Mrs. Drew Plays Her Hand (5 page)

But the letter in his lap wouldn't blow away, despite the steady breeze from the closed and bolted windows, so he picked it up and read it. When he finished, he looked into the flames. "My dear Lord Whitcomb," he murmured, "what the hell do I care if a widow is living in my dower house, as long as she pays rent?" He glanced at the letter again, wondering at Whitcomb's obvious bitterness, directed so acutely at Tibbie Winslow and this poor widow and her two daughters. Probably old maid daughters, without a groat between them for a dowry. Too bad.

Winslow had sent him a short note a month ago, describing the results of September's harvest on the North Riding estates, and mentioning at the end that he had leased Moreland's dower house to a vicar's widow, after making a few necessary repairs. And did Lord Winn mind if he took some furniture from the estate to put in the dower house? The widow was bereft of almost any benefit from her former vicarage. Lord Winn did not mind. Lord Winn could not even recall what furniture reposed in Moreland in the first place, so how could he possibly mind?

He sighed, crumbled the letter into a ball, and pitched it into the flames. He would go see Lord Whitcomb in two weeks, drink tea in his sitting room, and maybe offer Moreland for sale to him. He held that property fee simple, thank the Lord, and could dispose of it as he wished. Then he can do what he wants with that wretched widow, Rand thought. Lord knows I do not give a rat's ass for Moreland, or any of these northern estates. I wonder if I give a rat's ass about anything?

He picked up Amabel's letter when he could no longer avoid it. "And what scheme have you hatched for me, dear sister?" he said, addressing the envelope.

The first page contained a breathless description of the activities of her children, none of whom he could remember. The next page made him frown and mouth obscenities even before he reached her "ever yours in sisterly affection," at the bottom. "Damn you, Amabel," was the most polite thing he muttered as he sent the letter into the flames after Lord Whitcomb's tirade. At least she had not asked for money this time, he had to admit. She had informed him that Louisa Duggett and her parents, Lord and Lady Etheringham, would be spending the Christmas holidays at Winnfteld. "I will be pleased to act as your hostess and present you to this diamond of the first water," she wrote.

Lord deliver me from the Etheringhams, he thought. Their son had bought a colonelcy and managed to kill himself and most of his regiment at Waterloo, and the only daughter he remembered was rising thirty by now, and gap-toothed. He smiled unpleasantly into the flames, thinking of the Etheringhams, who were without question the most impecunious family in the peerage. Lord E. must think he can get enough money out of me to stay afloat, and offer his daughter as a sacrifice to a divorced man, in exchange for my respectability again.

Thank you, no, Amabel, he thought, and then began to wonder where he could spend Christmas this year. His best friends were dead on Spanish and Belgian battlefields. Perhaps Clarice could tolerate him, and resist the urge to dangle a woman his way. Clarice could probably be depended on to keep his whereabouts a secret from Amabel. He would write her in the morning.

Lord Winn reconsidered. The ink was probably frozen in the bottle in this cursed estate. He would finished up his business as fast as possible, direct his horse to Moreland, and write his letter there. It would be a simple matter to clear up this mess with Lord Whitcomb, assure Winslow of his undying affection, visit a few more estates, then beat an incognito retreat to Clarice's manor for the holidays.

Good plan, he thought, rubbing his hands together and blowing on his fingers for warmth. He cursed Northumberland roundly and stalked to the window. There was snow flying in the air, and despite his ill humor, the sight made him smile. And so another season turns, he thought, and I am older. Still alone, too, he considered, and leaned against the cold window frame.

But I was alone when I was married, he told himself. In all fairness to Cynthia, he could not blame her for that quirk in his character that isolated him from others. He had always enjoyed solitude. The war only made it worse, he knew. There was something about watching friends blow up on battlefields that led to a certain melancholy, he told himself wryly as he stared out at the snow, which was beginning to stick to the ground
now.
Others drank their way through the war, or wenched, or took fearful chances. He had withdrawn inside himself until he was quiet to the point that Amabel called him a hermit.

