Mrs. Drew Plays Her Hand (3 page)

The phrase had become legendary among the regiments. In battle after battle, with the 20th up against many a tight spot, he. had ridden Lord Henry up and down the ranks, assuring his men that he would "think of something" to get them out alive. It had worked, too, until Waterloo, when the 20th was almost blasted into a distant memory. Somehow they had survived. When they took him off the field on a stretcher after that endless day, he was still muttering, "... think of something."

He shook his head as he went into the house again. It's time to put those memories to pasture, he thought. Now I am a full-time landowner again. I wonder if I will remember how?

His sisters were kind enough to leave him alone for the rest of the day. Over dinner, he told them of his plans.

"I will start in God-help-us Northumberland before it gets too much colder, and see how things are."

"I do not know why you have to leave so soon," Amabel protested. "Your bailiffs have managed well for all these years. Surely after Christmas is soon enough, or even Easter."

"No, Amabel, it is not," he replied quietly. "I want to start now. I will look in on my tenants, too, and be back here before Christmas, I am sure." He looked at Lettice and Clarice. "I am certain you want to return to your own homes, too."

Clarice twinkled her eyes at him. "Tired of our company, Fletcher?"

He winked at her. "Does anything I do ever escape your sharp eyes, madam?"

She made no comment beyond a sharp laugh and a toss of her head.

"When will you leave?" Amabel asked.

"Tomorrow morning."

Amabel's eyes widened. "I am sure that is not time enough to make preparations, Fletcher!"

"Madam, I am ready right now. Pass the bread, please."

"It is not bread, Fletcher, but croissants," Lettice corrected.

"My God, Letty, give it up!"

He left before anyone was up except his groom, pleased with himself to have escaped even Clarice's notice. Beyond a change or two of clothes and linen, he traveled light, remembering that all his estates had the rudiments of soap, razors, and combs. And if he chose to light anywhere for a while, he could always summon a wardrobe from Winnfield.

He thought about stopping in York to visit friends, but changed his mind, the closer he came to that spired city. The friends he had in mind had two eligible daughters, and he did not wish a repeat of his recent experience in London. "No," he told his horse, "I do not need to be cut direct twice in a month. Once will suffice."

The memory smarted. The London Season had ended months before, but Lord Walmsley, his next-door neighbor on Curzon Street, had invited him to a small dinner and dance after his return from Brussels. The dinner passed off well enough, but when he asked one of the Walmsley chits to stand up with him for a country dance, Lady Walmsley had swept down upon him and declared that her daughters never danced with divorced men. She also added that no one would likely receive him, no matter his war record.

His mind a perfect blank, he had bowed to her, nodded to his host, who watched in horror, turned on his heel, and stalked across the ballroom floor, slamming the door behind him so hard that he had the satisfaction of hearing glass break somewhere inside. The next morning, he put his town home up for sale. He looked down at his horse then, grateful right down to his boots that his sisters had somehow not got wind of that development yet.

"So I shall not attempt York, my nameless horse," he said.

But the pull of the place was irresistible. He rode into the cathedral city, remembering happier days when the regiment marched through in full color, blooming with the flower of Yorkshire's finest sons. He had also attended boarding school in York before three years at Oxford, and then the army. He rode slowly past St. Giles, wondering if young boys still scaled the walls late at night. He would not stop to inquire. After his divorce, he was informed in a letter that his name had been removed from the list of trustees for that fine old institution. "Horse, it is a good thing I will never have a son who wants to go to St. Giles. I fear he .would not be allowed admittance," he murmured.

He stopped at the cathedral and dismounted, left his horse in the care of a street urchin, and slowly climbed the steps, pausing to admire the facade. The familiar saints gazed down at him with the sorrowing mien of medieval holy men. He shook his head and went inside to the cool gloom, redolent with centuries of incense.

It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dimness and then direct their gaze to the loveliness of the rose window over the high altar. He had stood before that altar with the beautiful Cynthia Darnley leaning on his arm as York's archbishop joined them together. Even now his heart turned over at the memory of Cynthia, her hair brighter than guineas, her eyes bluer than cobalt, looking up at him as though her entire future happiness depended on him alone.

What a fool I was, he thought as he sank into a pew and propped his long legs on the prayer bench. Too bad he had to be married before he discovered that she looked at every man that way. Too bad he had the impolite timing to return from Spain unexpectedly and find her in bed with his former roommate from Oxford and best man. Even now his stomach heaved at the memory of her scooting out from under that good friend, opening her eyes wide as she covered herself with a sheet and declared that he should knock first.

