A Baron for Becky (18 page)

He was taller
than Aldridge, and broader. She felt tiny next to him. But his
hands were gentle and his eyes kind and sincere. Could she trust
him? The quiet anonymous life of a middle-class widow would be
safe, but the dream she had outlined to Aldridge was ahead of her,
if she dared reach for it. Perhaps even love. He would be easy to
love, this battered warrior who sheltered orphans and was prepared
to change his mind when he was wrong.

“I will think
about it,” she conceded, and he smiled, the unscarred side of his
face glowing with pleasure.

“As will
I.”

Chapter Thirteen

After they agreed to
consider a future together, Mrs Winstanley took him to see Sarah,
with Aldridge trailing along.

“Do you feel
better now, Lord Overton?” the little girl asked, politely.

Hugh had no
wish to discuss their last meeting. “I am, thank you.” What could
he say to give her mind another direction? “How is your doll, Miss
Winstanley?” he asked.

Her eyes lit,
but she retained her reserve. “Very well, thank you, Sir.”

“My daughters
liked the ones I bought them in the same shop.” And talked about
them and showed them off to anyone who would listen. Surely this
grave child would take the bait? “I chose one with dark hair for
Sophie, and fair hair for Emma. Sophie’s doll is named Frances, and
Em’s is Charlotte.”

Sarah admitted
her doll was called Anne, and—at a suggestion from her mother—went
to fetch the toy and its wardrobe. After half an hour sitting on
the carpet in the parlour, displaying all the doll’s treasures,
Sarah had thawed only slightly, largely because ‘Uncle Lord
Aldridge’ was down on the carpet with them.

If Hugh made
little progress with the daughter, he had, at least, pleased the
mother. When he left after the proper thirty minutes, she gave him
the warmest smile he’d yet seen.

“We are invited
to Mrs Winstanley’s for the evening,” Aldridge told him, when they
met to dress for dinner at Haverford House. “Miss Winstanley’s
actually, but Becky is moving to stay with her daughter.” He
exaggerated his sad face, pushing out his lips and drooping his
mouth and his eyes. “She says she cannot lie with one man while she
is contemplating marrying another.”

Hugh forbore to
comment. Or to punch Aldridge, as the man deserved.

“She is still
under contract,” Aldridge complained. Hugh rethought the punch,
then saw Aldridge’s lip twitch in a half-smile. The man used to
needle the masters at school just so—to relieve boredom, satisfy
curiosity, or out of sheer devilry.

“Poking the
bear, Aldridge?”

Aldridge just
laughed.

Hugh’s
admiration for Mrs Winstanley grew in the course of the
evening.

Aldridge’s
claim that she came from the gentry was borne out. She showed it in
a thousand ways. Gentle manners and speech could be learned, of
course, but she was natural, and at ease, and never made a
slip.

She showed a
keen mind, too, and was clearly well read, discussing with equal
ease the impact of enclosure on the good health of farming workers,
Walter Scott’s new narrative poem, and the war on the
Peninsula.

They left
early, but not before Mrs Winstanley had accepted his invitation to
go driving the next day.

Becky and Sarah
were waiting when Lord Overton arrived at two o’clock, just as he
had promised. Becky paused on the doorstep. He had borrowed a
curricle from Aldridge; she recognised the horses. It would be a
tight fit for the three of them.

Sarah had no
such qualms, and was already down in the street, renewing her
acquaintance with Prince and Brown Beauty, chattering away to the
groom Lord Overton had also borrowed, another old acquaintance.

“We’ll tuck
Sarah between us where she will be warm, and out of the wind,” Lord
Overton said, correctly interpreting her concern. “Neither of you
are large. We will fit.”

It was a tight
fit, and at first Sarah shrunk away from Lord Overton. Soon,
though, she was telling him everything she knew about the horses,
as they made their way through the streets to the park, the groom
up behind.

With his focus
divided between Sarah and the horses, Becky was free to watch him,
and to wonder what life would be like as his wife. If he continued
to be kind and respectful, if he were not putting on an act, if
this plan of Aldridge’s worked...

