To Tempt The Saint
The Reluctant Bride Collection, Book Four
Written by Megan Bryce
Narrated by Maureen Cavanaugh
Part I - London
Chapter One
George St. Clair sat smoking his cigar quietly
and gazing into the fire.
He worried the crumpled letter in his hand
back and forth, back and forth.
He’d thought about tossing it into the fire
but knew it wouldn’t do any good.
Not for anybody.
He couldn’t unread it.
Couldn’t undo the actions of his friend.
George could only pray, and since he hadn’t
done any kind of praying in years, he wasn’t
about to start on a scab like his
friend George Sinclair.
St. Clair choked, not sure whether it was
the smoke tickling or the tears threatening
or the laughter bubbling.
Only George Sinclair would run off to India
with the widow.
Only George Sinclair could do it expecting
to arrive at the very end a happily married
man with no consequences to pay.
St. Clair thought again about praying.
Just a quick, quiet entreaty to keep his friend
safe.
And whole.
And, God, happy.
Someone, somewhere, should be happy.
But God had never answered any prayer of his,
so St. Clair stared into the red and yellow
flames licking at his boots and went through
the quickly memorized letter again.
St. Clair,
Hold tight to your breeches because your worst
fear has come true.
I am going home to India, Elinor by my side.
Perhaps it wasn’t St. Clair’s worst fear.
Being forced to watch a pack of rabid dogs
tear the skin from his friend’s flesh sounded
just as bad.
I’d apologize for leaving without telling
you but there was little time and…
I know you.
You would have locked me away to stop me from
doing something so foolish.
He would have.
She’s worth any price.
Love is.
Love wasn’t.
May you find a love worth losing.
Or if you can’t manage that, come visit
us in India and we’ll find one for you.
Your never dutiful friend,
Sinclair
And if the thought of Sinclair and the widow
picking out St. Clair’s bride for him didn’t
make him shudder, nothing ever would.
St. Clair tossed the letter into the fire,
and then his cigar because the letter hadn’t
been enough.
He’d found love already.
He’d found a woman who promised to be steady
and true.
A woman to give him children and a happy home.
A woman with a demure smile and shy eyes.
A woman proper and good.
And then she’d been given to someone else.
His only comfort was that she and her husband
stayed in the country and he didn’t have
to see them.
His only comfort was that he’d been young
and foolish when he’d given his heart away
and could, almost, forgive himself.
His only comfort was that he refused to be
comforted.
St. Clair stood, straightening his coat.
He watched as the paper curled and turned
to ash, watched as the cigar smoked and burned.
When he turned away, he did it with no prayer
on his lips, but a curse.
For the widow; for a woman with a demure smile
and shy eyes; for every woman who could bring
misery to man.
A pox on them all.
Miss Letitia Blackstock did not exist.
Oh, somewhere she surely did.
Somewhere she spent her mornings walking sedately
and her evenings with her needlework and she
was good and kind and proper.
The kind of young woman who always obeyed
her father and listened to her mother and
was kind to her younger sisters.
Honora Kempe had met one or two or a dozen
Miss Blackstocks in her lifetime, and though
Honora had found them all boring, had chosen
to become one this time.
For this endeavor.
Next time she would pick someone with a little
more spirit and spunk.
But, she was Miss Letitia Blackstock for a
little while longer so she simpered a smile
and batted her eyelashes and quoted the bible
as if Miss Blackstock’s father was a vicar
instead of the tea dealer she’d imagined
him to be.
Some parts of her were harder to hide than
others and Honora found bible quoting to be
one of those things.
Inappropriate bible quoting, at that.
Honora had decided that Miss Letitia Blackstock
might be a bit simple-minded because she just
didn’t have the spite that went with taking
scripture out of context on purpose.
Honora Kempe had spite aplenty.
Spite and intelligence.
And a forgettable appearance that let her
wield that spite and intelligence against
the sons of the middle class again and again.
Miss Blackstock, tonight, waved her fan and
listened rapturously to a bookseller’s youngest
son as he pontificated.
He liked to think he was getting somewhere
with her, and he might have been if he hadn’t
kept interrupting her conversation with his
practiced diatribes.
No woman liked to be interrupted when she
was speaking.
Especially when she had a particularly useful
scripture to wield.
Blessed are the meek; for they shall inherit
the earth.
Matthew 5:5.
But she had no opportunity to share it and
when the bookseller’s youngest son delivered
Miss Blackstock back to her aunt and uncle,
she curtsied and smiled at him, then forgot
about him completely.
Uncle “Hubert” said, “I can’t take
much more of this.”
Aunt “Gertrude” agreed.
“I think we should go back to Edinburgh.”
