The Spinster's Secret (10 page)

Cecy sighed. Her gaze fell to the embroidery, but she didn’t ply the needle.

“He doesn’t compare well to other men, does he?”

“Mr. Humphries?” Mattie shook her head. “Mr. Kane is a thousand times more attractive, for all he is so scarred!”

“And Sir Gareth Locke.”

“Sir Gareth?”

Color crept across Cecy’s cheeks.

Mattie stared at her friend. “You like Sir Gareth?”

Cecy picked up her needle again. “I don’t know him well enough to make that judgment.”

“But…?” Mattie prompted.

Cecy’s blush deepened. “He has a nice face.”

Mattie considered this for a moment, and then nodded. Gareth Locke did have a pleasant face, marked with pain but attractive nonetheless.

But his friend, Edward Kane, was far more attractive, despite the red scars that slashed across his cheeks and brow. She liked the square solidity of his face, the humor in his eyes.

What would it be like to be married to Edward Kane?

Mattie pushed the thought away.

She cleared her throat. “Did you get the impression that Sir Gareth is looking for a wife?”

Cecy refused to meet her eyes.

“Perhaps,” she said, and then she bent all her attention to her embroidery.

…

Back in her bedchamber, Mattie sat down at her writing desk. On it were fresh sheets of paper, a newly-trimmed quill, and an inkwell. She stared at the paper, turning over in her head what she would write. No streams of blood, she decided firmly. And no fainting.

She picked up the quill and dipped it in ink.
Dear reader, I begin my memoir with that momentous event in a woman’s life, the plucking of her virgin flower. This occurred on my wedding night, when I was a shy and blushing maiden, not yet eighteen years of age. The mixture of anticipation and apprehension within my bosom, you can well imagine, for I was quite innocent and had no idea what to expect.

Mattie rubbed her brow. Now what?

Pain and awkwardness, according to Cecy.

She glanced out the window. Edward Kane rode across the fields to Soddy Morton.

In the act of intercourse, how much of a woman’s pleasure depended upon the man she lay with? Mattie tapped the quill against her chin, pondering this question, while her eyes followed Mr. Kane.

According to Cecy, intercourse was an uncomfortable and messy experience. According to the Countess, it could be wondrously pleasurable. And yet both had loved the men that they had lain with.

Mattie frowned. What could she conclude from that?

That the groom knew what he was doing and Cecy’s husband didn’t.

Mattie followed Mr. Kane’s progress across the fields. He was a giant of a man, broad-shouldered and barrel-chested, battered and scarred, but something about him—the gentleness with which he’d handled the kittens, the laughter in his eyes—made her fancy that he’d be like the Countess’s groom. A good lover.

Mattie tore her eyes from Mr. Kane’s distant figure and turned her attention firmly back to Chérie’s wedding night.

…

Edward found Gareth in the private parlor of Soddy Morton’s inn, midway through a late and leisurely breakfast. He looked at the food spread out on the table, at the tankard of ale by his friend’s elbow, and experienced a moment of pure envy.

Gareth grinned.

“Sit,” he said around a mouthful of sirloin. “Eat.”

Edward needed no second urging. He pulled up a chair.

“So what’s this about Chérie?” Gareth asked, as the servant went off to procure a second tankard of ale.

“I promised Strickland that I would look for her.”

“Why?”

Edward grimaced. “So he can run her out of the village.”

He piled food high on a plate.

The servant returned with the tankard of ale. Edward took a deep swallow.
Bliss
. He began to attack the food on his plate. Between bites of sirloin he told Gareth how he’d come to offer his aid to Strickland.

Gareth shook his head. “You’re far too soft-hearted.” He pushed his plate away and leaned back in his chair. “Toby would’ve been the first to toast Chérie.”

“I know, damn it.”

“Then why on earth are you . . .”

“Because I gave my word of honor!”

Gareth grinned. “You’re a fool, Ned.”

Edward didn’t disagree.

