The Spinster's Secret (7 page)

The cat mewed again. The hay rustled more loudly, and then a warm, furry body rubbed against her.

“Hello, sweetheart.” Mattie stroked the cat, then broke the sausage into pieces and laid it on the hay.

The mother cat ate hungrily, wolfing down the sausage, while the three kittens clambered over Mattie’s skirts. Their furry little black and grey striped bodies were almost invisible in the gloom.

Mattie lifted one kitten in her hand. She held it, soft and purring, against her cheek.

“I shall take you with me, all of you, when I leave. I promise. No one will ever drown you.”

The sounded of booted feet echoed in the stables. The mother cat looked up from grooming herself, but the kittens paid no attention. Mattie crawled to the edge of the loft and peered down. An elderly man with a crooked back and bow-legged stride walked down the aisle below, broom in hand.

“Hello, Hoby,” she called down.

He leaned the broom against the side of a stall and tugged his forelock. “Afternoon, miss. How’s the kittens?”

“Very well,” Mattie said. “How’s your wife?”

“Oh, aye.” Hoby put his gnarled hands on his hips. “She’s right tetchy at the moment.”

Mattie bit her lip to hide a smile. Mrs. Hoby was always tetchy.
Prettiest lass in the village
, she’d heard Hoby say on more than one occasion.
And with a tongue like a razor’s edge. Lor’, she were a catch all right.

“What is it this time?”

“Hens,” Hoby said darkly.

…

Water ran in rivulets from the brim of Edward’s hat and streamed off the shoulder capes of his coat. He dismounted in the yard and led Trojan into the stables, whistling under his breath. He’d managed to cross one person off the list of possible Chéries, the baker’s wife. And he’d eaten two extremely tasty meat pies, followed by an even tastier apple turnover. And he had two thick slices of gingerbread wrapped in a clean handkerchief in his breast pocket, where the rain couldn’t reach.

The groom, Hoby, was talking to someone in the hayloft.

Edward stopped whistling. He glanced up at the loft and saw the pale blur of a face.

Hoby hastened towards him. He had a rocking gait, like a sailor.

“Sir?”

Edward’s eyes slowly adjusted to the dim light. He blinked and squinted up at the loft. The pale blur resolved itself into a face he recognized.

“Miss Chapple?”

“Kittens,” Hoby said cryptically, taking Trojan’s reins.

“Er…kittens?”

He saw Miss Chapple’s lips move, but the clatter of Trojan’s hooves on the flagstones drowned out her words.

“I beg your pardon?” Edward asked.

“Three kittens,” Miss Chapple said, more loudly.

“Oh,” Edward said.

Water dripped steadily from his coat. He wanted to take off his wet clothes, sit in front of a warm fire, and eat his gingerbread. But something about Miss Chapple’s face, peering down at him from the gloomy loft, caught his interest.

“May I see them?”

He saw her shrug. “If you wish.”

Edward took off his coat, shook the water from it, and hung it from an empty harness hook. He removed his hat and stripped off his wet gloves and hung them up too. Then he climbed the ladder to the loft.

Hay rustled as Miss Chapple moved back. He heard faint peeping sounds.

Edward stopped at the top of the ladder and peered into the loft.
What am I doing here? I don’t even like cats.
It was a fire and gingerbread he wanted, not a bunch of scrawny kittens in a dark, dusty loft.

“How old are they?”

“Six weeks,” Miss Chapple said.

She held out one hand to him. Cupped in her palm was a kitten.

Edward clambered the rest of the way up the ladder and crawled onto the hay. “Six weeks? It’s very small.”

“Take it.”

“Er…” Edward hesitated and then obeyed.

The kitten wasn’t scrawny. It had a plump, round belly.

Tentatively, he stroked the little creature. Its fur was soft and warm. After a moment, a faint vibration rumbled against his palm.

“It’s purring,” he said, astonished.

“It likes you.”

Thoughts of a fire retreated. Edward settled down on the hay beside her, careful not to disturb the kitten. He discovered that the more he stroked it, the louder it purred. It was an oddly pleasant sensation, the warm, soft fur, the rumbling vibration, the tiny creature’s trust that he wasn’t going to harm it.