"And so I would be," he said out loud as he went to the bed. He thought about taking off his clothes, but it was too cold. He removed his boots and crawled under the covers, overcoat and all. He shivered until he fell asleep, thinking about Spain, and heat and oranges, and getting the hell out of Northumberland.

He left early in the morning, after scrawling out a note for his bailiff, vowing that he would return in the spring and try to figure out the legal tangle over High Point that had been festering since the days of the first Bishop of Durham, at least. "If it has waited five centuries, it can wait until spring," he wrote in big letters, and signed his name with a flourish. "After all, I am the marquess," he said out loud to the letter as he propped it against an ugly vase on the sitting room mantelpiece. "I can do what I want." He was still chuckling over that piece of folly as he mounted on Young Nameless and pointed him toward Yorkshire.

Lord Winn rode through snow all day until his head ached from the glare of white against the bluest blue of any sky he had seen. And there in the distance, and coming closer, were the Pennines, the spine of England, tall and brooding, and then a delicious pink against the setting sun. There wasn't an inn to be found on the lonely road, but he was welcomed into a crofter's cottage for the night, where the ale made his eyes roll back in his head, and the bread and cheese was far finer than the haute cuisine of his French cook. He slept three in a bed with two of the crofter's children, and was warm for the first time in a week.

The snow began again in the morning, but he rode steadily through the day and into the evening hours, telling himself that Moreland was only over the next rise. He wondered if Tibbie Winslow would have a welcome for him, considering that he was two weeks ahead of schedule, but shrugged it off. He rode doggedly on, thinking of Napoleon's retreat from Moscow.

It was nearly midnight when he rode wearily up the lane to Moreland, lighted by a full moon that came out from behind a bank of clouds like a benediction. The house was dark, which was not surprising, considering the lateness of the hour. To his dismay, he discovered that it was also empty, and he did not have a key.

"Blast and damn," he said out loud into the still night, irritated at himself for crowding on all sail to get to a deserted house in the middle of the night. He cleared off the snow and still holding the reins, sat down on the broad front steps of his property. Despite his disgruntlement, he had to admit that it was beautiful in the moonlight, the snow shimmering here and there like diamonds, the air so still that the trees were diamond-encrusted, too. The orchard to his left was dark and brooding, giving no hint of the promise of apple blossoms in the spring.

"Well, you brilliant man, now what?" he asked himself. The cold was seeping through his coat and his leather breeches, and his toes were beginning to tingle.

He thought of the dower house then, and got to his feet, wiping the snow off his cold rump, then swinging into the saddle again. Perhaps if the old widow wasn't too hard of hearing, or too much of a high stickler, she might let him in to sleep on her sofa. He rode around to the back of the estate, vaguely remembering the direction of the smaller house.

There it was, under the bare trees, smaller than he remembered, but a welcome sight. There was no smoke in the chimney there, either, but a lamp's light glimmered in an upstairs bedroom. That is at least hopeful, he thought as he encouraged his horse with a little dig in the ribs.

He knocked on the door and waited. After a long moment, he heard light footsteps on the stairs.

"Who is it, please?" came a small voice behind the door. She sounded apprehensive, and he couldn't marvel at that, considering the lateness of the hour. The old widow probably didn't have much male company, especially with two spinster daughters.

"I am Lord Winn, and I own this property," he said a little louder, in case she should be hard of hearing. "Could I come in? I think Tibbie Winslow was not expecting me so soon."

The key turned in the lock then, and the door opened upon the prettiest woman he had seen in years, perhaps ever. Her eyes were brown and round like a child's, with high-arched eyebrows that gave her flawless face a surprised expression. My God, I have never seen skin like that, he thought as he stared at her loveliness. She was all pink and cream, with dark brown hair tumbling out from under her nightcap. She was dressed in nightgown and a robe too large for her. It looked like a man's robe.