He spent several frustrating hours in Soddy Morton, running to ground the last four letter writers on his list. First was Farmer Plinhoe, a stolid, worthy man who was, in Edward’s opinion, no more capable of writing Chérie’s confession than he was of dancing on the moon. Next, he crossed the apothecary’s wife off the list, a hubble-bubble female with more hair than wit, followed half an hour later by Miss Spencer, the butcher’s daughter, who was eight years old. Which left one name on his list, Mrs. Thomas.

Mrs. Thomas’s cottage wasn’t a particularly attractive specimen. Nor was Mrs. Thomas. She was a slatternly woman, running to fat, with a heavy, jowled face. It wouldn’t have surprised Edward if she had once been a whore, but Chérie she most definitely was not. Mrs. Thomas was vulgar and not particularly intelligent, and Chérie—whatever else she was—was neither of those things.

Scowling, Edward rode back to Soddy Morton.

“Who the blazes is Chérie?” he demanded of Gareth, striding into the private parlor at the inn and casting his hat down upon the table.

Gareth glanced up from the newspaper he was reading. He shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t particularly care, either.”

Edward grunted. He stripped off his gloves and threw them down alongside his hat. He settled himself in an armchair beside the blazing fire. Unlike the chairs at Creed Hall, the armchair was sturdy. It didn’t groan beneath his weight.

“I’m going to die in Soddy Morton,” he said glumly.

Gareth laughed.

“If you were staying at the Hall, you wouldn’t laugh.” Edward slumped deeper in the armchair. “God-awful food. Freezing cold rooms.”

“Don’t forget the sermons.”

Edward closed his eyes and basked in the warmth of the fire. “Don’t get me started on the sermons.”

Although Miss Chapple’s voice was very pleasant to listen to.

“No wonder Toby hardly ever went home.”

Edward agreed. Where had he gone wrong? He’d been so certain Chérie was one of the people on the list . . . and yet she wasn’t.
I made a mistake somewhere
. But where?

He opened his eyes and pushed to his feet. The letter had been found in Soddy Morton, therefore, Chérie lived here. He would find her. Somehow.

“Where are you going?”

“Creed Hall.” Where the fires were too small and the food as bad as any he’d ever eaten on campaign. “But I’ll come down here and dine with you tonight.”

“I’ll be up at the Hall.”

“What?”

Gareth shrugged. “Strickland invited me to dine at Creed Hall for as long as I’m in Soddy Morton.”

“And you accepted? Are you insane?”

“Apparently.”

Edward observed his friend for a moment, then turned away. “Pretty little thing, Mrs. Dunn,” he said casually as he pulled on his gloves.

“Is she?” Gareth said, returning to his newspaper. “I hadn’t noticed.”

“Looks a lot like Miss Swinthorp, I thought.”

Gareth lowered the newspaper. “She’s nothing like Miss Swinthorp!”

“Pretty. Blonde. Petite.”

“Anyone would look petite alongside Miss Chapple. She’s a colossus.”

Edward bridled. “She’s not a colossus. She’s statuesque!”

Gareth’s eyebrows rose. “Touchy.”

He felt himself flush. He crammed his hat on his head and strode to the door.

“That wasn’t a slur, by the way. On your Miss Chapple.”

“She’s not my Miss Chapple,” Edward said. And he shut the door behind him with rather too much force.

Back at Creed Hall, in the gloom and the chill of the entrance hall, Arthur Strickland waylaid him.

“Have you found anything yet?” the old man asked.

“Not yet, sir,” Edward said. “But I will soon.”

Because I’m damned if I’m going to stay in this wretched place for much longer
.

He looked in the library. Miss Chapple wasn’t there. Nor was she in the drawing room or the parlor.

He climbed the stairs and met her on the first landing. She wore stout half-boots, a bonnet, and a thick cloak.

“Going for a walk?”

She nodded.

“May I accompany you?”

…

Miss Chapple led him on a different route this time, looping around the grey lake from the south. They fell into an easy way of conversing, as if they’d known one another for years. Her frank, open manner, her laugh, her sense of humor, reminded him of Toby. She was an unusual woman, quite unlike the simpering females one met in London’s ballrooms.

