Improper Relations (7 page)

Chapter Eight

Steventon was as small and sleepy and quiet as I had remembered. It was so small, in fact, that it appeared to be little more than a string of farmhouses along a narrow country lane. Unless I wished to seek employment as a dairy maid, I realized, I would have to move on.

The station master confirmed my suspicions. Fortunately, one of the local farmers was bound for Whitchurch, some seven miles to the west, that very afternoon. For tuppence I was able to secure passage on the front seat of his wagon.

It was a simple cart, with no shelter from the elements, and I’d nothing more than a thin shawl to protect me when it began to rain. Before long I was thoroughly wretched, both in spirit and substance, and was bitterly regretting my impulsive decision to travel to a part of the country so little known to me.

Farmer Dunn took me directly to the post office in Whitchurch, explaining that the postmistress kept a situations vacant board and should be able to direct me to suitable accommodation. It was late in the day when he set me down at my destination, a neat bow-fronted building on the town’s High Street, and bid me a friendly farewell.

I stumbled across the threshold of the post office, my sodden carpetbag held tight in my arms, and said a silent prayer that I did not appear as bedraggled and desperate as I felt.

“A good evening to you, ma’am, and how may I help you?” The voice was attached to a plainly dressed woman with a wide and welcoming smile.

“Good evening. I have just arrived—that is, I have just now come here, from London, and I need to find a place to stay, and also work of some kind. If there’s any to be had, of course…”

Suddenly it all felt so horribly overwhelming. The room began to spin, or perhaps I was the one who was turning, and I knew if I didn’t sit down soon I would disgrace myself entirely.

“Goodness gracious, my dear, you’ve gone as white as a sheet. Come with me, now, into my parlor. The stove is warm and the kettle is singing. Come, now.” The woman—I supposed her to be the postmistress—came round the end of the counter and, taking my arm, propelled me toward the beckoning warmth of the back room.

I sat huddled by the hearth, watching steam rise from my skirts as they and I grew warm, and tried to gather my thoughts. What now? I had already made a woeful first impression here, nearly fainting in front of the town’s postmistress, and doubtless she’d be happy to see the back of me.

But she made no move to evict me. Instead, she brought over a mug of sweet, very strong tea and several slices of hot buttered toast. She said nothing, only smiled at me reassuringly and waited for me to finish.

“Now, my dear, you said you needed a place to stay and were in need of employment. The former poses no difficulty at all—I know just the place. As for the latter, I do know of one possibility here in the village. May I ask, if you don’t mind, what kind of education you received?”

“I was educated at home, in the main by my mother.”

“I see. Can you do sums?”

“Yes, ma’am. I am quite competent as far as basic mathematics are concerned.”

“Would you be willing to copy out a short passage for me?” She turned to the bookshelf behind us and extracted a heavy volume. “Come and sit at my desk, and write out this passage for me, if you will.”

I managed to copy the entire paragraph she showed me—some ordinance regarding postal rates—without making an error or leaving any stray blots of ink, altogether a miracle under the circumstances.

“Wonderful,” she commented. “You write with a very fine hand.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“Do you have any references?”

“Only the one. From my former employer, the Marchioness of Dorchester. I was her companion for several years.”

At that her eyes grew round. “My goodness. How very grand. Now, Miss—”

“Mrs. My name is Mrs. Charles Taylor Bell. My husband died some years ago.”

“I’m sorry to hear it, my dear. I am Mrs. Smith, the village postmistress. I’ve been on my own for several years, ever since Mr. Smith passed away, and I’m quite desperately in need of an assistant.”

It took me a moment to absorb what she was proposing. “You’re asking if I should like to work for you?”

“Yes, dear. You have the requisite skills, and you appear to be an agreeable person. I think we shall get on very well together.”

With that one exchange, my future was settled. I began work the next day.

My duties at the post office weren’t at all onerous, although I didn’t relish rising before dawn most mornings to help sort the incoming post. I spent much of my time selling stamps, running envelopes through the hand-levered canceling machine and writing out postal orders, the safest and surest way for laborers and domestic servants to send funds home to their families.

