Miss Molly Robbins Designs a Seduction (29 page)

The idea of marriage was not something he had fully embraced yet—he knew only that he didn’t want her to leave him, and an engagement was surely the proper thing. A solid commitment.

Ah, commitment. That word was enough to strike a bolt of panic through his heart. Perhaps he was merely feeling desperate. It must pass. Surely.

It did not take much to discourage him from the idea of proposing, and her ambivalence about marriage did not help disperse his own fears. In the past, Margaret had proven herself sensible and intuitive. If she shrank away from marriage, it was probably for the best. She was dedicated to her work, but the woman he married would become the Countess of Everscham, and it would be most unusual to find a countess running her own business. He hadn’t thought things through enough. Probably, he thought morosely, because he’d never been in this position before. Never been in love.

It was a wretched state.

The woman who held his foolhardy heart and all the cards in her hands sat meekly waiting for the syllabub, her eyes averted, her face solemn again. It was dangerous to give one woman so much power over him and his happiness. How did it happen that he became enamored of her? Over the past five months she had turned his world on end, but where it began he couldn’t say. Although he’d been a stranger to gallantry for most of his life, he understood now that loving her as he did, respecting her talent, he must let her return to London and live as she wanted. Keeping her trapped at his side would not make her happy, and therefore it would not make him content either. He wanted what she wanted, even if it would cause him pain to let her go.

“I hope you continue to know success in your business,” he said finally. “I wish you every good fortune.”

Her lashes swept up, and he saw her relief and her gratitude, fierce and warm. “Thank you. And I wish the same for you. Always.”

They made love that evening with a new tenderness, and they did not speak another word. He held her in his arms until she gave in to dreams. Then he lay awake and listened to her gentle sighs, feeling her heart beating against his chest and the softness of her hair under his hand. Her hands and feet often twitched when she slept. That was the signal that told him she was far into her dreams. It was a strange sensation to be this intimately familiar with another body. He’d known his share of women, of course, but in the past he’d always kept a certain distance, going through the motions, keeping up a reputation for wickedness that prevented any marriage-minded matron from pushing her daughter at him. It had become too easy to breeze along, not caring, not thinking too deeply about the woman—sometimes
women
—in his bed.

He’d always thought that to let one in too far would be unmanly, a sign of weakness. If he closed his eyes, he could see his father seated at one end of the long dining table, his mother at the other, neither speaking. They went through the motions too, in a marriage that joined property and wealth but not hearts. He could not recall witnessing a single kiss between them, not even a hand held. His mother’s green eyes had observed her husband with polite coolness, unless, of course, it was one of those days when she’d angered him by doing something against his wishes. Then those eyes boiled with fury, emitting sparks to burn anything unfortunate enough to be in her path. The loud part of the fight went on behind closed doors, but the silent part continued long after, a menacing tension hanging over the house sometimes for days.

It often seemed to Carver as if his mother went out of her way to be defiant, to rouse his father’s foul temper and sharpen her own. Almost as if it was a game to her. When he saw his father’s tears at her funeral, he was shocked. It was the only time he saw the earl weep. After that, his father spoiled little Mercy, who was the physical image of her mother. It was as if he thought to start again, make up for the past. And Mercy, only five when the countess died, idolized their father, thought him above reproach.

For years Carver had resented the fact that his sister got all the good attention, and he realized that now as he held Margaret against his body and pondered his feelings as he’d never dared before.

He’d been afraid of so much, avoided coming to the estate because of all those terrible memories of anger and seething resentment. But having brave, fearless Margaret there with him had changed things, brought new light to the darkest corners. She had inspired him in so many ways. Made him want her approval, her smile. Made him want to step out of the shadow behind his father’s towering ghost and be his own man.

He used to laugh scornfully at other men who made besotted fools of themselves over some bit of petticoat. And here he was, hoisted on his own petard. In his case, it was even worse. Margaret the Brave firmly refused to devote herself to his bed. She was a working woman with a sensible head on her shoulders. Too good for him.

Oh, he’d taught her to be more playful, yes, but she was still, at her core, the decent, honest, and honorable Margaret Robbins. Despite her fears, he had not changed her for the worse. She deserved now to be set free, as he’d kept her long enough. If it caused him hurt to let her go, that was his own fault and part of his reformation.