Above them, rain pattered on the slate roof. It was cozy up here, dark and shadowy, with the sound of the rain overhead and the rustling of the hay and the dry, dusty smell of late summer. He glanced at Miss Chapple. She lay on her stomach, playing with one of the kittens, a dimple on her cheek and a smile on her mouth.

He wondered if Chérie had written about a tumble in the hay. If she hadn’t, it was an omission. There was something about a hayloft that made a man amorous.

Control yourself, Kane.

But his imagination took flight, telling him that Miss Chapple’s mouth was made for kissing, that her breasts would be ripe in his hands, that her wide hips would cradle him while he made love to her.

Heat flushed his body. He felt a surge of arousal, stronger than this morning in the library.

Edward looked abruptly away from Miss Chapple. He cleared his throat and forced his attention back to the kitten he was stroking. It chewed on his thumb. The creature’s teeth were surprisingly sharp, like little needles.

“Ouch!”

Miss Chapple laughed.

Edward released the kitten. It scampered off to ambush one of its siblings.

He shifted his weight, leaning back on one elbow, aware of the gingerbread in his pocket. He no longer wanted to eat it by himself.

“I purchased some slices of gingerbread, Miss Chapple, while I was in Soddy Morton. Would you like one?”

Her eyebrows rose. “From Oddfellow’s?”

He nodded.

“Yes, please! Oddfellow’s makes the
best
gingerbread!”

Edward laughed and discovered that she wasn’t exaggerating. The thick slices were deliciously moist, sticky, rich, sweet, and spicy. Quite possibly the best gingerbread he’d ever tasted. Oddfellow, the baker, hadn’t scrimped on butter or treacle or anything else.

They ate the slices sitting cross-legged in the hay, while the mother cat washed her kittens with ruthless thoroughness. Below them, in the stable, came the sound of a broom sweeping. Miss Chapple sighed in contentment when the last crumb was gone.

“Thank you,” she said. “It’s a long time since I’ve had some of Oddfellow’s gingerbread. It’s every bit as delicious as I remembered.”

“I’m surprised that you don’t buy some every day,” Edward said, resolving to do just that while he was at Creed Hall.

“I have no money,” Miss Chapple said simply.

“But surely your uncle gives you pin money?” Edward said, and then kicked himself mentally. It wasn’t his place to ask such personal questions.

She shook her head. “Uncle Arthur provides for all my needs. Pin money is…unnecessary.”

“Ah.”

“Whenever Toby visited, he would buy me gingerbread from Oddfellows,” Miss Chapple said, hugging her knees. “Once, I persuaded Uncle Arthur to let me send Toby some for his birthday. He was in Spain. He said that by the time it reached him, it had grown a handsome colony of mold!”

Edward chuckled.

The sound of sweeping below stopped. “Miss Chapple?”

Miss Chapple crawled to the edge of the loft. “Yes, Hoby?”

“I’ll be leaving shortly.”

Miss Chapple glanced at Edward.

“I think that’s a hint,” she whispered, amusement in her voice. “I think he thinks you might compromise me.”

He wouldn’t . . . but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t thinking about it.

The scene unfurled in his mind, peeling off her clothes, exposing her breasts . . .

Edward clenched his jaw and shoved the image from his mind.

Miss Chapple’s smile faded. “Don’t be offended, Mr. Kane.”

“I’m not,” Edward said hastily.

He tried to smile, to joke. “Of course he’s worried. I look like a savage.”

“Nonsense!”

Edward raised his hand to his right ear. Her eyes followed the movement. He knew what she saw, the stumps of his fingers, the ragged remains of his ear.

“You look like a soldier, not a savage.”

Edward lowered his hand. He shrugged and changed the subject. “If Hoby is leaving, so should we.”

Miss Chapple nodded, but she made no move to climb down the ladder. Her frown became anxious.

“Please, Mr. Kane… don’t tell my uncle about the kittens. He has a profound dislike of cats! He’d drown them if he knew they were here.”

“I won’t tell him,” Edward said. “I give you my word of honor.”

Miss Chapple’s expression relaxed. “Thank you.”

She stroked the kittens one last time, rubbed her knuckles over the mother cat’s head, and then scrambled down the ladder.

Edward followed.

Miss Chapple briskly brushed hay from her gown.

“Mr. Kane,” Hoby said, dipping his head.

His manner was courteous but faintly aggressive.

