Mrs. Drew Plays Her Hand (4 page)

It was Meggie's turn. Her eyes filled with tears. "Tell me, Mrs. Drew, what do you think is so attractive about a little rented room in Brighton? I do not think you could get me to leave now, even if you tried." She hugged Roxanna again, then went to the door. "And now if I do not hurry, Felicity will think I have declared a holiday."

As if in response, the doorknob rattled. "Miss Watson, we are getting ever so weary of waiting," Felicity said on the other side of the door.

Miss Watson smiled. "She's your daughter, Mrs. Drew!"

Roxanna smiled and nodded. "So Anthony always reminded me. Thank you, Meggie. Words don't say it."

Meggie put her finger to her lips. "Then don't try. I do think you should get that ten pounds, to the bailiff as soon as you can. When Lord Whitcomb gets wind of this, and you know he will, there could be trouble of a legal nature."

"So true," Roxanna agreed. "I suppose we have our morning's work cut out for us."

She gathered up the dishes and left the breakfast room with them when she composed herself. The warm water in the dishpan was soothing to her jangled nerves as she washed dishes and dried them, and thought about the dower house. With the exception of the girls' bed, they would have to leave behind the other furniture. She put away the dishes, mentally sorting out which utensils she had brought to the vicarage as a bride, and which would have to remain. She had her mother's china, of course, but beyond a few pots and pans, the rest belonged to Lord Whitcomb. "And I will not be dependent on you, Marshall Drew," she said out loud, her voice low but fierce.

She separated ten pounds from the pouch hidden behind the row of ledgers in the bookroom, trying not to notice how meager was the amount remaining. She looked out the window at the farmland surrounding the vicarage, ready for harvest now, ripe with the bounty of a Yorkshire summer. It wouldn't be possible to depend upon the farmers bringing her fruits and vegetables now. They would go to the new vicar and his wife. Somehow we will manage, she thought again as she retrieved her bonnet and pelisse, found the old pair of shoes and a gum plaster for her heel. In a few minutes, she was hurrying toward Moreland again.

As she almost ran up the long, elm-shaded lane toward the manor house, it occurred to her that she had no idea where Tibbie Winslow would be. Anthony had told her that Lord Winn controlled several estates in the vicinity, and Winslow was responsible for all of them. "Oh, please be there," she said, out of breath, as she resisted the urge to pick up her skirts and race along.

To her immense relief, Winslow stood on the gravel drive that circled in front of the manor, hands on his hips, waiting for the shepherd to herd his flock to the overgrown hay field that was probably the front lawn in better times. She stopped to catch her breath and look around, then sighed with pleasure.

Moreland's yellow stone glowed like rich Jersey butter in the cool autumn noonday. It sat on a small rise, overlooking fields in all directions, fields aching for harvest. An orchard lay to her right, the boughs heavy with fruit. She smiled to herself, thinking of Felicity marching there and climbing up for apples. Perhaps I will join you on a branch, my dear, she thought. Moreland was a working farm, burdened with a manor house at once pretentious and absurdly dear. The building had obviously grown to meet the needs of an expanding family that had also scaled a few rungs up the social ladder. I wonder they did not tear it down and build something in the grand manner, she thought. I am so glad they did not.

Winslow had seen her by now. He waved to her and motioned her closer. She walked rapidly up the gravel drive, noting the deep pits where rain and winter snows had washed away the pebbles. As she came closer, she noticed the gray paint peeling from around window frames and under eaves, and windows with no curtains.

"Change your mind, Mrs. Drew?" Winslow asked when she stood beside him.

"Oh, no," she declared, and held out the ten pounds to him. "I wanted you to have this right away so you would not change
your
mind!"

He smiled and took the money, motioning her to follow him. They went into the manor, and she looked around with interest. It was much as she had expected from her first traverse across Moreland's lawns only that morning. Everywhere was furniture draped in holland covers. She sneezed from the dust, and sneezed again.

"Needs some work, think on?" was Winslow's only comment as he ushered her into the bookroom and pulled down a ledger. He carefully wrote out a receipt and handed it to her. "I'll write to Lord Winn and let him know what I have done." He looked up at her from his seat at the desk. "He may not care for this arrangement," he warned.