Mrs. Smith found me lodgings straightaway with the town’s milliner. I had my own room, decorated prettily in shades of blue and white, and took my meals with Miss Jefferies in her little dining room. She was a friendly woman and took great delight in embellishing my lone bonnet with ever-changing ribbons and furbelows. I made no protest, for it gave her pleasure to do so, and I cared nothing for my appearance. She could have placed an entire stuffed pheasant on top of my head and I doubt I would have noticed.

Despite the kindness shown to me, and despite the quite absurdly congenial surroundings in which I’d found myself, I hadn’t the will to be happy. I hadn’t the will to be properly sad either. I simply
was
.

No one pressed me on my life before my arrival in Whitchurch—Mrs. Smith had told anyone who would listen, the first week of my residency, that I was a widow and seeking to make a fresh start for myself. And that was that.

As soon as I was settled I sent a short letter to Ida. I thanked her again for her kindness and told her I was safe and well and wanted for nothing. It was the truth, after a fashion.

The weeks passed, and summer gave way to a chill and dreary autumn. I caught a cold that wouldn’t go away, though Mrs. Smith tried her best to conquer it with mug after mug of peppermint tea and homemade licorice lozenges that made my throat tingle unpleasantly.

Whenever the post office was quiet, she let me retire to the back room to sit in her chair by the hearth and regain enough strength to continue on with my day. I hated doing it—I felt as if I were taking advantage of her nearly boundless generosity—so I tried to keep busy with such mending as she had for me.

One morning I was sitting in the back room, yet another mug of peppermint tea at my elbow as I worked my way through the mending basket. I had reattached a length of crocheted lace that had come off one of Mrs. Smith’s petticoats, and was about to start on a corset cover that had burst some stitches, when the bell sounded in the front office. I don’t know why I stopped to listen—the bell was always jingling in greeting or farewell. Yet something made me set down my sewing and strain to hear above the crackle of the fire.

Mrs. Smith was speaking to someone, but I could discern no reply, divine no clue as to whom it might—

“Mrs. Bell? I do beg your pardon, but a gentleman has arrived and is asking for you. Do you feel well enough to venture out? Or should I send him back here?”

I opened my mouth to reply but no words came forth. Surely this was a figment of my imagination, rendered febrile by my ill health and the excessively warm room. If I but waited a moment and closed my eyes, it would all pass, and I could continue on with my day.

“Hannah, darling. It’s me. Won’t you look at me?”

The floorboards creaked as someone knelt before me, only inches away. Strong hands took hold of mine in an unshakable clasp. At that shock of touch, unexpected but so very welcome, I opened my eyes.

It was Leo, but the man before me was greatly changed from the last time I had seen him. He was unshaven, his hair tousled and unkempt, and his clothes were wrinkled and stained with the mud and muck of travel. His coat, once so carefully tailored, no longer fit him properly. He had lost weight—had he been ill?

I touched his face, his beautiful face that I’d thought never to see again. “How did you find me?”

“The morning after the ball, I went to see my parents. I must have arrived only minutes after you’d been sent away. My mother would tell me nothing, only that your plot to entrap me, as she called it, had been exposed, and she’d turned you out. She claimed to have no idea where you’d gone.”

“She didn’t.”

“I shouted the house down, but no one would tell me anything. I was frantic, a madman. I didn’t know even where to begin looking for you. So I began in Steyning, where you’d lived as a girl, and then the village where you and Charles had lived—”

“Henfield.”

“Yes. There was no sign of you there either. I was about to engage a firm of private investigators when Ida came to me. She’d had a letter from you, without a return address, but I was able to make out part of the postmark. From there it was simple enough.” At that he grinned, though it must have cost him dearly to smile over something so painful.

“Dare I tell you how much of this fair island I’ve seen in the past month? Whitnash, Whitehill, Whitehaven—I even went up to Whitby in godforsaken Yorkshire. And did you know there’s a Whitchurch in Shropshire?”

“I’m so, so sorry—”

“It was all worth it. Every mile I traveled—every miserable, flea-bitten, waterlogged mile—was worth it. For my journey brought me here, didn’t it?”

