. Damn meddling Bancroft and his schemes anyway.
“May I show you something?” Margaret asked.
Hawthorne cocked his head and smiled a very husbandly smile.
She smacked him on the chest. “Not that sort of something. Come along.” She waggled her fingers at him, and he took her hand.
“I do so enjoy a woman who enjoys self-confidence. Rather like a lover who leaves her boots on for the duration of the picnic.”
“I promised you a picnic this afternoon. I think I have something better to offer you.”
Hawthorne held her fast when she would have started for the back garden. “At the risk of starting our first argument, allow me to say that you could not possibly have anything better to offer me than the picnic we enjoyed last week.”
“Oh yes, I have. Much better.”
Hawthorne came along as docilely as a pet lamb.
“Did you find us a stall from which to peddle our wares?” Oak asked, passing Valerian a glass of brandy.
Valerian took a sniff. “This is the good stuff.”
“Hawthorne is a good brother, and this is his wedding day. Had I known how precipitously he intended to act on that special license, I’d have told you to bring it home in person.”
Dorning Hall was still home. That realization had smacked Valerian in the face as he’d turned his horse up the drive. That Thorne had chosen to speak his vows in the conservatory—a tidy, inviting, bowery version of what was usually a hodgepodge of potted plants and dirty flagstones—spoke volumes about the Hall’s place in his heart too.
“I nearly did deliver it in person,” Valerian replied, “but Mr. Osgood Pepper deigned to see me the same afternoon I posted the license.”
Oak was serving this celebratory tot in the family parlor, which felt too big with only the two of them to share it. “Osgood Pepper is related to the famous Miss Emily Pepper?”
Emily Pepper ought to be famous. She was among the most self-possessed young women Valerian had encountered. He was all but certain her dealings with Bancroft were more convoluted than she wanted anybody to know.
The poor woman had no sense of rhythm, though. None at all. “Osgood is her father, and she’s his only offspring.”
> “Hence the heiress status. Why marry Bancroft when she could buy a title?”
“Why waste your money on a title when you can instead spend far less to become gentry? From that vantage point, buying titles becomes a less costly proposition for all of your future progeny. Besides, titles worth buying are in short supply.”
“So Mr. Pepper is shrewd. What did he think of our venture?”
Oak was still in his wedding attire, and damned if he didn’t clean up nicely. Of all the brothers, he was hanging on to the lanky, lean proportions of youth the longest. Perhaps he always would.
“Mr. Pepper was a conundrum. Miss Emily is the only reason I got onto his calendar at all. He’s clearly very busy, and genial once he decides to converse, but somebody should take the time to teach him a few manners.”
Oak propped his boots on a hassock, for which somebody ought to scold him. “We can’t all be high sticklers, Vanity Dearest. Pepper has been busy making money. Would that we Dornings were as accomplished in that regard as we are at small talk.”
The boyhood nickname made Valerian sad, as had seeing the way Hawthorne and Margaret regarded each other. If they weren’t lovers, that oversight was being corrected while Valerian swilled brandy and wondered pointlessly about Emily Pepper.
“Mr. Pepper has barrels and cisterns full of money,” Valerian said. “I don’t think it’s made him happy. He did not even stand when I entered his office, he was so preoccupied with some ledger or report.”
Oak leaned his head back and closed his eyes. “Have our good manners and blue blood made us happy?”
“Hawthorne seems pleased to be marrying his lady.” He’d also seemed nervous and impatient, a novel departure from Thorne’s usually taciturn and stoic disposition.
“Can Osgood Pepper find us a fashionable address for our emporium?”
“He can. The question is, will he. He struck me as harried, for all that he listened cordially. He also made inquiries about Summerfield House that I was not well prepared to answer.”
Oak opened his eyes and took a sip of his brandy. “What sort of inquiries?”
“How many acres? How many sources of fresh water flowing year-round? Tenancies? Any timber? The facts and figures Hawthorne knows without thinking about them.”
“The ones we ignore because,”—Oak saluted with his glass—“we are not Hawthorne. I might be getting a bit tipsy.”
“You’re allowed. The ranks of the bachelor Dorning brothers are thinning, and Hawthorne’s courtship was precipitous. What do you hear from the art collector in Hampshire?”
“I have promised Hawthorne I will not depart the Hall until after haying.”
Valerian rose to refresh both drinks, then resumed his place on the sofa. “Every sane citizen of England hates making hay.”
“Except Hawthorne. He glories in all that sweat, dust, and exertion. Then too, the ladies who catch sight of him without his shirt probably love a good hot haymaking.”
Yes, Oak was getting tipsy. Not a bad idea. “Pepper said he’d think about our situation and get back to me after he’d paid this visit to Summerfield House.”
Valerian had wanted to pass that bit along, about Mr. Pepper possibly having a property to rent in Town, but Hawthorne hadn’t turned loose of the new Mrs. Dorning long enough to give a brother a chance for a private word.
Tomorrow was soon enough to be the bearer of mercantile tidings.
Oak slouched more deeply into his chair. “Let’s hope Miss Emily can bring Bancroft up to scratch directly, then. Casriel is losing patience with us, Hawthorne’s becoming distracted, and I’m increasingly willing to take the first post that provides me an income. If Papa’s legacy is ever to do us any good, we need to move forward with it soon.”
“I’m all for that.” Though Valerian was not exactly in favor of Miss Pepper bringing Bancroft up to scratch. She’d be a lovely addition to the neighborhood, but the thought of all that vitality and humor consigned to a lifetime at Bancroft’s side…?