When he woke the next morning, she was gone. He learned that she’d taken his coach only as far as the turnpike, and there boarded the mail coach back to London.

The sudden loss, although he’d prepared himself for it, was unbearable. Simply put, his world was not the same without her in it.

As he ate breakfast alone, Mrs. Martindale placed a large vase of roses from his mother’s garden on the sideboard behind him. “That young lady certainly worked miracles in her ladyship’s garden. Brought it back to life in the short time she was here. Some folk have that special touch, of course.” She sniffed. “Sadly, I never did.”

“Margaret Robbins has very clever hands,” he muttered. “A lot of clever parts. All of them astute enough to run away from me.”

“Evidently. Of course, if you had any functioning parts above the breeches, you wouldn’t have let her go.”

He turned to admonish her for that remark, but she was already moving through the door, making a hasty escape herself, and slamming it shut so hard that several petals were shaken loose from the roses and drifted slowly to the floor.

She spent the night at a coaching inn on the London road. As a young woman traveling alone, Molly was the target of several lewd glances, and while attempting to enjoy a supper of game pie, she noticed that one such glance came from a face she recognized. Arthur Wakely. Apparently he did not know her at first, but after eyeing her fine garments for several minutes across the crowded dining room, he finally looked harder at her features, and her scowling countenance must have tipped the scales of recognition.

Contrary to her hopes, he got out of his seat and crossed to where she sat. “Miss Robbins, what good fortune that we should meet.”

There were few things she would be less likely to think of as fortunate. “I hope your stay in Kent was beneficial. Are you returning to London?” She pitied his poor sister, if that was the case.

“I am indeed. I must say you are looking very well.”

It might have been the expected response to thank him for the compliment, but his greasy, smirking manner was in danger of turning her tender stomach on its end again. “Excuse me, sir. I am tired and must retire to my room.”

“Oh, but I thought we might talk a while.” To her horror, he reached across the small table and gripped her wrist. “I should like to catch up on all the news of our shared acquaintance.”

“I have nothing of interest to tell you.”

“How pert you are, Miss Robbins. Always so prim and pious. But I know what you are.” He leered at her, leaning closer until she inhaled an unpleasant waft of his drunken breath. “Seamstress, indeed. I know the truth about you.”

“That I am a hardworking woman of business, Mr. Wakely?”

“Hardworking you might be. But your business is not what you pretend. I always suspected it, and now I see you all dressed up like a hussy, waiting for a gentleman here in this inn, I know the truth, don’t I?”

“A hussy?”
She thought with amusement that Lady Mercy would not like to hear her gowns referred to in those terms.

“Your business, Miss Robbins, is managed on your back.” He curled his slimy finger against her pulse. “And I ought to find out just how hardworking you are for myself.”

A spark of panic shot through her. Traveling alone was a dangerous enterprise. There was no one in the inn whom she knew or trusted, no one she could go to for help. But the fear was short-lived. She did not have just herself to protect anymore, did she?

She smiled at him. “How is your foot, Mr. Wakely? Which one is it again that gives you trouble?”

He looked startled for a moment and then slurred an answer. “The left.”

“Ah. This one.” Molly moved her own leg swiftly under the table and stomped her boot heel firmly on the infamous foot.

Arthur Wakely released his grip on her wrist and shot up out of his chair, howling and cursing. Faces turned to observe his strange dance, and several folk laughed loudly at his performance.

She stood and shook her head. “You really must take better care of that foot, Mr. Wakely. I hope you won’t be too embarrassed by your actions tomorrow when you are sober. Good evening to you.”

There was to be one final epitaph for Arthur Wakely. In the morning, while boarding the coach for the next leg of her journey, she saw him again, but this time in the company of a short, stout, noisy woman with a severe countenance, who seemed to do nothing but shout orders. Molly watched in amazement as a shockingly humbled Arthur struggled to load the woman’s large trunk onto the mail coach without a word of protest. She’d never seen him so cowed in the presence of a woman. As the journey toward London progressed, she learned from his stern companion’s constant complaining that Arthur had met her while she was his nurse at the sanatorium in Kent, and she had, somehow, cornered him into marrying her.

As Molly realized that Mr. Wakely had met his comeuppance at last, she couldn’t help smiling at her reflection in the window of the coach. Carver and his good deeds, she mused, swallowing a chuckle. Sending Arthur Wakely off to that sanatorium was perhaps one of the greatest of all.