And then the bed had turned to blood when he fired at his friend, who sobbed and pleaded for mercy. His hand was shaking; his aim was off. The doctors declared his friend a lucky man. Of course, he would likely never father children now, but that had elicited only a dry chuckle from Colonel Rand as he read the letter from his solicitor over a Spanish campfire six months later. The letter had also included information about the anticipated writ of divorce, which gradually worked its way up to the House of Lords while he fought through Spain and Lady Winn fornicated through at least a platoon of former friends and relatives, his and hers. She continued to spend his money at a dizzying speed that infuriated him almost more than her blatant infidelity. He wasn't a Yorkshireman for nothing.

The actual trial and divorce decree had ended all that. Somehow Lady Winn had the misguided notion that he would be a gentleman and let her go after a slap on the wrist. To her furious dismay, he had paraded that platoon of lovers before the House of Lords and watched without a muscle twitching in his face as they described in great detail her peccadilloes. He sat there impassively, decorated in his medals, his arm in a sling from Bussaco, a betrayed hero, while the Lords threw her to the dogs.

But now he was a divorced man, and no one would receive him, either. He stared at the lovely window a moment longer, watching it change color as the clouds maneuvered around the noonday sun outside. I suppose I should have kept her, he thought. At least I would still be received in places where I used to go with some pleasure. I could have done like so many of my generation and taken a mistress of my own. So what if our dishonor stank
to
heaven?

He lowered his glance to the altar and knew that he could never have done that. Lord Winn rose to his feet, yawned and stretched, overlooking the frowns and stares of the few others at prayer in the cathedral. The trouble was, I actually listened to the archbishop when he spoke of loving, honoring, and obeying, he reflected to himself. They were more than words or hollow form to me, thank you, Lady Winn. Damn you, Lady Winn.

He stalked down the center aisle, his hands clasped behind his back. The glow of candles at the side altar caught his eye and he went toward it. He tossed a shilling in the poor box and lit a candle from one already burning and replaced it carefully in its slot.

For the life of him, he could not think of anything to propitiate heaven for. His existence was over at thirty-eight, and it only remained to keep going until death eventually caught up with that reality and relieved him of his burdens.

But as he stood there, hypnotized a little by the flames, he knew that it was a sham. He could tell his friends and family that he never wanted a wife again, but he still could not lie to the Almighty. "A good woman, Lord," he said out loud. "Someone I can trust. Is there one anywhere?"

He waited a moment for an answer, got none, turned on his heel and left the cathedral.

To his credit, Tibbie Winslow did not stare at her as though she had lost all reason and was frothing about the mouth. He rubbed his chin.

"Come now, little lady?"

The words tumbled out of her. "Oh, Mr. Winslow, please let me rent this place from you!"

He shook his head. "I could'na do such a thing, Mrs. Drew! People would think me a sorry creature to rent you this run-down pile. I am sure if Lord Winn ever visits, he'll just tell me to put a match to it. No, Mrs. Drew." He waved a hand at her and started for the manor house.

She hurried after him, resisting the urge to pluck at his sleeve and skip beside him, as Felicity would have done. "Please, Mr. Winslow. If you can replace the windows that have broken, and just fix the roof, I am sure I can do the rest."

He stopped to stare then. "Mrs. Drew, that's a man's work!"

"Well, sir, I have been doing a man's work for three years and more now," she insisted. "The vicar was too ill for home repair, so I... I did it. I can paint and hang wallpaper. I might need some help with the floors, though." She stopped, out of breath, and embarrassed at her own temerity.

She held her peace then, watching Winslow's face as he seriously considered what she was saying for the first time. "You could put it to rights then, Mrs. Drew?"

"If you can fix the roof and the windows, I know I can," she declared, her eyes on the Yorkman as she considered what he would find most appealing about the arrangement. "And all at practically no expense to your landlord. We will save this lovely old house for him, and pay him rent besides."

Winslow looked back at the dower house, which glowed, honey-colored, in the early light of the autumn day. "No doubt Lord Winn would be tickled to find the place cared for," lie mused out loud. "And I am thinking there is paint and wallpaper left over from the last renovation at the main house." He took a good look at her and slowly shook his head. "You're such a little bit of a thing. How can you do all that?"

She stood as tail as she could. This is my last chance, she realized, recognizing the look on his face from her own years of living with a man of York. Oh, Anthony, what would you do? She took a deep breath. "My husband always used to say that the dog in a fight was not half so important as the fight in the dog-Mr. Winslow, I can do it, and my girls need a place to live."

"Lord Whitcomb won't take you in?" he asked, his voice quiet, as though someone eavesdropped.

"He will, but I do not wish to live under his roof. I think he would try to make me ... too dependent." There, she thought as she blushed. Read into that what you will. If you are a man with a conscience, I will not need to say more.