“If we’re getting drunk, we should switch to cheaper brandy,” Valerian said.
“Drunk? The Dorning menfolk hold their liquor quite well. Tipsy is possible, but today of all days, I’m not switching to cheaper fare. Neither should you.”
Oak had always been the still-waters-run-deep sort. When he bothered to speak with conviction, a prudent man listened. Valerian propped his boots on the hassock and settled in to become tipsy.
“We should drink a toast to the happy couple,” Valerian said. “Several toasts.”
“Splendid notion. Send for another bottle, why don’t you?”
Hawthorne hadn’t had specific expectations of his wedding day beyond vows, formal attire, a good meal, and the ceremonial loss of his bachelorhood. He’d had general expectations, though.
A wedding night would have been nice.
A happy scene in Margaret’s nursery where he promised to look after Adriana and Greta as if they were his own daughters had been on his list.
A pleasant walk in the woods with Margaret, the talk turning to matters both mundane and marital wouldn’t have gone amiss.
And if all of that was too much to ask, the simple absence of discord would have been appreciated.
Instead, Margaret led him to a whitewashed cottage sitting just inside the tree line at the back of her garden. The roof was made of shingles gone gray with age. The windows were mullioned and framed by blue shutters. A few daffodils yet bloomed near the door, while tulips looked to be a week or so from displaying their colors.
He’d seen this place on his rambles in her woods and not given it a thought. “A gardener’s cottage?” he asked as Margaret produced a key from beneath a blue ceramic pot of purple and white heartsease.
“Probably at some point. I took it over when I married Charles, though I haven’t used it to speak of since he died. This is my herbal.” She worked the key in the lock and pushed the door open.
Thorne’s first impression was of a place taken out of time, such as happened in fairy stories. The entire cottage was a single room, perhaps twenty feet by twenty feet, with ample windows on all but the north side and large fireplaces on both the north and south walls. Dried herbs hung from dark exposed beams, and sunlight formed a lattice pattern on the slate floor.
The corners held no dust or cobwebs, and the hearths were spotless. Somebody had folded blankets just so at the foot of the plain oak bed occupying one corner. The table and chairs in another corner were arranged symmetrically. The books shelved in a third corner were neatly arranged in order of height.
The fourth corner was a kitchen of sorts.
“Those are stew stoves,” Hawthorne said, peering into the open grates over what had been designed to hold charcoal fires. A counter of stout oak, much scarred, sat beneath a window, and a cistern full of water, apparently piped from the roof, took up the space at the end of the counter.
All of that was interesting, mostly because it belonged to Margaret, but the scent of the place was more interesting still.
The herbs were dried to greenish-gray or brown, and their scents had faded as well. A hint of rosemary, lavender, rose… Thorne could not parse them all, but they added to the sense of a space that hadn’t been abandoned so much as it had been waiting under some enchantment for Margaret’s return.
“You had this cottage fitted out to your specifications,” he said, “then you ceased to come here. Why?” And why bring her new husband here?
“The girls needed me. They were grieving for Charles, as was I. Don’t touch that.”
He’d been reaching for a bundle of leaves dangling from the rafter. Three more bundles just like it hung before the nearest window.
“What is it?”
“Foxglove. Every part of the plant is poisonous.”
“Foxglove? The pretty summer flower? But I’ve picked it without coming to harm since childhood.”
“Probably because your mother made you wash your hands when you came in from playing. Touching
the plant is unlikely to result in anything more dangerous than a queasy stomach, and that would take sucking your thumb, or trying to suck the nectar from the flowers. It’s still dangerous. If a dog were to drink the water you’d put the flowers in, death might result.”
And to think he’d brought bouquets of wild foxglove home to his mother and sisters. Thorne ambled away from the window to peer at the bound volumes and treatises on the bookshelf.
“Is that why your herbal is here, rather than in the house? Because you worked with dangerous plants?”
“Summerton has no herbal, and I could not use the kitchen to make the medicine Charles relied upon most often.” She joined Thorne before the books and took down a journal bound in green leather. “This is what I wanted to show you. Come sit with me.”
She had the most agreeable habit of taking him by the hand. She towed him to the bed, where they could sit side by side.
“This is one volume. I have others like it. By necessity, I spent significant time making the medicines Charles needed, and the perfumes became more of a pleasure and less of a science. I tried all manner of combinations. Lemons and roses, citrus and cedar. Some worked, some… There’s a reason this cottage has so many windows.”
She paged through the journal as if it were a girlhood diary recounting halcyon summers long past.
“You worked very hard at this,” Thorne said, though reading over her shoulder, he could hardly understand what she’d written. A cold decoction from a cold extract using butter rather than lard to pull the scent. What did that mean?
“I loved time spent in here mixing up Charles’s medication. Gathering up flowers for my scents gave me an excuse to wander alone. Summerton was not always a joyous house. Charles tired easily, and try as he might, he did resent his indisposition.”
Thorne closed the journal and set it aside. “Did he resent you?”
“Of course, and I resented him. We learned to take short holidays from each other, and that eased tensions somewhat. Charles bided at Summerfield House on occasion, while I remained here. After the first year, we rented Summerfield House out and dwelled at Summerton. The pretext for our periodic separations was that he was overseeing preparations for the next tenants’ arrival, but Bancroft could have done that. He had his own apartment at Summerfield House even then.”
A Lady of True Distinction Page 22