***

The post arrived in Sydney Dovedale—or rather it charged through on its way between Norwich and Morecroft, pausing just long enough by the ancient oak at the crossroads to collect and deliver letters for the village residents. On this day in the midst of September, as the leaves began to fall, gold and fragile, the mail coach brought not only parcels and communications, but a prodigal returned. Miss Molly Robbins alighted from the crowded, swaying vessel, carrying one small trunk and a hatbox.

No one was there waiting for her, because no one knew she was coming. Two little boys, knocking acorns from the oak with long sticks, stopped what they were doing to inspect the arrival, and then, finding nothing of interest to them, resumed their assault on the old tree. Only a handful of others were there to meet the coach, and they, it seemed, did not recognize her in her new clothes.

Except for Mrs. Flick, the village busybody, who was possibly as ancient as that noble oak under which she took shelter, but whose eyesight was remarkably sharp.

The black-garbed old woman took one look at Molly and tripped, stumbling over her own walking cane, in such haste to hobble away and be the first to spread tidings, before anyone else saw the unexpected arrival in the village.

Molly let her go, even gave her time to get there ahead of her. Ambling down the leafy lane, she was in no particular hurry to face the questions that would undoubtedly greet her return. She breathed in the familiar, misty autumn air and tasted the bitterness of bonfires in the fields, the muskiness of damp, dead and rotting leaves. Two gray carthorses looked up from their grazing as she passed. Did they recognize her, she wondered? Looking ahead, she saw a soft mist settled over the jumble of cottages down in the valley. She stopped a moment, setting her luggage down in the lane to catch her breath and straighten her bonnet.

Well, there was her old childhood home. She had thought she could never go back there. She was about to find out if it was true.

She walked on, head high atop her strong bones.

***

Carver arrived in London and immediately heard from Sinjun that Margaret Robbins had mysteriously vanished. Lady Anne had booked several fittings at her shop and been attended each time by the assistants, neither of whom seemed to know where their mistress had gone.

“I do think she might have told me,” the young girl pouted. “I am surely her very favorite customer. Why would she up and leave without a word of good-bye?”

Edward Hobbs explained that Molly had paid him a visit shortly before she departed London and asked him to keep an eye on the business during her absence.

“But how long does she expect to be gone?” Carver demanded.

“She did not say, my lord, but I was given to assume a matter of several months, perhaps even a year. Apparently she is still designing and sending her work to the shop for the girls to make patterns.”

It was all very odd that she should leave her business in the hands of others. Carver knew her well enough to suspect something most dire must have occurred to drag her away from it.

“My lord, there is another matter of importance,” Hobbs added, peering somberly through his spectacles. “The issue you asked me to look into, regarding the child sent to the Cripplegate workhouse.”

“Yes, yes,” he replied impatiently, still worried about Margaret.

Hobbs hesitated and then, with a most unaccustomed flourish, stuck his quill into the bruised apple by his ledger. “I think, my lord, we had better visit the boarding house together. It is time the truth was out, for I’ve been burdened with it long enough, and in light of recent…developments…” Hobbs slipped his arms into a patched coat. “If you come with me now, my lord, all will be revealed.”

***

Lady Mercy sat across from her, trying to come to terms with what Molly had just said.

Molly waited, giving her friend time to digest the fact that she had come home to have a child. It was not an easy thing to tell anyone, and she supposed it would be no easier for Lady Mercy to hear and absorb it.

“Are we to know the father of the child?” her former mistress demanded.

“I would rather not say.”

Molly knew she must step with caution. If Lady Mercy heard the truth, she would instantly write to her brother.

“I came home to have my child here,” she continued, “and I had hoped my oldest friend would understand, even if she could not wholly forgive. But I am prepared to manage alone if need be.”

“Nonsense! You will certainly not go through this alone. It is not your fault, Molly.”

“Oh, but it is. I am to blame. I knew what I did. I knew the risks full well.” She referred to more than the chance of a pregnancy; she meant also the jeopardy in which she’d placed her heart, but she said nothing of that.

“I wonder why you didn’t remain in London or travel to some other town, like Norwich,” Mercy remarked, her eyes gleaming shrewdly. “One would imagine it easier to obscure a pregnancy among people one hardly knows and in a large town. Instead, you came back here to this small place, where we all know one another’s business and nothing remains secret for long.”