Winslow resumed walking, and her heart fell into her shoes. But he was talking as he walked, and she listened with hope, even as she hurried along and tried not to limp with her blister.

"I've heard rumors about your brother-in-law, Mrs. Drew. Didn't believe them then, but happen I do now," he said carefully, walking casually ahead of her, sparing her the embarrassment of his scrutiny during such a delicate conversation.

Roxanna watched his back as he walked before her, and silently blessed that tenderness of feeling she had noted before in other rough Yorkmen. She waited a moment before she spoke again.

"Well, then, sir, you understand my need," she said at last.

"P'raps I do, miss, p'raps I do," he said, still not looking at her. "Would ten pounds for the year suit you? I would blush to charge any more for a ruin. I can have that roof fixed by this time next week, and the windows sooner."

She was close to tears, but she knew better than to cry. "It will suit me right down to the ground, Mr. Winslow."

He turned around then, his hand stretched out, and shook her hand. "Done, then, Mrs. Drew. And it's just Tibbie to you." He took out the key from his vest pocket and placed it carefully in her palm. "You're not getting a bargain, mind."

"Oh, yes, I am!" she said. "We don't mind roughing it as we fix the place room by room."

He nodded, his eyes bright. "And it might be a project to occupy your mind, if you don't object to my saying that."

She could not speak then, and he looked beyond her shoulder, his own words gently chosen. "Now then, Mrs. Drew, we both have a good bargain. And only think how this will please Lord Winn. I don't remember much about him, except that he loves a good bargain."

Roxanna nodded, clutching the key in her fingers and memorizing its contours. "So do I, Tibbie," she said, smiling at him. "When can we move in?"

Tibbie looked back at the house, his eyes on the roof. "No reason why it won't be ready this time next week, Mrs. Drew. No reason at all."

Her heel scarcely pained her as she walked the remaining three miles to the vicarage. I have a place to live, she wanted to sing out to the fanners she passed, already out in their fields. Instead, she nodded to them soberly, the picture of sorrowing rectitude in her widow's weeds. Inside, her heart danced. She passed the parish church, too late this morning to stop in and see how Anthony did. She blew him a kiss as she passed his gravestone. "Anthony, it won't be as good as it was, but it will be better than it could have been," she whispered as she hurried by.

The girls and Meggie Watson were waiting at the table for her when she hurried to the breakfast room, flinging aside her bonnet and pelisse. Felicity, brown eyes bright, looked up from an earnest contemplation of her cooling porridge.

"Mama, you are toooo slow," she chided. "Didn't you remember that I am hungry in the morning?"

Roxanna laughed and kissed the top of her younger daughter's curly head, still tousled from a night of vigorous sleep. Like herself, Felicity did nothing by half turns.

"Silly mop," she said, her arms around her daughter's shoulders. "You are hungry at every meal. Helen, you seem to have all the family patience."

"Papa and I," Helen corrected gently. She smiled briefly at her mother, a smile that went nowhere, and then directed her gaze out the window again.

Roxanna released Felicity and put her arms about Helen's shoulders. How thin you are, she thought. And how silent. She rested her hands on her daughter for a moment more, thinking of the many whispered conversations that Helen and Anthony had granted each other in those last few months, when he was in continual pain and scarcely anything soothed him except the presence of his older child. Did you absorb all that pain? she thought, not for the first time, as she touched Helen's averted cheek, then sat down at the head of the table.

"We were wondering if a highwayman had abducted you, Mrs. Drew," Meggie Watson said.

"And what would he do with me, Meggie?" Roxanna teased. "I have no money and no prospects."

"Mama, perhaps a highwayman would give
you
something?" Felicity stated as she picked up her spoon.

Roxanna laughed out loud for the first time in months. Tears welled in Meggie Watson's eyes at the refreshing sound, and Helen looked around, startled. Roxanna took her hand and kissed it. "My dear, we do need to laugh. But now, let us pray over this porridge, and then I have such news."

She waited until Felicity was well into her bowl of oats, and Helen had taken a few bites, then put down her spoon. Roxanna picked up Helen's spoon again and put it back in her hand, wishing, as she did at every meal, that she did not have to remind her daughter to eat.

When Helen had taken a few more bites, Roxanna put down her own spoon. "My dears, I have rented the dower house at Moreland Park for us. We will move in a week."

Meggie stared at her in surprise. "Mrs. Drew, didn't that burn down several years ago?"

"It is most emphatically standing, but it does need considerable repair. Tibbie Winslow assures me that the roof will be repaired by this time next week, and the windows replaced."

"Good God," Meggie exclaimed, her voice faint. "Next you will tell us that the floors have rotted away and the walls are scaling."