But then, simpering wouldn’t sit well on a female who was six feet tall.

“How are you progressing with
Pride and Prejudice
?” Miss Chapple asked.

“Slowly,” Edward replied. “I’ve been reading something else. Er…business matters.”

“Oh?” Her nose wrinkled. “How dull for you.”

He had an abrupt recollection of the confessions he’d read last night, the bashful young gentleman, the brawny sailor.
No. Not dull.

Edward cleared his throat. Memory of the confessions made him uncomfortably aware of Miss Chapple’s physical charms. They were quite abundant, the deep bosom, the ripe hips. She had a robust, voluptuous figure.

“I shall read a few chapters of
Pride and Prejudice
tonight.”

They maintained a brisk pace, covering the two miles to the lake in half an hour.

“How’s your leg?” Miss Chapple asked, when they stopped by the lakeshore.

“Fine, thank you.”

The pewter-colored water rippled sluggishly before a raw breeze. How the devil was he to find Chérie? The answer came as he gazed across the dismal lake.

“How well do you know the villagers, Miss Chapple?”

“Oh, I know everyone!” she said. “Why?”

“Er…”

Against this bleak backdrop, her cheeks flushed with exertion and her grey eyes sparkling, Miss Chapple was almost beautiful. The straight nose, the high brow, the lush mouth…

Edward shifted his weight. “As you know, I’m attending to a piece of business for your uncle. Looking for someone.”

The smile faded from Miss Chapple’s face.

“I was wondering…is there anyone you can think of in the village who has come into money recently?”

Miss Chapple blinked. “Money?”

“Yes,” Edward said, feeling foolish. “Someone who has money that can’t reasonably be accounted for.”

Her eyes were fixed on his face.

“The person I’m looking for is engaged in an activity that…that would earn them money.”

“What kind of activity, Mr. Kane?”

“I’d rather not say.”

Her gaze dropped. “Forgive me, Mr. Kane. I didn’t mean to pry.”

“No, no,” Edward said hastily. “There’s nothing to forgive. It’s merely that . . .”

Merely what?
Damn it, why had he promised Strickland that he would find Chérie?

He sighed. “I should never have agreed to do this for your uncle. Call me a fool, Miss Chapple. Gareth does!”

A smile glimmered in Miss Chapple’s eyes. “I would never be so rude.”

They resumed strolling along the muddy path. Edward looked sideways at her, seeing nut-brown hair half-hidden beneath an ugly bonnet, and smooth, creamy skin, and cheeks flushed pink in the chill air.

“You should wear red. Once you’re out of mourning.”

And then he bit his tongue. Where had those words come from?

Miss Chapple pulled at her gown. “Grey is a practical color. It wears well.”

“You mean . . . ?”

“I mean that I always wear grey, Mr. Kane. Whether I’m in mourning or not.”

“All the time?” Edward said in disbelief.

She nodded and then laughed at his expression. “I have shocked you, Mr. Kane!”

“But…a red scarf,” he said. “Red gloves! Red ribbons on your bonnet.”

“And how, pray, would I buy such things?”

He recalled her words from yesterday.
I have no money
.

“I shall buy some red ribbons when I’m next in the village.”

The amusement vanished from Miss Chapple’s face. “Oh, please don’t!”

Edward frowned. “Why not?”

“Because my uncle
particularly
dislikes baubles and ribbons and such. He believes they’re a sign of vanity.”

“Vanity?”

She nodded. “So, please, Mr. Kane,
don’t
buy ribbons for me!”

But cherry-red ribbons would look good on her. Either trimming that plain bonnet, or even better, wound through her hair. The color would enhance the rosy flush of her cheeks and the rich brown of her hair.

Your uncle is a miserable clutch-fist
. But Edward didn’t say the words aloud.

Instead, he said, “Very well. No ribbons.”

Miss Chapple smiled her relief. “Thank you.”

Edward didn’t reply. He frowned. The steeply-pitched rooftop of Creed Hall was visible through the trees.
Someone needs to rescue her
.

Chapter Eight

“You didn’t answer my question, Miss Chapple,” Mr. Kane said, as they started back around the lake.

