Once Upon a Kiss (Book Club Belles Society) (21 page)

But she rather liked sitting there. No sign remained of old Phineas, and the place was now very much Wainwright. She felt naughty sitting in his chair, without his knowledge.

Rain had begun to tickle the windows. It made her restless. The house was so quiet, greedily holding its dark secrets. There was, of course, still the matter of Nellie Pickles’ disappearance, as well as many other curiosities probably hidden away in those Tudor-paneled walls.

She got up. “You wait here, Lucy.”

“Where are you going?”

Justina took the Argand lamp from the desk. “To look around.”

“But Mrs. Birch said—”

“You stay here where it’s warm and make plenty of noise. That way she won’t suspect a thing.”

Lucy pouted. “Why can’t I go with you? I might like to explore too!”

“And what happens if you see a ghost, Lucy Bridges?”

Her eyes widened. “You said there are none here.”

“If there are any, they will be elsewhere in this house, won’t they? Where people seldom roam. Dark, sinister, silent corners.”

The other girl paled slightly under her excessive rouge.

“Besides, what if
he
comes back suddenly?” Justina added. “I’ll need you to warn me, shan’t I? And you can keep him distracted.”

“Yes…yes. I suppose you are right. I’ll wait here.”

“Sing something so that Mrs. Birch thinks we’re both in here.” Taking the oil lamp, she left his study and went exploring.

Behind her, as she closed the study door, she heard Lucy cough and then begin to sing. “
Soldier, soldier, won’t you marry me, with your musket, fife, and drum? Oh, no, sweet maid, I cannot marry thee, for I have no hat to put on.
”

***

In Manderson, Darius had visited the solicitor, the bank, the tailor, the cobbler, and finally, his tasks complete, he allowed Miles to drag him into a rowdy tavern. There was no rush to get back. No one at the house to expect him.

“You did relay the message to Miss Penny as I asked, did you not, Forester?”

His friend smiled. “Of course.”

Something about that smile seemed slightly off. Miles was never a good liar. “You told her that no one was needed at Midwitch today? You did not forget?”

“Yes, of course,” Miles repeated amiably. “I urged her to stay home and tend her cold.”

Darius examined his friend’s countenance until it disappeared in a tankard of cider.

“I must say,” Miles added, smacking his lips, “I’m quite accustomed already to this simple life in the country.”

“Because life is generally so very complicated for you,” Darius muttered drily.

“Pity you plan to sell the house. I’d like to have a peaceful place to come and stay away from Town.”

“You could always buy Midwitch, Forester.”

But he knew his friend didn’t want the responsibility of his own house yet. Miles spent his time traveling between friends, making the most of their hospitality. He never made himself unwelcome, was always charming and helpful, never stayed too long. It was a wayfarer’s lifestyle that kept things simple and easy for Miles, but must surely be exhausting after so many years of dashing about. Darius preferred to plant roots. He liked to know he could find things again once he put them down.

“If you kept Midwitch,” said Miles, “I could visit you every winter, before the Season starts, and every summer when the odors of Town become too rife for my delicate nostrils.”

“So you’d be here for half the year.”

“If you insist! I know how you cannot do without my company, Wainwright.”

Darius sipped his cider and found it surprisingly pleasant. Slowly he was acquiring a taste and a tolerance for the strength of the local brew, but perhaps it was inevitable since Miles insisted on drinking a great deal of it. “What has given you this passion for the country all of a sudden?”

Miles put on his innocent face. “Can’t a man appreciate the beauties of nature?”

“Which one? Miss Catherine Penny or Miss Rebecca Sherringham? I believe Miss Lucy is too young for you. Too young for anyone yet.”

“Why? She is only a year younger than Miss Justina and I do not think you would say
she
is not old enough,” Miles replied slyly. “I notice you do not offer
her
name as a possible love interest for me, Wainwright.”

Darius cleared his throat. “I merely had not thought of her.”

“Oh, of course not.”

“She would not suit you, in any case.”

“Why not?” Miles studied his face so intently that Darius felt it necessary to turn away and signal for more cider. “Perhaps I might like her best of all, Wainwright.”

His stomach tightened. Anxiety and frustration had twisted his insides into a heavy knot, and each time he remembered his abandoned attempt at a proposal that knot hurt with greater intensity.

Miles Forester would never understand how it felt to keep thoughts and words and longings inside until they stabbed at one’s innards like a thousand little knives.

