Ashlyn Macnamara (5 page)

“Aw, Mama.”

“You had your holiday today.” She took his hand and set off down the path. “Tomorrow we must work.”

He poked out his lower lip. The expression boded no good at all.

“You can help Biggles in the garden. I’ll wager you can pull more weeds than she can.”

“I don’t want to pull up weeds.”

Well, blast. Normally the prospect of putting both hands into the soil and getting as much dirt as possible ground into his shirt was enough to turn work into play.

“We don’t always get to do as we please.” How often had she reminded him of that over the years? Half the time, she felt she was reminding herself as much as Jack.
“If you’re a good boy and don’t complain, I shall tell you a new story. One you haven’t heard before.”

His lower lip receded somewhat. “Will there be a dragon in it?”

“There might be.”

“Will you tell me about the people who live in the big house?”

She glanced over her shoulder. Off to the left, the outline of the manor on the hill etched itself against a cloud-scattered sky. “I don’t know if I can manage that and a dragon.” The only dragons she associated with country manors were the grand dames of society.

She lengthened her stride. They needed to get home. The cluster of dwellings, each neatly whitewashed with gleaming tiled roofs, lay less than half a mile ahead at the base of a gentle slope. At the far end, a larger building held itself above the rest. The inn, although more often than not it housed locals out for a pint and a bit of gossip at the end of a long day.

She trudged toward her cottage, a lone building at the very edge of town. It stood apart by design.

“George came from the big house, didn’t he?”

“Yes, I believe he must have.” He couldn’t very well have been a guest at the inn. He would have shared the path back to the village with them. “And you are not to refer to him by his given name. It isn’t … proper.”

Good gracious, she’d nearly said good
ton
, and that was the last thing she wanted Jack asking about. Out of necessity—out of her own actions—she’d put that life firmly behind her.

CHAPTER THREE

“W
HERE HAVE
ye been? It’s nearly tea time.” Sleeves rolled up and her arms dusted with flour, Biggles paused over the lump of dough she was kneading. Her eyes widened. “Lawks! Wot’s happened to the pair of ye?”

Isabelle entered the kitchen, breathing deep of its aroma—yeast and flour and wood smoke, cut through with the scent of lavender. Bunches of the plant—her livelihood—hung from the ceiling beams to dry. “Jack had an adventure in the sea.”

“Heavens!” Biggles circled the table and crouched until her creased face was level with the boy’s. “Are ye quite all right? Look at ye, all bedraggled.”

Jack puffed out his chest. “I wasn’t scared, honest. And George pulled me out.”

Biggles glanced up at Isabelle. Both brows disappeared beneath her fringe of straggly gray curls.

“I’ve told Jack he’s not to refer to a gentleman by his given name,” Isabelle said.

“But he said I could,” Jack insisted. “He gave me leave, he did.”

Biggles fiddled with the boy’s collar. “Off with ye and put on some dry clothes. When ye come back, I’ll have a biscuit ready for ye.”

As Jack padded off to change, the old woman heaved herself upright. “Gentleman, is it?”

“I ought to change as well.” Isabelle’s cheeks burned,
and she ducked her head to hide the reaction, but not quickly enough for Biggles’s sharp eye.

“Ye’ll dry just fine by the fire. Ye’d best tell me what’s happened.”

Isabelle turned toward the hearth and let the flames heat her cheeks. If she blushed any more deeply, it wouldn’t show. “Simple enough. I took Jack to play along the shore, and a wave caught him. A gentleman happened along and pulled Jack out before he drowned.”

She threaded her fingers together to hide their sudden trembling. A surge of renewed terror engulfed her with the reminder of how close she’d come to losing her boy. The image of his small blond head disappearing beneath that icy gray water flashed through her mind.

She’d see it for the rest of her life, for part of her would always question—if she’d been alone, would she have managed to save her son? Her father had never approved of sea bathing. Would she have broken through fear’s grip to plunge beneath the waves again and again until she found him? Would her shoulders have possessed the strength to pull him out?