“Which question was that?”

“Have any of the villagers come into money within the last few months?”

“Oh…”

Mattie bit her lip and pondered how to answer this. She glanced at Mr. Kane, seeing the square jaw, the laughter lines creasing the corners of the eyes, the cruel scars that scored his skin.

He had a nice face. The sort of face that one could trust. She wished that she could confide her secret in him.

Don’t!
An urgent voice whispered in her head.
He’ll inform your uncle.

She imagined confessing her secret, imagined watching the smile drain from Mr. Kane’s face, imagined him stepping back, his expression changing from friendliness to contempt.

What she was doing was so far beyond the pale that there was no one word for it. It was sordid, shameless, and unforgivable. People would look at her with all the condemnation they’d reserve for a woman who truly
was
a courtesan, worse, perhaps, because she’d dared to write about such things and sell them for the public to read.

The urge to tell Mr. Kane shriveled in her breast.

“Come into money?” Mattie said, stalling.

“Yes.”

Which was worse? To send Mr. Kane on a wild goose chase or to set him on the trail of an innocent villager?

Both were contemptible.

Mattie cast about for a third option. There wasn’t one—except the confession of her secret.

“I can’t think of anyone who’s come into money, but…but…Miss Eccles might know.”

“Miss Eccles?”

“She’s a retired governess.” Guilt twisted in Mattie’s breast as she uttered the words. She
liked
Edward Kane, and yet here she was deceiving him. “She lives on the other side of the village. She knows everyone and everything.”

His eyes lit with interest. “That sounds promising.”

Mattie nodded, feeling ill.

“Miss Eccles lives alone?”

“Yes.”

“Er…perhaps you could accompany me to visit her?”

She lifted her eyebrows in a silent question.

“My face alarms ladies. I look rather villainous.” Mr. Kane smiled, making the comment partly a joke.

“Hardly villainous!”

He shrugged. “You think Miss Eccles will happily confide Soddy Morton’s secrets to me?”

Mattie bit her lip. With his towering build and that scarred face… To an elderly lady, he probably would look quite terrifying.

“It would be my pleasure to accompany you, Mr. Kane.”

“Thank you.”

Mattie felt herself blush. Something about his smile made the day seem brighter, as if the sun had come out from behind the clouds. She scuffed the ground with her toe.

“Tomorrow morning?” Mr. Kane asked.

“Certainly,” Mattie said, and wondered if there was some way that she could delay visiting Miss Eccles for a couple of days.

But delaying the interview with Miss Eccles would entail yet more deception.

They resumed walking. Mattie trod miserably through the mud alongside Mr. Kane. It wasn’t meant to be like this, lie upon lie upon lie.

The path dipped into a dank hollow, then climbed a steep rise. Mr. Kane began to limp. Mattie slowed her pace.

Mr. Kane glanced at her, smiling. “Tired?”

“Your leg,” she said. “You’re limping.”

“No, I’m not.” The faint drag in his stride disappeared.

He picked up their pace again, but after a few yards, he slowed. “Perhaps a little.”

Mr. Kane’s limp vanished once the path leveled, but even so, Mattie kept their pace slow. They strolled back toward Creed Hall. The woods were dark and bare and almost funereal. Guilt built inside her with each step that she took, until it clogged her chest and throat. It was unconscionable that Mr. Kane be tied to Soddy Morton, wasting his time in a fruitless search, unconscionable that she be deceiving him.

They reached the stable yard. Mattie spun around.

“Mr. Kane, leave Soddy Morton!” The words burst from her. “Let me conduct your search!”

Mr. Kane blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“I know that you have promised my uncle to find someone, but there’s no reason for you to stay here,” Mattie said urgently. “
I
can look for you. I know the villagers! It will be much easier for me!”

“No,” Mr. Kane said firmly. “It’s not the sort of thing a lady should be involved in.”

He didn’t want her to have anything to do with Chérie. The irony of it almost made Mattie laugh.

“But you can’t wish to stay here. Creed Hall is…” She pulled a face. “You can’t
like
being here!”