In fact, Molly had considered Norwich, but in the end it was peaceful Sydney Dovedale that called her home. She wanted her child born here, where the air was not clouded with soot, where the pace of life was slower, gentler, and where her own mother had raised so many babies.

Sydney Dovedale had its drawbacks, but also good points that far outweighed the bad. She planned to return eventually to her work in London and take her child with her, saying it was a relative left in her care. Other women managed without a husband, and so would she.

Suddenly Mercy’s demeanor softened. She reached across, grabbed her friend’s cold hand, and squeezed. “Don’t fret, Molly, of course I’ll help you, and I am glad you came here to have your child. In truth, I would have been angry if you did anything else. No one can take care of you so well as I. Worry not. I shall manage everything.”

Molly smiled and bore it all stoically.

Lady Mercy’s marriage to Rafe Hartley was planned for October. It was to be a small affair with just a handful of guests, but Molly was unable to ascertain whether the bride expected her brother to attend. When she inquired about it quite casually, Mercy replied that Carver was invited, but whether or not he would see fit to attend such a scandalous marriage was up to him.

“Carver has never been very fond of weddings, because they mean he must smile and be pleasant to people—oh, and he says folk at weddings have a tendency to corner him with questions about when he intends to have his own.” She laughed, and Molly tried to smile too.

But Carver was unpredictable. One never knew what he might do. Especially now that he was rising from his bed earlier in the day. It gave him so many more hours with which to cause havoc.

Eventually she decided that if he did come, she would be civil and act as if there was never anything between them but a business loan. She did not want anyone taking her baby away from her, and she certainly didn’t want Carver feeling as if he must make any form of recompense to her or the child. He didn’t want marriage or children. He’d always made that perfectly clear. And she didn’t want a husband. She wanted her independence.

Visits to her brothers and sisters passed awkwardly. They teased Molly for her “fancy” clothes and manners. The best cups were put out when she came to tea, and the children were squeezed into their uncomfortable Sunday best, forced to keep clean and tidy for the duration of her visit, which won her no admirers among the youngsters either.

Their wariness multiplied at church one Sunday when Molly appeared with a just-picked bunch of late-flowering toadflax tucked in her bonnet, an eye-catching display that caused Mrs. Flick to accuse her of “gaudy peacock vanity, and on the Sabbath too!” Apparently she ought to be ashamed of herself, but really, why would God not want to see a beautiful sprig of His own creation in church? So what if “dawdling” and stopping to pick wildflowers from the verge had made her late for Parson Bentley’s service? So what if it was a startling yellow and a little too abundant—almost covering one entire side of her bonnet? So what if it was unusual for Molly Robbins to draw attention to herself? So what, as Carver would say, who cares what they think?

They could all get used to the new Molly Robbins, and that was all there was to it.

She let out the seams of her clothes, and as the weather turned colder, more layers were appropriate anyway, giving her the chance to hide changes in her formerly slender figure.

At Lady Mercy’s suggestion, she applied to “Jammy” Jim Hodson and his wife, proprietors of Sydney Dovedale’s most important shop, and they agreed to sell pinafores, petticoats, and tippets that she made to stay busy and pay for her board and lodging with Lady Mercy.

“There is no need for you to worry about that,” her friend had insisted, but Molly would not hear of moving in without contributing to the cost of her keep.

On one mellow autumn afternoon, she walked with Rafe Hartley in his uncle’s orchard and apologized for jilting him at the altar all those months ago. He merely laughed and thanked her for seeing sense.

“Some things just can’t be helped,” he said. “Hearts will love where they desire, not often where it is practical.”

And she too smiled. “You were always in love with Lady Mercy. I knew there was someone, but I didn’t realize it was her. You disguised it so well by thoroughly hating her, out loud, at every opportunity.”

He shrugged. “A man has his pride.” Then as the laughter drifted off, he bent to gather a windfall apple. “You’ll find love of your own one day, Moll.” He shot her a sly, sideways glance. “If you haven’t already.”

Disinclined to talk further on that subject, she snatched the juicy apple out of his hand and walked on.

***

“Well, it took you long enough to come looking for that young lady,” Mrs. Lotterby exclaimed when finding Carver on her doorstep.