She wrapped her arms about her waist to ward off a sudden chill.

“There, there, miss.” Biggles laid a heavy hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “All’s well as ends well. No harm’s been done, so best not dwell on might-have-beens.”

Isabelle nodded. She’d been listening to Biggles’s adages for years now. As a young mother struggling with the challenges of learning to care for an infant, then a fast-growing, curious boy, she’d heard Biggles repeat them often. The old saws were as effective as they’d always been at calming Isabelle’s racing mind—that is to say, not at all.

Biggles gave her shoulder a few extra pats for good measure before returning to her baking. “Where d’ye suppose
this gentleman came from, and in the nick of time, too? I don’t know anyone in the village as goes by George.”

Isabelle watched her dig the heels of her hands into the dough, turning and pressing in a practiced rhythm. “Only the apothecary.”

“But he don’t go by George, do he? He puts on airs and wants to be Mr. Putnam, whether or not he ought to be.” Biggles punctuated this pronouncement with a nod that set the ruffles on her mobcap aquiver.

Isabelle smiled at the show of loyalty. She suspected the apothecary only insisted on such a level of formality with her. She might be good enough to sell him sachets made with her lavender for a few extra pence, but that was the extent of his good will. Beyond that, she wasn’t worth knowing.

She pushed the thought aside. Best she appease Biggles’s curiosity before the woman asked too many probing questions. “At any rate, it wasn’t the apothecary.”

“I should think not. He’d not wet the hems of his trousers for the vicar.”

An expectant silence fell. “I think he came from the manor,” Isabelle supplied at last.

Biggles’s arms stopped their rhythm. “Oh,
that
sort of gentleman.”

Isabelle turned her eyes away from Biggles’s scrutiny. “His social standing hardly signifies.”

“It certainly does if the man’s got blunt.”

Isabelle gritted her teeth. Biggles had been with her far too long—her only companion through sleepless nights of worry when Jack had been ill, the only voice of experience in her life—for her to become enraged over the implications. “The man may well have blunt, as you put it, but he is far, far beyond me, and therefore it does not matter whether he has ten thousand a year or nothing. I most likely shall never see him again.”

*  *  *

“A
ND
where have you been?”

Halfway across the stable yard, George froze. Henrietta stood, arms crossed, eyeing him up and down as if he were a recalcitrant schoolboy and she his tutor.

“I took a walk down to the water,” he said. “Didn’t think it was forbidden.”

“You’re running away again. What did you do? Attempt to drown yourself?”

“Now, now.” He eyed his sodden garments. Not even his valet could save them, he feared. “Mama hasn’t pushed me quite that far.”

“Yet.”

Although his sisters’ musical performances were likely to drive him in that direction sooner than their mother’s schemes to marry him off. But he couldn’t insult Henrietta with such an observation. Even he knew the limit.

“I wouldn’t blame you, you know.” She rolled her gaze skyward. “She’s pushing me at Marcus Chatham.”

“Chatham?” He fell into step beside her, and they ambled toward the servants’ entrance. “He’s not such a bad fellow.”

“He reeks of cheroot and brandy.”

“Does he? And how would you know unless you’ve been standing entirely too close?”

A frown creased her brow. “One does not need to stand closer than propriety demands to take note of it. One smells it the moment he enters a room.”

“Well, it’s a decent, masculine smell. Can’t have a man smelling of roses or lavender or any of that female stuff.”

She smacked at his elbow. “And what do you know of it? You’re just as bad.”

“I beg your pardon.” He made a show of breathing
in. “At this very moment, I most certainly do not smell of brandy.” A situation he intended to remedy as soon as possible.

She wrinkled her nose. “You smell of seaweed.”

“That I do, but you will note that seaweed and cheroot smell nothing alike.”

“It doesn’t matter. Before the evening is through, you shall reek thoroughly of both.”