Edward met the man’s gaze, amused. So Hoby thought him a threat to Miss Chapple’s virtue, did he?

Two days ago, the groom would have been wrong. He’d been no threat to any woman’s virtue. But today, Hoby was right. Today his body was telling him that he was ready for sex again, that he
wanted
it.

“Afternoon, Miss Chapple.” Edward dipped his head in farewell.

He gathered his hat, gloves, and coat and strode out into the rain-soaked stable yard, whistling a jaunty tune beneath his breath.

The sooner he got back to London, the better.

Chapter Five

Edward changed into dry clothes and gave his wet ones to Tigh. “Sorry about the mud.”

“I seen worse.”

Edward went downstairs again. In the shadowy corridor, the sound of a raised voice echoed. Lady Marchbank.

He trod cautiously toward the library and halted in doorway.

“. . . will
not
have novels in this house!” Lady Marchbank said shrilly.

Miss Chapple and Mrs. Dunn sat side by side on a sofa upholstered in faded brown damask, looking for all the world like a pair of naughty schoolgirls. Lady Marchbank stood over them, shaking a slender volume bound in calfskin.

“Whose is it?” she demanded. “Which one of you is reading this rubbish?”

Mrs. Dunn seemed to shrink. She looked up at her employer and opened her mouth.

“It’s mine, Aunt,” Miss Chapple said.

Mrs. Dunn closed her mouth.

“I might have guessed!” Lady Marchbank said, and boxed Miss Chapple’s ears soundly with the book.

Miss Chapple winced. Mrs. Dunn looked as if she wanted to cry.

Lady Marchbank opened the book to its title page.

“Sense and Sensibility,” she read aloud, and shut the book again with a snap. “If you had any
sense
, girl, you wouldn’t read such rubbish. Filling your head with lies and absurdities! No wonder you can’t find a man to marry you!”

Miss Chapple looked down at her hands.

Lady Marchbank cast the book into the fireplace. Mrs. Dunn’s mouth opened in a gasp of horror. She rose from the sofa.

Miss Chapple caught her gown and pulled her back down.

Lady Marchbank picked up two more calf-bound volumes from the mantelpiece and threw them briskly into the fire.

“Let that be a lesson to you,” she said to her niece.

“Yes, Aunt,” Miss Chapple said in a colorless voice.

“I’m disappointed in you, Matilda. Extremely disappointed! Your uncle gives you a roof over your head and this is how you re-pay him!”

Miss Chapple bit her lip. Mrs. Dunn looked even closer to tears.

“Come, Mrs. Dunn.” Lady Marchbank turned away from the sofa. “It’s time that I took my cordial.”

Edward backed away from the doorway and down the corridor.

Lady Marchbank swept out of the library and headed for the staircase as fast as an elderly lady using a walking stick could sweep. A very subdued Mrs. Dunn followed her. Neither lady noticed him standing in the shadowy corridor.

Once they were out of earshot, Edward returned to the doorway. Miss Chapple no longer sat on the sofa. She knelt beside the fire, trying to snatch the burning volumes from the flames.

“Careful!” Edward said. “You’ll burn yourself.”

Miss Chapple glanced at him. “I already have.”

She sat back on her heels and sucked a fingertip.

He trod across the threadbare carpet and came to stand beside her. The books were well alight, the pages burning with hungry crackling sounds.

“
Sense and Sensibility
?”

“Yes,” Miss Chapple said, and sighed.

“I thought it quite a sensible novel,” Edward said, watching as one of the covers blackened and curled up at the corners.

He held out his hand to her.

“You’ve read it?” Miss Chapple asked, as he helped her to her feet.

Edward nodded. “It wasn’t yours, was it?”

She glanced at him sharply. “How much did you hear?”

“I arrived just before she boxed your ears.”

Miss Chapple grimaced. “Not my finest moment.”

Edward disagreed. What she’d done, taking the blame for her friend, was the mark of a fine character.

Miss Chapple sighed. “Poor Cecy. She saved for months to buy that copy. She hadn’t even read the first chapter.”

Edward felt a flash of anger towards Lady Marchbank. He swallowed it and said mildly, “I thought you said there were no novels in Creed Hall.”

“None that my aunt and uncle know about.”

Edward raised his eyebrows in silent query.