At that moment they were joined by Captain Sherringham, who seemed to have the irritating habit of turning up to interrupt his conversations. Having spied them across the tavern, he now came over with his big, stupid grin to begin to greet Miles. Of course, Darius thought churlishly, Forester had quickly made friends in the village, knew minute, trivial details about everyone, and was well liked already.

“I don’t suppose you’ve given Captain Sherringham much of a chance since he monopolized your fresh little daisy at the harvest dance,” Miles had said to him only a few days before. “But he is a merry fellow. I like him.”

“You like everybody,” had been his terse reply.

Now there was no escaping further acquaintance. It was the one drawback to friendship with Miles. The man was so easygoing he befriended anyone, and then Darius inevitably found himself forced into company with those he would rather not know better.

Before too long, the captain had invited them both to a night of cards at the Sherringhams’ house, and Miles accepted eagerly. For them both.

“We have nothing else to do, Wainwright,” he exclaimed. “It will be tremendous fun.”

Fun
, like
nonsense
, thought Darius, meant different things to different people.

He could only hope he might contract some terrible disease before Thursday evening.

As he rode back to the village with Miles, Darius remarked to his friend that he had never been dragged against his will to so many social functions as he had been since he came to Hawcombe Prior.

“It’s doing you a world of good then, this country life,” Miles replied with a laugh.

Darius looked away.

How could this place do him any good? He’d made a fool of himself with that young woman and yet still he felt a pang of wistfulness. It was surely unmanly and just as humiliating as a return to boyhood stammering. But he couldn’t help wishing he might turn back his clocks and begin again with her.

She quickly found her way to his bedchamber. There were only two rooms on the upper floor that appeared lived in, the furniture not shrouded in dust covers. Miles Forester’s room was easily identified by the casual mess of clothes and books strewn about. Wainwright’s room, on the other hand, was neat as a pin, just as recognizable as a mirror of his character.

Justina shivered in wicked anticipation. This was his bed. His washstand. There was a waistcoat folded and laid upon a chair, and she ran her fingers across the silk. He was not very adventurous with his garments and wore mostly dark colors, even in his waistcoats. It seemed sad to her.

If she was his wife she would sew him a few brighter things to wear.

What a strange thought that was, she mused, shaking her head.

Wainwright had his waistcoats properly and expensively tailored. What would he possibly want with one of her poorly sewn, badly fitted creations?

The room was dimly lit by slate gray lines that fell through the windows, the drizzle of autumn rain leaving mottled shadows around the walls. It was an eerie light, for it made movement where there should be none. The gentle patter of rain might be mistaken for other footsteps, and the lilting drift of wind occasionally tugging on corners of the house, finding its way in through slender cracks and old window frames, made unearthly whispers.

She was grateful for the oil lamp as that soft glow traveled with her across the creaking floor boards, and also for the low murmur of Lucy singing in the room below. “….
Oh, no, sweet maid, I cannot marry thee, for I have no boots to put on.
”

This, it seemed, was the only song she could come up with so she repeated it, over and over. Mrs. Birch was very probably about to yell at her to stop her noise. But Lucy sang on.

A bird flew at the window, startling her, making her heart leap. She stood in the center of the room and listened. Her own heartbeat briefly obscured Lucy’s song, thumping out a rhythm harder than that soldier’s drum.

Now, where to search for his secrets? No doubt he had some. Just like Phineas Hawke.

She set the oil lamp on his dresser and found, to her surprise, the old bonnet with the wax cherries that she’d left behind in his orchard weeks ago. He had set it over Hawke’s wooden wig stand and from there he must be able to see it every night when he prepared for bed. How odd. Justina had expected it thrown out by now or sent back to her with a terse note.

But there it was. Pride of place on his dresser, her frayed ribbons neatly tied under the faceless wooden egg that once held old Hawke’s moth-bitten white wigs. She imagined Wainwright, in his solemn way, tying those ribbons in a careful bow. So fastidious, so tidy.

Funny how they’d both left hats behind and neither come back for them.

“
Soldier, soldier, won’t you marry me
…”

Justina moved to his bed. It was an old four-poster, so high off the floor that a set of wooden steps were required to climb in. Unless, of course, one was accustomed to flying leaps. She very much doubted Wainwright was a leaper. Probably just as well, as he seemed a trifle accident prone.

She slid her hands under his pillow and found her little lavender sachet. So he kept it. Still.

Running her palm over his pillow she imagined a kiss of warmth, as if he’d not long risen from it. Only hours ago his great length had laid in that bed, sprawled across it. She suffered the sudden fluttering of Maiden’s Palsy when she thought of his strong thighs and the hard, broad slabs of muscle across his chest. Had she never seen him without clothes, she would have no idea of the brute barbarian form beneath his cultivated, gentlemanly surface. Since their encounter in Bath, she’d caught herself looking at other men and wondering what they kept under their garments. Most, she was quite sure, looked nothing like Darius Wainwright.