"You may come in, my lord," she was saying as he stood there gaping at her like a mooncalf. "It's too cold to stand overmuch on ceremony, if that's what you are expecting."

He laughed and came into the house after dropping Nameless's reins. "Oh, no, no ceremony. Now tell me, is your mother still up? I must ask a favor for the night."

She tilted her head in a way that he found perfectly adorable. "I am the mother here," she said. "What were you expecting?"

He stared at her in surprise, and she gazed back with that natural inquisitive look that was growing on him by the minute.

"Well, I mean, Tibbie mentioned a widow, and I thought, of course . .. well, you know .. ." he stopped, tongue-tied and feeling like a bumpkin.

"Oh." She looked down at the floor a moment, then back at his face. "My lord, young men die, too. As a former soldier, lam sure you are much acquainted with this phenomenon."

"I am sorry, Mrs.— Mrs.—" he stammered.

"Drew," she said, and held out her hand. "My husband was vicar of Whitcomb parish. Let me help you off with your coat, my lord."

They shook hands. Before he could protest, she grasped his coat from the back, and he had no choice but to pull his arms from the sleeves. For a little woman, she was a managing female, he thought as he obliged her. "I was wondering, Mrs. Drew, if I could sleep on your sofa for the rest of this night?"

She hung his coat on the coatrack by the door. "That will be difficult, my lord, as I do not have a sofa." She picked up the lamp she had carried downstairs with her and held it high so he could look into the sitting room, with the floorboards new and raw, but unpainted, and the wallpaper in tatters. "We're redoing it room by room, and the girls' bedroom was more important."

He looked around the bare room, cold and cheerless in the moonlight that streamed through the uncurtained window. "I certainly hope Tibbie is not charging you too much rent."

She laughed. "Oh, no. I am sure I am cheating you, my lord." She paused, as if trying to gauge his mood. "In the morning, I can show you what we have done with some of the other rooms. They should meet with your approval." He noted the touch of anxiety in her voice, but made no comment upon it.

He took his coat from the rack and carried it into the sitting room. "I can manage all right here on the floor," he said, spreading out the coat.

Her delightful eyes opened wider at that and she shook her head vehemently. "I won't hear of it, Lord Winn," she said, her voice a bit breathless. "I have a much better idea. You may take my bed."

It was his turn to open his eyes wide and stare at her. "I wouldn't dream of that, madam!" he insisted, and felt his cheeks grow warm.

"It's the only solution I will consider," she said firmly, and again he felt himself yielding without complaint to her competent management. "I can sleep with my daughters. There is even a hot water bottle for you." She peered at his face, her eyes filled with concern. "You look as though you have a headache."

"I do," he replied simply, charmed that she would notice, and quite forgetting his headache. "It's hard to ride in snow."

"I have headache powders in my room on the bedside table.

You will feel much better in the morning if you take some. Come, my lord. My feet are bare and the floor is cold."

He shook his head at her forthrightness, then remembered his horse. "Is it too much to expect a stable behind your house?"

"I am sorry, my lord. There is a little shed. You could stable him there until Tibbie arrives in the morning."

She sat herself on the bottom step while he went back outside, hurried his horse around to the shed, and tethered him there. "It'll do, 'awd lad," he said in his broadest Yorkshire as he removed the saddle and covered his back with several pieces of sacking. "We'll find better accommodations for you in the morning."

Mrs. Drew was still seated on the stairs and leaning against the banister, her eyes closed, when he came back in. He stood there a moment, taking in her loveliness, admiring her full lips and the absurd length of her eyelashes. This was a vicar's wife? My God, he thought, in reverent impiety.

"Mrs. Drew?" he said softly.

She opened her eyes, and he almost chuckled at that natural look of surprise on her face.. I wonder, can you ever frown? he thought in delight.

"Well, now, perhaps you will come upstairs?" she said. "Duck your head halfway up. The ceiling gets a little low there where the stairs turn."