“We had a number of Mrs. Radcliffe’s novels, but the mice ate them all.” She pulled a face expressive of dismay. “But the last time that Toby was home he brought me
Pride and Prejudice
, which is excellent!”

“You still have it?”

Her eyes narrowed as she looked at him. “If you borrow it, you must
promise
to be careful. It’s the only novel we have now.”

Edward laid his hand on his heart. “I shall guard it with my life.”

The dimples showed.

He followed Miss Chapple across the library. She stood on tiptoe, pulled out one of the
Histories of Herodotus
, in its original Greek, and produced from behind it three slender calf-bound volumes, like those now burning in the fireplace.

“Well hidden,” Edward said. “I’m astonished that Lady Marchbank found
Sense and Sensibility
.”

“Cecy hid it behind
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
, because she’s shorter.” Miss Chapple glanced at the spines and put two of the volumes back.

She held the third one out to him. “Have you not read this?”

Edward shook his head.

“It’s quite the most amusing book I’ve ever read. Mr. Humphries is
so
like Mr. Collins.”

Edward blinked, bemused. “I beg your pardon?”

“Mr. Humphries, our new curate, is like Mr. Collins.” Miss Chapple tapped the cover of the book he held. “In here.”

“Er…he is?”

She nodded solemnly, but mischief sparkled in her eyes. “Cecy and I think so. Mr. Humphries isn’t so
precipitate
as Mr. Collins, but in every other way they could be twins!”

That gleam of laughter was contagious.

Edward found himself smiling. “I look forward to making both gentlemen’s acquaintance.”

…

He read a chapter before dinner, in the privacy of his room, but Mr. Collins didn’t make his entrance onto the page. Thus, it was Mr. Humphries, the curate at Soddy Morton, whose acquaintance Edward made first.

Mr. Humphries was a short, stout young man with a round and self-satisfied face. Edward knew within less than a minute of meeting him that the curate couldn’t possibly be Chérie. He also—within that one minute—took a strong dislike to Mr. Humphries. The man was pompous, not very bright, and basking in an inflated sense of his own worth.

The curate recoiled slightly at his first glimpse of Edward’s face. He blinked several times, an exaggerated opening and closing of his eyes, like a coquette batting her eyelids.

“My, my,” he murmured, after Sir Arthur had made the introductions. “My, my. A soldier, one assumes?”

“Yes,” Edward said curtly.

“Not one of our heroes from Waterloo?”

No. Not a hero.

“I was at Waterloo,” Edward said, even more curtly. “But I fell early in the piece.”

Someone less self-absorbed than Mr. Humphries would have listened to his tone and changed the subject, but the curate had espied a possibility to expound. He tutted loudly. “Wellington made a dreadful mess of that battle. Really, the man should have been stripped of his command long ago.”

Edward bridled. He opened his mouth, caught Miss Chapple’s anxious gaze, and shut his mouth again.
Not worth it,
he thought.
Let it go
. A man as portentous and self-important as Humphries wouldn’t listen anyway.

And so he gritted his teeth and smiled tightly, while anger built inside him. What did this soft, overweight curate know about Waterloo and the decisions that Wellington had been forced to make in the turmoil of the battlefield, and how
dare
he think he could have done better?

After five endless minutes, dinner was announced. Edward was relieved. His jaw had begun to ache.

Mr. Humphries obtained Mrs. Dunn’s arm with alacrity, so Edward found himself escorting Miss Chapple from the parlor.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly, as they exited the room.

“Not at all,” Edward said, though anger still burned in his chest.

Miss Chapple glanced at him and then rose on tiptoe.

“He’s a pompous idiot,” she whispered in his ear.

Edward bit back a sudden laugh. His anger vanished.

“Yes,” he said. “He is.”

“Thank you for being so forbearing.”

He nodded as they entered the dining room. The smell of last night’s boiled cabbage still lingered in the room.

Dinner was as silent an affair as it had been the previous two nights. The only sounds were the clink of cutlery and the loud chewing of Lady Marchbank. The curate spent much of the meal gazing admiringly at Mrs. Dunn, who ate with her eyes fixed firmly on her plate.

Miss Chapple watched Mr. Humphries watch Mrs. Dunn, a faint frown furrowing her brow. Edward agreed silently with her. The curate was
not
a good match for Mrs. Dunn. Or any woman—unless she was desperate.