By the end of
the drive, Sarah and Lord Overton were friends, and he cemented the
friendship by producing sugar cubes for her to feed the horses. She
went to her governess and the schoolroom in full charity with
him.

Lord Overton
stood in the hall, smiling, watching her skip up the stairs.

“Do you intend
to charm me by charming my daughter, Lord Overton?” Becky
challenged.

He turned,
laughing. “Is it working, Mrs Winstanley?” Then, serious again,
“But no, I wanted to charm her, as you call it, for her own sake.
Is she always so quiet and good?”

“She does not
take easily to strangers,” Becky said. Sarah had reason to be wary,
and Becky would do well to remember it. Still, Lord Overton’s
attempt to win Sarah’s favour was more to his credit than not.

He returned for
dinner that night, and it became the pattern for their days: an
outing in the afternoon, dinner in the evening, and afterwards,
cards, chess, or reading together. And they talked. Lord Overton
had read many of the same books she enjoyed. He agreed with her
views on enclosure. She did not share his confidence in the
military genius of General Wellesley, but acknowledged that his own
background as an army officer gave him the edge in judging such a
thing.

She asked about
his estate, and about his daughters, who would be her daughters,
too. Perhaps. If she dared...

And at night in
her bed, she wondered whether his shoulders were as broad, his hips
as slender, as they looked.

Surprised to
discover that Mrs Winstanley and Sarah had never been to the Royal
Menagerie at the Tower, Hugh arranged a visit. It was not a
success. Though others visiting the Royal beasts seemed not to care
they were kept in small dirty cages, both mother and child grew
quieter and quieter. When a boy poked a stick through the bars of a
cage to rouse a lethargic leopard, Sarah turned swimming, pleading
eyes to Hugh.

“Here. Leave
the animal alone,” Hugh told the boy, who made a rude gesture but
desisted.

Hugh moved his
ladies on, and asked the keeper for directions to the room where
the monkeys were kept.

“Had to be
removed, didn’t they,” the keeper told him. “Attacked a boy. Mauled
him something awful.”

“Probably,”
Becky suggested tartly, as they left the Tower, “because the boy
attacked the poor monkeys.”

Hugh consoled
them with ices at Gunter’s, including one for the silent governess
who played propriety. Uncle Lord Aldridge took her to Gunter’s,
Sarah confided, but he’d never taken them to the park, or to the
Tower.

“You didn’t
like the Tower, Sarah,” he pointed out.

“No,” she
agreed. “But I liked that you took me. Some of the other girls have
been.”

He delivered
them home, wondering about the little girl’s life. He forgot for
hours at a time that Mrs Winstanley was a kept woman. He only knew
that he wanted her.

He was
light-headed in her presence, his blood being otherwise occupied,
and he grew adept at keeping furniture, or his silk hat, or his
folded overcoat in a strategic position to avoid letting her know
what an advantage she had. When he was alone in one of Aldridge’s
spare bedchambers at night, he let the memory of her fill his
senses, and imagined the touch and the taste of her. Her skin was
pale, protected from the sun, but it would be paler yet on her
breasts and her thighs. Pale, and tender, and soft.

The silk of her
hair would cling to his fingers as he spread it out on his pillow.
Yes, and while he was paying due worship to her lovely breasts, he
would find the silk of her other hair, too, and what it guarded. He
wanted to taste the sweet honey of her desire more than he wanted
to breathe, to bring her to glorious completion, to find his
balance again between her warm thighs.

The fantasy was
unwise. It didn’t make the days easier to bear, the momentary
satisfaction giving way to a profound hollow only she could fill.
Was she using some ancient concubine’s art to ensnare with
lust?

No.

He must forget
that she’d been Aldridge’s kept woman or he wouldn’t be able to go
through with it. And marrying Mrs Winstanley had become his most
ardent desire.

When Lord
Overton asked if she would call him by his first name, he was
sitting on her parlour carpet, eating a picnic lunch, their
expedition to the park being aborted because of rain.