“I never meant to cause you any trouble.”

“I know. Will you tell me what happened to make you leave as you did? Without even a word of farewell?”

“We were discovered. Someone saw us together. So your mother called me before her, told me she knew everything, and gave me an hour to pack my things and go.”

“That I understand. But why didn’t you simply come to me directly?”

“She said she would cut you off if I didn’t leave. She said you would lose everything.”

“And you believed her?”

“What else could I do? I knew you wanted me, felt lust for me, but you’d never talked of anything more.”

“I know. I know, God help me. But I’m telling you now. I love you, Hannah.”

How I’d longed to hear those words from him, but they were so hard to believe. He saw the doubt in my eyes and laughed ruefully.

“Fine, then—here’s my full confession. Until that afternoon, when you saw me with Ida, I scarcely was aware of your presence. I admit it. I still have no idea why I behaved in such a fashion, what impulse drove me to act so rashly in front of you. But when you reacted as you did—no hysterics, no recriminations, as dignified as the greatest duchess in the land—I think that’s when I began to fall in love with you.”

“Why did you say nothing of how you felt?”

“For the simple reason that I was an ass. A complete and utter ass. I compromised you in every possible way, and not once in all these months did I offer you the hope of anything more. For that I beg your forgiveness.”

All that time I’d assumed he was simply being Leo with me, charming me as he seemed to do everyone else. He’d been affectionate, doting, attentive to my every need. But he’d never proclaimed his love for me. Had made me no promises.

Probably it was for the best, given what awaited him if he were to continue to defy his parents. Before I gave in, before I surrendered to him again, I had to make him see sense.

“Leo, you must listen. If you don’t marry Lady Alice, you’ll lose everything. Marry her, and I’ll stay with you. I swear I won’t leave you—I’ll be your mistress, if you wish. But I cannot allow you to do this. How will you live if your family disowns you?”

“Have you heard nothing I’ve said? I want you. Only you.”

“But my station is so unequal to yours, my—”

“To the devil with anyone who thinks you beneath me.”

“Then you must be practical. How will you live? You’re dependent on your father for everything.”

“On that point you’re quite wrong,” he said, and there was a note of conviction—pride, even—in his voice. “Did you ever consider how I spent my days when we were apart?”

“I…I always assumed you spent them as any other gentleman might,” I ventured. True enough, though jealousy had been the reason for my lack of curiosity.

“I see. One aimless pursuit after another, with a string of lovelorn mistresses stretching all the way to Paris and back again. Well, I have a surprise for you. I
work.
I’ve been working for almost seven years now, ever since I left Eton.”

“Doing what?” I managed to stammer out, not entirely believing my ears.

“I’m a director and part owner of the East Lancashire Railway Company. I own three cotton mills in Preston. And I have a stake in an ironworks in Coalbrookdale.”

Again he grinned, this time at my expression of utter astonishment. “It began when a school friend asked me to invest in a venture he was financing. There seemed no harm in it, and it was scarcely more risky than a game of whist, so I added my funds to the pot. We were so successful that I earned enough to purchase the first of my mills.”

As my surprise at his revelation ebbed away, embarrassment began to take its place. “I ought to have known—I’ve always believed you had the potential for great things.”

“Don’t apologize. I let very few people know what I was about, mainly to avoid a diatribe from my father on how I was disgracing the Dorchester name with my
bourgeois
leanings. But it also amused me to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes. If society was determined to think me a wastrel, then why not play the part?”

“But you could have told me. I would have understood.”

“I nearly did tell you, any number of times. But pedestrian concerns like commerce had a way of evaporating into the ether every time I looked at you.”

“You said you were playing a part—did that include everything? The gambling? The racing? The drunkenness? That’s all your parents ever seemed to talk about.”

“I admit to a certain amount of youthful misbehavior, but for some years now there’s been more of rumor than reality to it.”

“And…and the women?”

His smile evaporated. “I haven’t touched another woman, not even glanced at another, since I touched you for the first time. Tell me you believe me.”