"I was coming to that," Roxanna said, wondering for the first time at the wisdom of her early-morning rashness. "We'll have to walk carefully until the floors are repaired, but there is nothing wrong with the walls that I cannot fix with paint and paper."

"Mama, I know that Uncle Drew promised us a place at Whitcomb," Helen said. "He told me I could have a pony," she added as she pushed away the rest of her porridge.

He promised me a great deal more, Roxanna thought as she regarded her daughter, but it is nothing I dare tell anyone. "I know he did, my dear, but I want so much for us to have a home of our own."

"We can stay here," Felicity declared as she finished her breakfast and eyed Helen's bowl. "This is where my pillow is," she added, with a four-year-old's unassailable logic.

Roxanna smiled at her younger daughter. "We can move your bed to Moreland, and your pillow. Besides that, my dear, Thomas Winegar is going to be moving in here to become the new vicar."

"Oh," Felicity said, her voice resigned, but only for a moment. She brightened. "He can sleep with you in your bed, Mama."

"Felicity, don't be a dunce," Helen said.

"I think it is a good idea." Felicity pouted as Meggie Watson tugged at her chin, and tried to hide a smile.

Roxanna laughed again. "Daughter, our dear Mr. Winegar is about to marry. He would probably have other ideas. No, we will move to Moreland as soon as we can."

Felicity was never one to release a topic without a good shake. "But will I like it there, Mama?"

Roxanna looked around the table at her daughters, Helen withdrawn again, and Felicity demanding an answer that would create order in her world, topsy-turvy with her father's death. She thought of Anthony, who used to sit in the chair she now occupied. When I leave this lovely home, I will leave part of Anthony behind, too, she reflected. The thought jolted her, and she fought to keep the pain from her face.

"Lissy, you will probably like it as much as you want to," she said finally. "That goes for you, Helen, and . . ." her voice faltered, but she raised her chin higher and waited until the moment passed. "And it goes for me. We will make the best of what we have left."

They were all silent a moment, then Meggie Watson rose. "So we shall! Girls, it is time for lessons."

Roxanna remained where she was as her daughters left the room. Meggie Watson told them to go to the sitting room, but she closed the breakfast room door and sat beside Roxanna. She took her hand.

"Mrs. Drew, did Lord Whitcomb say or do something improper yesterday?"

With a startled expression, Roxanna looked at the older woman and returned the pressure of her fingers. She nodded, unable to speak of something so monstrous. Meggie put her arms around her, something she rarely did. Roxanna allowed herself to be hugged, wondering that the starchy nursemaid would allow such a familiarity, but grateful beyond words for her comfort.

"I feel so helpless, Meggie," she said finally. "There is no one here who can extricate me from this mess, so I must rescue myself." She let go of the other woman. "I wish it were possible for women to make their own way in the world."

Meggie reached out to straighten Roxanna's lace cap, tucking her hair here and there as though she were a child. "There are two of us here, Mrs. Drew."

Roxanna smiled at the dear face before her, grateful again that Meggie Watson had come out of her well-deserved retirement when she learned of Anthony's illness. She felt a twinge of conscience, and took a deep breath. There was no sense in putting off a matter she had been agonizing over for months now.

"As to that, Meggie, I cannot pay you any longer," she said in a rush of words. "I will certainly understand if you choose to leave us, for it will not be profitable for you to remain here." She sighed. "Not that it was before."

Meggie blinked. "Leave you?"

"I can think of no way to pay you now. Lord Whitcomb controls my stipend, and I fear that after the way he left yesterday, he will not feel inclined to keep me from the poorhouse." Roxanna felt the tears prickle behind her eyes. She had spent the last three years keeping bad news to herself to spare Anthony more pain. To spill it out now into Meggie Watson's lap seemed like cowardice.

Meggie's eyes narrowed. "He cannot cut you off!"

"No, he cannot do that," Roxanna agreed. "There are laws. But he can reduce my stipend, and I fear he will." She got up and went to the window, her hands on each side of the frame, hanging on as though the room spun about. "I cannot give Helen a pony, or either child any luxuries, it will be everlasting porridge for breakfast and twice-turned dresses, and no hope of dowries." She leaned her forehead against the glass. "I admit I thought about his offer last night when I should have been asleep, and I was almost tempted . . . Oh, Meggie!" She burst into tears.

The nursemaid was beside her in a moment, hugging her as she sobbed. "There now, Mrs. Drew."

"You must think me terrible to even consider such an offer!" Roxanna gasped and covered her face with her hands.

"No, not at all," said Meggie. "It's easy to think crazy thoughts when you are desperate." She took Roxanna's hands and gave them a little shake. "But you're never going to be that desperate, because I won't leave you."

Roxanna closed her eyes and gathered herself together. "I can promise you nothing in exchange."