“I have given my word to see this matter to the end, Miss Chapple. And I always keep my word.” The sternness left his face, and he smiled. “Is my company so disagreeable that you wish to see me gone?”

“No, of course not!” To her annoyance, Mattie felt heat rise in her cheeks. “It’s merely…I don’t like to see you trapped here when there are any number of things that you’d rather be doing!”

“Trapped?” His smile faded. “Is that how you feel?”

Mattie bit the tip of her tongue.
Yes
“I am very grateful for my uncle’s hospitality.”

“Yes,” Mr. Kane said. “Of course you are. Forgive me for asking. Shall we go inside?”

…

Mattie worked on the memoir until dinner, laboring over Chérie’s emotions upon her first sight of a naked man.
My beloved husband Joseph stripped off his clothes. I gazed upon him with awe. He looked like the statue of a Greek god, perfect in his proportions, manly yet beautiful.

“No,” she said aloud, and scratched out the last two sentences.

She tried again.
I gazed upon him in a mixture of trepidation and awe and shrank back as he approached me.

“Don’t be afraid,” he whispered, stroking his hand down my cheek. “I won’t hurt you.”

Reassured, I relaxed into his embrace.

Then what? Mattie frowned and glanced at the clock. Hurriedly she hid the pages and went downstairs for dinner. Several hours later, when she returned to her bedchamber, she picked up where she’d left off.

Tenderly, he divested me of my clothing. I blushed and shrank shyly from his heated gaze. Emotions rose in my breast. Fear was foremost, but close on its heels was an eager impatience to become an initiate of the mysteries of womanhood. My heart beat within my chest like the wings of a caged songbird. I was in the grip of such a painful mix of terror and anticipation that I felt myself close to swooning.

Joseph led me to the bed and bid me lie down and set himself most enthusiastically to the task of plucking my virgin flower.

Mattie frowned at the last sentence for a long time and then crossed out
enthusiastically
and replaced it with
tenderly
.

He soothed my fears with soft kisses and then…

And then what?

Awkwardness. Mess. Pain. Blood.

Mattie stared at the page until the ink had dried on the nib of her quill. No inspiration came.

She reached for a fresh sheet of paper, dipped the quill in the inkwell again, and started on the next scene.
I was a woman now, initiated into that most wonderful mystery of womanhood. I gazed at Joseph, slumbering alongside me, and knew myself to be the happiest of mortals.

But alas, dear reader, little did I know that in less than a month my beloved Joseph would be torn most cruelly and fatally from me, the victim of a tragic accident, and that I should be forced to walk quite a different path from that which lay shining before me in that happy moment
.

Mattie wrote swiftly, detailing Chérie’s descent from blissful bride to inconsolable widow. In a few words, she ruthlessly dispatched of any relatives who might have been able to help the young relict and reduced Chérie to homelessness.

As I stood weeping, with nowhere but the poorhouse to go to, I became aware that I was being addressed by a stranger, a tall and handsome young woman who was most elegantly dressed in the latest style.

“Pray tell me, why do you cry so?” she enquired.

Upon hearing my sorry tale, she exclaimed that she had the solution to my problems. At first I refused most vehemently. What she proposed was in every way repugnant to me! But gradually her persuasive words overcame my scruples. Her evident prosperity, her claims of the superiority of the house to which she was attached, her eloquent portrayal of my plight, convinced me that I had but one course ahead of me.

Miss Abbott (for that was the name that she went by) praised my decision effusively. My physical charms and youth, she predicted, would soon see me most satisfactorily established.

And thus it was, dear reader, that I, penniless and alone in the world, with my beloved Joseph not yet cold in his grave, embarked upon a career in that oldest of professions.

I put aside both my true name and my virtue and became Chérie.

Mattie re-read what she’d written. Yes, that would do.

She shivered. Her fingers were almost numb with cold. The clock on the mantelpiece told her it was past midnight. She hid the pages in the secret cupboard and climbed into bed. Wind rattled the window in its casement. An icy draught crept through the shutters, stirring the stink of her tallow candle. Mattie shivered again. In a few short hours she would accompany Mr. Kane to visit Miss Eccles.