“If it has the same effect on the other young ladies as it does on you, then perhaps I ought to adopt it as a strategy.”

She halted before the door and crossed her arms. “Humph.”

“How is it any different to you hanging about the stable yard in order to avoid unwanted attention?”

Her cheeks colored. Hah. He’d caught her out. “I was looking for you, if you must know. Mama missed you. Prudence Wentworth has arrived along with several of her friends, and she wanted to secure an introduction.”

George suppressed a groan. “Introduction? I’ve already met her once, and that was more than enough.”

“Not for her, for her cousin. Her younger, unmarried cousin,” Henrietta specified.

“This cousin—did she inherit that unfortunate nose?”

Henrietta slapped at him again. “Honestly. There’s more to a girl than her looks. You ought to at least talk to her and see if you don’t have a thing or two in common.”

He stopped short of commenting that at least in the bedroom he could douse the candles so he wouldn’t have to look at the creature. “I shouldn’t wish to marry a woman who shares my interests. It would be quite indecent.”

“Which interests are those?” She raised a single brow, in an excellent imitation of, well, himself. “A penchant for cards?”

“Among other things—which I’m not about to share with an unmarried sister.”

She sniffed. “It’s quite unfair, you know.”

“What is?”

“Unmarried men are rather expected to gain experience in certain matters, while unmarried girls must remain ignorant or risk ruin.”

He froze. An unwelcome prickle raised the hairs on the back of his neck. “What do you know of such matters? By God, if some man has made advances, I shall call him out.”

She blinked at him, her blue-gray eyes round and guileless. “I know very little, more’s the pity, so you can calm yourself. You won’t be facing anyone down the end of a pistol. Not on my account.”

“Are you certain?” After all, she’d attained an age where certain men might no longer consider her marriageable, but perfectly acceptable as a mistress. Or if the man who had jilted her the year of her debut suddenly returned from India …

“Completely.”

He pressed his lips together. At five and twenty, his sister was headed firmly for the shelf and quite seemed to prefer matters that way. She never danced with the same partner twice, never encouraged gentlemen to call. In fact, ever since the disastrous breaking of her betrothal, she entertained no suitors at all. “Then why bring the matter up?”

“An observation, nothing more. But you have to admit men are allowed more latitude in their youth.”

“You’ve been reading that harridan again.”

The corners of Henrietta’s mouth quirked. “Miss Wollstonecraft? And what if I have?”

“People will think you a bluestocking.”

“What if I am?” She waved the idea away with one
hand. “It hardly signifies, as I’ve come to a decision. I do not intend to marry.”

“Not marry?” He opened his mouth and closed it again several times until it occurred to him he must resemble a goldfish.

She regarded him coolly. “Are you about to voice an opinion? If so, I caution you to tread carefully, or I might construe any comment you make as hypocritical.”

He’d seen many examples of his younger sister’s quick mind over the years, but he rather disliked having that wit turned on him, especially when she got the better of him. “Mama ought to stop you reading. It’s made you too clever for your own good.”

“If you are permitted to swan about unwed, I don’t see why I cannot do the same.” She nodded once, as if that decided the matter.

“Henny, have pity on your brother. If Mama gets wind of this, she’ll be utterly relentless.”

She fixed him with a hard gaze. “Yes, well, you
need
to marry and carry on the family name, while I would become nothing but a receptacle for some man’s seed.”

He let out a breath while turning her words over in his mind. Yes, she
had
just called herself a receptacle. “Good God, Hen, listen to yourself.”

“You can’t deny it’s the truth, now, can you?”

“What … what do you plan to do with your days, then?”

“I imagine I can devote myself to any number of good works.” She set a finger on her chin. “In fact, I might earn my keep. I hear Lady Epperley is looking for a paid companion.”

“Paid companion? I’ll not have it. As the head of the family, I forbid it. Paid companion. As if we cannot afford to keep our own.”