"Well, then, it's a good thing I have a receipt," she said as she pocketed the paper. "And I'll hold him to it."

He paused then, and frowned down at the ledger. "There's summat else you should know, Mrs. Drew. Lord Winn has a rather checkered past."

She blew off some dust from the wooden chair facing the desk, sneezed again, and perched on the seat. "I had heard something about a divorce, Tibbie, but cannot see how that concerns me. This is just one of his many estates, isn't it?"

Winslow nodded. "He may come here after Christmas to look over the property. Beyond that, I don't think we'll see him overmuch."

"Mr. Drew told me there was a scandal of startling dimensions, but, sir, who of us does not sometimes fall short of the mark?" she said quietly, thinking of her own temptation only the night before.

"If he had the wisdom to hire you as his bailiff, I am sure he shines in certain essential areas."

Tibbie beamed at her. "Mrs. Drew, not everybody can dispense two compliments in one sentence! I've done my best here."

"It shows, Tibbie." Roxanna looked out the back window at the dower house beyond, noting, to her extreme gratification, that the front door was off its hinges and being planed to remove the warp. Another man walked on the roof, testing it carefully.

The bailiff followed her gaze. "I wish I could put more than one man on that roof right now," he apologized. "The harvest is on us, and that's even more than I can spare."

"I am grateful for whatever you can do," she said, and held out her hand as she rose.

He shook it and walked her to the front door. "Would it help if the girls and I came over here and swept out the house?" she asked.

Tibbie shook his head. "No need in the world, Mrs. Drew. We'll have it all right and tight by next Thursday. See you then."

When she arrived at the vicarage, pleasantly tired from her second vigorous walk of the day and thinking along the lines of a brief nap, she was met at the door by Meggie. The set of Meggie's thin lips, and the crease between her eyes were warning enough not to enter. She grasped Meggie by the arm and pulled her out onto the stoop. "Whatever is the matter?" she whispered.

"The very worst thing, Mrs. Drew," Meggie whispered back, barely able to contain her rage. "I sent Helen to Whitcomb for her pianoforte lesson. Lissy tagged along, and told her uncle about the scheme to move. You know how open she is! He's waiting for you in the sitting room. He looks like a leopard ready to pounce."

Roxanna leaned against the door frame, her stomach fluttering as though the breath had been knocked out of her body. "I suppose I was foolish to think that we could keep this a secret until we stole away like gypsies," she murmured, "but I did hope for a few days!"

Meggie shook her head. "We never thought to warn the girls." She sighed. "They wouldn't have understood, anyway."

Roxanna nodded. "Lord Whitcomb is an indulgent uncle to them," she said, her bitterness surprising her. "And he is an upstanding landlord, and an exemplary parishioner, a justice of the peace noted for his fairness! Oh, it galls me, Meggie!"

"Now what, Mrs. Drew?" the nursemaid asked, after the silence had stretched on too long.

Roxanna squared her shoulders and opened the door. "I suppose it cannot be avoided." She stood for a moment outside the closed door to the sitting room, trying to borrow courage from some unknown quarter.

"Should I go in with you?" Meggie asked, her eyes anxious.

Roxanna shook her head, took a deep breath, and opened the door.

Lord Whitcomb was on his feet in an instant, his eyes targeted on her face with a look of such outrage that it took ail her willpower not to bolt the room. In her whole life, no one had ever looked at her like that. She forced her feet to move her into the room, advancing even as her brother-in-law strode toward her.

He stopped directly in front of her, so close that she could feel the heat from his body. Roxanna gritted her teeth but refused to step backward. You cannot have that satisfaction, she thought as he stared down at her, his breath coming in short bursts. To her intense satisfaction, he was forced to take a step backward when she refused to move.

"Have you taken complete leave of your senses?" he roared at her.

Roxanna covered her ears with her hands. "We do not shout in this house," she murmured.

Without a word, Lord Whitcomb yanked her hands off her ears and held them pinned to her sides, then grasped her by the shoulders and shook her until the pins fell from her hair. "You idiot! You imbecile!" he shouted as he shook her. "That house is a perfect ruin and I will not allow you to move there! What can you be thinking?"