Returning to his dresser, she slowly opened each drawer to investigate. In the back of her mind she heard her sister’s reprimands, but why should she not look? Her relationship with Wainwright was hardly one of the normal variety, not that she could explain it to pure, innocent Cathy.

A sudden gust of wind blew hard at the window, and she felt it reaching through the walls to move the fringe of her shawl. At least she hoped that was the wind finding a way inside, and not the ghost of Nellie Pickles trying to get her attention. The house groaned softly and the boards under her feet creaked. Somewhere in the distance she thought she heard rusted metal clang.

She paused, straining to hear.

If anyone came, Lucy would warn her with a hasty shout up the stairs. Had she stopped singing? Had she fallen asleep?

But no, surely that was her coughing downstairs, and then the singing resumed. “
Soldier, soldier, won’t you marry me, with your musket, fife, and drum?
”

Justina had reached the bottom drawer of the dresser and this necessitated kneeling in order to investigate fully, but if one meant to do a job, it should be done well.

It was stiff to open, the wood warped by age and damp air. After only traveling an inch, it stuck. No amount of tugging and jostling helped ease the drawer further open, but she could just squeeze her hand inside. Linens. Old and forgotten, stale odor wafting up to her nose. The new master of the house had not bothered to wrestle this drawer open when he met with resistance. Why would he? He did not mean to stay long, had no need to use all the drawers, and was, apparently, not cursed with an inquisitive nature.

But there, almost immediately, her fingers found a stiff corner of folded paper tucked under the forgotten bed linens.

Another gust of wind blew against the house and the rain began to pelt down hard against those trembling windows. Even the flame of the oil lamp, supposedly sheltered by its glass chimney, fluttered and dodged about. The sound of the thrusting, thrashing rain obscured Lucy’s song.

Justina wriggled her fingers further inside the drawer, desperate to recover whatever had been hidden there. Perhaps she had found more of Phineas Hawke’s lost letters to his secret lady love. An entire stack of them. The excitement was almost more than she could bear.

Cursing softly, she struggled to stretch her fingers inside the cramped space.

And then, across the room, the bedchamber door slammed shut.

***

When Darius found Lucy Bridges alone he commanded her to continue singing. He knew where Justina was without winkling a confession from her accomplice, for another set of footsteps could be heard creaking about in his bedchamber directly above the study. Meddling menace. Of course, she would never resist the chance to go spying the moment he turned his back.

And as for Miles…

“I did tell Miss Penny,” he insisted. “She must somehow have misunderstood and sent her sister.”

Darius suspected there was a certain amount of deliberate misunderstanding involved, but there was no time for that now. He had a trespasser to apprehend.

He quickly sent Miles upstairs to shut her in. The inquisitive woman would have only one exit, and Darius would be waiting.

***

Oh Lord, now she heard heavy footsteps advancing along the corridor. A loud, hearty whistle echoed Lucy’s song. She ran to the door but it was stuck fast. Just like the dresser drawer it would not heed her desperate tugging. The handle turned stiffly but there was no click. Had it locked itself somehow?

Her heart skipped uncertainly.

Had the ghost of Nellie Pickles locked her in?

Was the spirit of Phineas Hawke playing tricks on her, getting his vengeance for her years of trespassing?

A male voice bellowed through the house. “I’ll get it, Darius! Is it in your bedchamber?”

The echo seemed directionless, could have come from anywhere. But she was about to be discovered there and what excuse could she make? It would be humiliating in the extreme.

She spun in circles, considering her choices.

Justina made a dash for the best hiding space.

“Under the bed, you say Wainwright? Shall I look there?”

She swore heartily, changing direction and heading for the window—the only way out. Fortunately there was trellis work, a great deal of ivy, and she was no stranger to climbing. If she fell to her death, so be it, she thought grimly.

Serve her right for being such a fool.

Knowing her luck, the window would be stuck too.

But no, it opened, sliding upward when she pushed it with all her strength.

With the bundle of found letters clutched under her shawl, she cautiously made her way out, over the window ledge, and onto the handy trellis.

The ivy was wet and slippery and she had not descended far when there was a loud crack. Justina abruptly descended another five inches and the toes of her boots now tapped the glass panes of the window below. From the shocked exclamation that floated up to her she knew she’d been seen.