Edward speared some overcooked beans with his fork. Was Mrs. Dunn desperate?

He noticed the shining blonde hair, the porcelain fragility of her features. Mrs. Dunn was an uncommonly attractive young woman. Surely she could do better than an overweight fool of a curate?

But her choices in Soddy Morton are limited
, Edward reminded himself as he chewed the beans. They squeaked against his teeth.

Mrs. Dunn was a widow, obviously impoverished, or she wouldn’t have taken this position. If she wanted to escape life as a paid companion, she must marry.

Edward looked from Mr. Humphries to Lady Marchbank and back again. Which was worse?

He grimaced. Both options seemed equally bad. He focused his attention on a piece of boiled pork.

…

The dinner dragged to its conclusion, the ladies withdrew, and Edward braced himself to endure both oversweet port
and
Mr. Humphries’s further commentary on Wellington’s errors.

He kept Miss Chapple’s words in the forefront of his mind—
pompous idiot
—and managed not to snarl at the curate as the man picked up his criticism of Wellington where he’d left off.

Arthur Strickland sat at the head of the table, nodding his head.

“My son would still be alive if Wellington had known what he was doing,” he said, when the curate paused to draw breath.

I doubt it
, Edward thought. But he saw that Strickland believed it. Humphries believed it, too.

“Yes, yes,” the curate said fussily. “Without doubt, my dear, sir. Without doubt.”

Edward gritted his teeth. He was still in possession of his temper when Strickland pushed back his chair and announced it was time to go into the drawing room, but only just. As they filed out of the dining room, he realized that he was actually eager for the evening’s sermon to start.
I’ve been in this house for too long
.

His eyes went to Miss Chapple as he entered the drawing room. She met his gaze, an anxious expression on her face. Her eyebrows rose in a silent question.

Edward rolled his eyes.

A dimple appeared briefly and was quickly subdued.

Edward bit back a grin and immediately felt better. He sat and tried to decide what to count tonight.
The
or
and
? He settled on
the
.

The reading was from Fordyce’s sermons again. Edward sat back in his chair, listening to Miss Chapple’s warm contralto, sipping his tea, counting the
the
s.

Ten minutes slid past and then another ten.

Mrs. Dunn wasn’t counting words this evening. She sat stiffly, her hands clasped in her lap, and her gaze fixed on Miss Chapple.

“Nothing can be more certain than that your sex is, on every account, entitled to the shelter of ours,” Miss Chapple read.

Mr. Humphries nodded as he listened to these words, his eyes on Mrs. Dunn.

“Your softness, weakness, timidity, and tender reliance on man; your helpless condition in yourselves, and his superior strength for labor. . .” Miss Chapple read the words without expression, either in her voice or on her face.

Mr. Humphries nodded sagely, secure in his conviction of his own superiority.

Edward almost snorted. Miss Chapple was easily superior to the curate in character, intellect,
and
physical strength.

He allowed his gaze to rest on her for a moment. Her hair was tightly pulled back, her gown shapeless, but he no longer thought her as plain as he had that first night. In the last day he’d learned to see past the drab exterior. The dimples were hidden now, as were the smile and the mischief gleaming in the grey eyes, but he knew they were there, and that made her attractive.

Edward blinked. Attractive?

He scanned her, no longer listening to the sermon.

Miss Chapple wasn’t pretty like Mrs. Dunn. Other than her mouth, her features were unexceptional. Her figure, though, was another matter. She was tall, wide-hipped, and deep-breasted. Goddess-like in her dimensions. Edward’s thoughts slid sideways. Venus would be just as strapping, just as lushly built . . .

He jerked his thoughts back to the drawing room, to the book of sermons in Miss Chapple’s hands, to Mrs. Dunn sitting stiffly on the sofa while Mr. Humphries observed her from across the room. He straightened in the chair and concentrated on counting the
the
s again.

…

Mattie knocked softly on the door to Cecy’s bedchamber.

After a moment, she heard a soft, “Come in.”

Mattie slipped inside. The room was dark.

She shielded her candle with one hand and whispered, “Did I wake you?”

Bedclothes rustled as Cecy sat up. “No.”

Mattie tiptoed across the floor and climbed up on the end of the bed.

“His attentions were quite marked,” she said, reaching over to place her candle on the bedside table. “He never took his eyes off you.”