With a strength she did not know she possessed, she wrenched herself from his grasp. "You have no say in what I do with my family," she said, wishing that her voice did not sound so puny and frightened.

He grabbed her by the neck then, his fingers pulling her unbound hair until she cried out. "Oh, I do not?" he whispered. His face was so close to hers that she could see the pores in his skin. "I am meeting my solicitor at Moreland's dower house within the hour," he hissed at her. "Tibbie Winslow is a reasonable man. I'll send a cart Monday to move you and your goods to Whitcomb. Be packed and ready, you simple woman."

He released her then and threw her back against the sofa, where she doubled her legs under her and put her hands to her face to protect herself. She shuddered as he came closer, then held her breath, praying for Meggie to open the door. But he only stood looking down at her, and when he spoke, his voice was different. It was softer, the malice cloaked in something much worse than rage. It was the voice of a lover, and it filled her with more terror than the fear of a beating. "Oh, Roxanna, you will be such a challenge to me." And then he was gone.

Roxanna stayed awake late that night, fearing to sleep because she knew she would dream about the dreadful interview with her brother-in-law. She had sat awake discussing the matter with Meggie until the nursemaid finally looked at her with bleary eyes and said that she had to sleep or she would drop down. Roxanna nodded and took herself off to bed, too, hoping that she was tired enough herself to fall into dreamless sleep.

She could have saved herself the bother of undressing and putting on her nightgown. There was no opportunity to dream, because she did not sleep. She lay in her bed unable to relax, her eyes wide and staring into the dark, listening to the clock downstairs chime its way around the night. Every little murmur and groan of the old house as it settled sent her bolt upright in bed, clutching her blankets to her breast, terrified that it was Marshall Drew, returning to subdue her in a way that made her sob out loud at the mere thought.

Her hands tightly clenched at her sides, she lay still, wondering what she had ever done to encourage her brother-in-law. Had she ever acted in a fashion that would make him think she was interested in him beyond his position as her husband's brother? True, he took occasion to tell her what a pretty ornament she was to the vicarage, but others had told her that, too. She always smiled and blushed, and passed it off. Only when Anthony told her how beautiful she was did it move her. She sighed into the darkness. Of course, when he said that, he was usually in the process of relieving her of her clothes, or kissing her in places that would have amazed his congregation.

She got out of bed and sat at the window, dismayed at the direction of her thoughts. I am so vulnerable right now, she thought. Somehow, Marshall knows this. Do some men possess a shark's instinct for blood in the water? Does he know that I am very ready for a man's body again? This will never do, not if I am to remain an independent woman, with my own say in the future of my body and soul. What he is suggesting is devilish, and I will not yield, no matter how much I want to.

There, Roxanna, you have thought the unthinkable, she told herself, and felt the first stirring of hope. You are a widow of some six months, but your husband has been dead to you for more than two years. You would very much like what no lady talks about, but not from your brother-in-law, and most certainly not as his mistress. You can wait for a better offer. Somehow, you can hold him off, even though you don't really want to. Is that it, Roxanna?

She was still sitting in the window when the sun rose. Her spirits rose too, unaccountably. She had seen herself through another long night in three years of long nights. It was different earlier, she thought as she stared through exhausted eyes at the dew-covered fields and the river shining in the distance as the sun's rays struck it. Before, you mourned your coming loss. Now you mourn your loss and fear for your self-respect. Which is harder?

"Oh, bother it," she said out loud. "Anthony, you were a beast to leave me. How dare you?"

The question took her breath away and left her quivering in the worst pain she had ever known. To think ill of the dead, especially her beloved husband, harrowed her already raw flesh in a torment that was exquisite and brutal by turns. She forced herself to consider her feelings for the first time. Anthony was a beast to leave her with two small children, no home, no money, no prospects, and a lustful brother-in-law. She sat calmly in the window and stared down this living nightmare. The pain settled around her shoulders like an unwelcome shawl, wrapping her tighter and tighter until she could scarcely breathe.

And then when she thought she could not manage another moment, her mind cleared. "But you couldn't help it, could you, Anthony?" she said, remembering his long struggle to remain alive and with her, and the gallantry with which he compelled himself into the pulpit on Sunday mornings when he should have stayed gasping in bed. She remembered the hours he lay listening to her ramble on about this and that, when he was probably screaming with pain inside.