“Please let it rain,” she whispered as she blew out the candle. “Please,
please
let it rain.”

…

It didn’t rain, and the visit to Miss Eccles was every bit as dreadful as Mattie had anticipated. The elderly spinster was delighted to receive visitors. Mattie sat, sunk in miserable guilt, while Miss Eccles conversed with Mr. Kane, her thin cheeks becoming flushed with animation and her faded eyes sparkling as she discussed her favorite subject. Soddy Morton and its inhabitants.

Mr. Kane introduced the topic of unexpected windfalls.

Miss Eccles knew of a number of people who’d come into money. She proceeded to list them.

“None from Soddy Morton?” Mr. Kane said with a smile. “An unlucky village!”

Miss Eccles clucked her tongue at this. “Not at all, Mr. Kane! Not at all! Why, Mrs. Starling came into money recently, and so did…”

Mattie stopped listening. She clenched her hands on her lap.
I am a despicable person
.

…

She walked back to Creed Hall with Mr. Kane across the sodden, fallow fields. The sky seemed to press down on them, heavy clouds riding just above the bare treetops. Mattie’s thoughts turned in a tight, unhappy loop as she trudged through the mud. Her eyes were gritty with tiredness.

“Are you quite all right, Miss Chapple?” Mr. Kane asked as they reached the final field.

The question startled Mattie out of her reverie.

“Perfectly. Why?”

“You were frowning.”

“Oh. Was I?” She tried to laugh. “I can’t think why!”

Guilt
, a silent voice told her. And although she tried to prevent it, she felt the frown settle on her brow again, pinching between her eyebrows.

“What is it, Miss Chapple?”

Mr. Kane’s voice was so kind, the smile in his eyes so friendly, his expression so sympathetic, that for a moment Mattie hovered on the brink of confiding in him. And then common-sense reasserted itself.

“Oh, nothing!” she said, casting about for a reason. “We’re expecting another guest tonight and…and I’m not looking forward to it.”

“May I ask why not?”

She pulled a face. “He’s coming to look me over. Like a cow being chosen for breeding.”

Mr. Kane halted, his eyebrows rising. “A cow?”

Heat flooded Mattie’s cheeks. She looked down at the ground, mortified.

“I beg your pardon! I shouldn’t have spoken so…so crudely.”

“A cow?” Mr. Kane repeated.

“I beg your pardon. I should never have said such a thing.” She’d spoken as if he was Toby, when he was practically a stranger.

“Please don’t apologize. Your frankness is, er…refreshing.”

She glanced at him. There was no censure on his scarred face, just amusement.

Her heart skipped a beat and then sped up. Mattie looked away.

“It’s Toby’s fault.” She tried to make her voice light, joking. “He told me so much about you—about you and Sir Gareth both—that I feel as if I know you far better than I actually do!”

“Everyone should have someone that they can talk to without having to guard their tongue,” Mr. Kane said.

She met his eyes. Time seemed to stand still for a moment, as if the earth had stopped spinning on its axis and the world held its breath.

Mattie ducked her head and began to walk again, squelching through the muddy field towards Creed Hall.

Mr. Kane fell into step beside her. “Is this gentleman really coming to…er, look you over?”

“Yes.”

Mr. Kane walked in silence beside her for several seconds and then ventured. “He may be more amiable than you anticipate.”

“He’s sixty,” Mattie said bluntly. “He has children older than I.”

“Ah.”

Tell me I’ll be lucky if he offers for me
.

Mr. Kane didn’t. He frowned and said nothing.

As if from nowhere, rage surged inside her. “Mr. Quartley wants an heir, and my uncle thinks that I may be able to provide him with one because of my childbearing hips. “

I am not a piece of livestock, uncle, I am a person. There is more to me than the width of my hips!

Mattie laughed, an angry sound. “What he seems to have forgotten is that Stricklands don’t breed well. My aunt never fell pregnant, and my mother succeeded only once, and that after ten years of marriage.”

Mr. Kane said nothing.