"Oh, Anthony, you did what you could," she said, her words no louder than a whisper. She closed her eyes then, and unaccountably, the pain began to recede, unfolding itself gently, softly, from her shoulders. She leaned against the windowpane, and thought of the everlasting card games she had played with her brothers when they were growing up in Kent. They showed her no mercy, compelling her to play terrible hands to the end, instead of folding the cards and running away to her dolls. At first she cried and complained to Mama, but then she learned to play the hand dealt to her. Sometimes she won, sometimes she lost, but she never threw down a dealt hand again.

"Do your worst, Marshall," she said to the window. "I will beat you at this hand." She smiled then, and resolved to finally write that long letter to her brothers in Bombay that she had been putting off. She owed them something.

But first I must face the lions, she thought as she got up and went to the washstand. The water was cold; but she did not care as she stripped off her nightgown and washed until she was a pincushion of goose bumps. Ruthlessly she looked at herself in the mirror, raising her arm over her head and noting how her ribs stuck out. You have taken perfectly dreadful care of yourself, Roxanna Drew, she thought. You are a skeleton with breasts. This will never do. She dressed quickly, and then looked into the mirror again at her face. It was still pretty, an older Felicity with flashing brown eyes and curly hair, and that relieved her. I would like to hear compliments again, she thought as she pulled her hair back and tied it with a white ribbon. I am sick of black. Surely a ribbon will not matter?

Dressed in black again, she looked out the window and saw a man hurrying across the field from the direction of Moreland. Well, Marshall, did you and the solicitor get to Tibbie as you promised? she asked herself. If the dower house is not to be mine, I will throw myself and the girls on the dubious mercies of the parish poorhouse before I will end up laid in your bed.

Blunt words, she thought as she went calmly down the stairs and opened the front door, smiling her welcome as coolly as though she greeted the ladies of the parish sewing circle.

It was a man she did not recognize from the parish. He tipped his hat to her and thrust a note into her hands, then blinked in surprise when she invited him in.

"My boots is summat muddy," he apologized.

Roxanna smiled wider. "Come in anyway, sir. I do not have any water on for tea, but—"

"We haven't no time for that, ma'am," he interrupted as he stepped inside and she closed the door.

As he waited, cap in hand, Roxanna opened the note from Tibbie and read it quickly. "He has something to tell me?"

"Yes, ma'am," said the worker. "Told me to walk you back. Says there's some ugly John in the neighborhood he doesn't trust."

"Well, I have not had an escort in some time, sir," she said. She wrote a quick note to Meggie, warning her not to let the girls out of her sight, and then wrapped a shawl around her shoulders. "Let us not waste a moment of Mr. Winslow's time, shall we?"

He may have been an escort, but the worker was not a conversationalist as they hurried across the fields. The farm laborers were at work everywhere, scythes flashing rhythmically in the dawn's light, as landowners stole every bit of light for a Yorkshire harvest. She breathed in the wonderful smell of the harvest, and pushed the poorhouse into the back of her mind. Time enough and then some, to think of that.

At least Tibbie is man enough to tell me bad news face to face, she thought as she hurried to keep up with her protector. He could have written it, and sent back the ten pounds with the letter. I hope I do not beg and plead and look foolish.

They hurried up the lane, and she was grateful to be spared the sight of the dower house in the rear of the estate. Tibbie sat on the front steps, waiting for them. "Now then, Mrs. Drew," he said as he stood up and held out his hand.

She shook it. "Well, sir, I thank you for what you tried to do," she said, determined to blunt the knife before he had time to plunge it into her chest. "I am sorry you had to face Lord Whitcomb yesterday. I don't suppose your interview was any more pleasant than mine."

He nodded and smiled at her. "Ooh, he was in a pelter, wasn't he? That's why I have asked you here, Mrs. Drew."

Roxanna squared her shoulders and imagined herself six feet tall at least. "Lay it on, sir," she said calmly. "I can take it."

He blinked at her. "Take what, Mrs. Drew?" He touched her arm briefly, his eyes boring into hers. "You don't think I have cried off?"

"I understand perfectly," she said, and then stopped, her eyes wide. "Tibbie?"

"I should give you a shake for your thoughts, Mrs. Drew!" He sighed. "Although I doubt me that you have a kindly regard for men right now. Come here."

He led her into the house and directly to the bookroom, where he took her arm again and walked her to the back window. She looked out, and felt the tears well in her eyes, just when she was so sure she was too tough to cry ever again.

Four men worked on the roof, with another two at the windows, removing broken shards of glass. Inside the front room, she could just make out other carpenters tearing up the floor. She could not look at the bailiff.

"He came here yesterday with his solicitor, breathing fire," Tibbie said, his voice quiet, but with an edge to it. "Told me I was to return your money and stop work on the dower house immediately. Told me if I did not, he would personally contact Lord Winn and demand it. Said I would lose my job and never find work evermore as a bailiff in Yorkshire."

"Sir, those are hard words and these are hard times. I think he can do what he says."

Tibbie touched her shoulder and she looked at him. "I told him I would die before I would stop work. Told him I had taken your money and signed a paper. Told him to go to hell, ma'am, if you'll excuse me. I also told him to do something else, but I don't think he can."

Roxanna let out a breath she felt she had been holding since she first spotted the man coming across the field to the vicarage. "I would like to have done that, Tibbie. I can say thank you, but the words seem a bit flimsy after what you have done."

The bailiff stuck his hands in his pockets and rocked back and forth on his heels, immensely pleased with himself. "You'll be a good tenant, I am thinking. Maybe there'll be zinnias in the spring in front of t'awd house?"

"Oh, at least," she agreed, determined not to embarrass this man with tears. "I would like to start some ivy on that west wall. It will take a while for ivy, of course, but I intend to stay in this game, sir."

"Ten pounds a year, and you're in, Mrs. Drew," he said and laughed. "And now, I have some harvesting to oversee. True, it may go a bit slower because of the urgencies on the house, but I don't care."

They shook hands again, and he walked her
to
the front door. "During his volcanic eruption, Lord Whitcomb lathered about having a cart at your door on Monday morning to remove your things to his manor."

"That he did, sir," she agreed.

"Well, how about if I just happen to send a cart Sunday afternoon?"

Roxanna grinned at the bailiff. "I think we could fill it and be off Lord Whitcomb's property before he has time to blink. I really should pay you for that service."

He shook his head. "You've paid your ten pounds, Mrs. Drew. That got you in the game, think on."

The leaves had been stripped from Northumberland trees by arctic winds when Fletcher Rand received the packet of letters. Amabel had forwarded them to the estate he left a week ago, and it had taken another week for them to catch up to him here at High Point.

He wrapped his many-caped driving coat tighter around him and wished he had resisted his sisters' endeavors to see him into a more modish wardrobe before he left Winnfield. He longed for his army overcoat, warm and totally without style. A fire burned in the grate of High Point's master bedroom, but it was a forlorn hope, competing with the wind that insinuated itself through every crack in the window frames. Lord, how do people live here? he thought as he shivered and opened the packet. Especially in October.

He set aside the letter from Amabel, not feeling sufficiently strong to read it until the chill at least was off his feet. The letters from his solicitor could wait, and there were no invitations to anything. He propped his boots on the grating and considered the remaining letter.

It was from Marshall Drew, Lord Whitcomb of Whitcomb Manor. He slit the envelope and spread the closely written pages on his lap, keeping his fingers pulled up into his overcoat as much as he could. He vaguely remembered Lord Whitcomb from his first and only visit to Moreland after the death of a distant cousin twelve years ago, but could form no opinion as he sat and shivered in a drafty manor in Northumberland. He recalled that their North Riding lands marched together across the eastern property line, and that was all.

Fletcher Rand sighed and leaned back in his chair, thinking dully of property lines, entailments, mortgages, summary leases, and quitclaims. His brain was crammed to overflowing with
de donis conditionalibus,
and today's unbankable entailment—or was that a
quia emptorisi
—on High Point. He longed to leap on his horse, still nameless, gallop to the nearest port, and take a ship to Spain. He seemed to recollect a seaside town on the Mediterranean side of Gibraltar where the food was good and the women more than willing. He could leave all his dratted property in the hands of capable bailiffs and never look a remainder and fee tail in the face again.