Honora waved her fan and kept her Miss Blackstock
smile on her face.
“We can’t go back to Edinburgh, not yet.
Not unless you want me married to Mr. Scote
in truth.”
Aunt Gertrude made a very un-Gertrude-like
face, then rallied.
“Bath?”
Honora loved Bath.
But, again, it would be too soon and she shook
her head.
“It will have to be London, I’m afraid.”
“I hate London.”
And it didn’t matter which one of them had
said it.
They both hated London.
Honora didn’t enjoy it all that much either.
But the perfect city was impossible.
The perfect city was too small and too cloistered
and there was nowhere to hide.
But perhaps when Honora grew too old to continue
collecting suitors, and when they’d saved
enough money that her majesty’s five percent
gave them a respectable living, perhaps then
they could return home again.
Return to live near her young siblings and
not under her father’s thumb and live out
her days as a too-odd spinster.
Marriage was not to be for Honora but she
liked being engaged.
And she enjoyed her engagements while they
lasted because, sometimes sooner and sometimes
later, they would all end spectacularly.
And always by her fiancé because how else
could she force him to pay a modest sum for
his breach of promise?
She could thank the newspapers for the idea.
They adored reporting the goings-on of every
poor woman forced to sue when her formerly
affianced callously broke off their engagement.
The fact that such a heinous act sentenced
the woman to a life of poverty, forevermore
unmarried and childless, guaranteed that the
courts nearly always gave the woman a nice
reward for her suffering.
Those ladies chose to spend it, Honora imagined,
walking sedately in the mornings and practicing
needlepoint in the evenings and, perhaps,
mourning the life they could have had.
Children and a husband.
Honora had already mourned that loss.
And no court would ever reward the act that
had sentenced her to a life of poverty.
Forevermore unmarried and childless.
Aunt Gertrude said, “Everyone’s talking
about Miss Smith and the Earl of Ferrers.”
Honora nodded.
It was the latest, and greatest, breach of
promise suit ever brought to the courts because
the lady was asking for a ridiculous £20,000
in damages.
She would have been lucky to get a tenth of
that.
Uncle Hubert said, “She should have settled
out of court.
£1000 and she could have had a very comfortable
income.
In the country.”
Honora smiled.
“Do you think she could have even got that
without taking him to court?”
He nodded.
“£100 for a haberdasher or a clerk.
£1000 for an earl.”
Since they’d got £100 from a haberdasher
and £100 from a clerk themselves, Honora
had to believe him.
Aunt Gertrude sighed.
“Oh, for an earl.
One fell swoop and we would be done.”
Uncle Hubert fingered his cravat.
“And one short misstep and we’d shorten
our lives by the length of a rope.
Better to stay away from the landed gentry.”
Honora agreed with him.
She had no desire to pit herself against the
resources of the upper class and no reason
to.
It wasn’t an earl who’d stolen her life.
It wasn’t a married man of the landed gentry
who had preyed on a young girl’s loneliness,
naivete, and stupidity, and then left her
alone to bear the consequences.
It wasn’t the upper classes she would reclaim
her life from, one by one, man by man, until
she once again had the future she’d been
born to.
George St. Clair had taken an interest in
steam courtesy of his new-found love of cigars.
Steam ships sailed daily to the west bringing
back the fragrantly rolled leaves.
His father had sniffed snuff; George smoked
cigars.
He and every gentleman he was acquainted with
had caught the craze, the papers announcing
that this year more than 250,000 pounds of
cigars were imported into England.
The number continued to rise incredibly not
because there were more ships sailing, but
because they were faster.
Steam.
His father had watched masted ships head out
to cross the ocean, their sails flapping in
the winds; George watched coal-powered puffs
rising from stacks.
He had no doubt that in a few years they would
find a way to send steam-powered ships eastward,
cutting the trip to India from six months
to a mere six weeks.
He might see his friend again before another
eight years was gone, and St. Clair thought
he would enjoy the look on the widow’s face
should he track them down.
But today, St. Clair was still in England,
sitting in the back row of a large lecture
hall, listening to the first in a series on
the power of steam.
At the heat contained in fractured coal that
ran like ribbons down the backbone of England.
The only distraction to his thorough enjoyment
of the lecture was the sporadic snores emanating
from the gentleman asleep in the row in front
of him.
St. Clair shifted, grabbing the attention
of the woman sitting beside the snorer.
She turned her head just enough so that he
could see muddy brown eyes sitting beneath
a hideous hat and she whispered, “My uncle.
Some of us do not find heat and water so very
intriguing.”
St. Clair muttered, “Then some of us should
leave.”
She whispered to her uncle, “Awake thou
that sleepest,” and then to St. Clair, “Ephesians
5:14.”
But the man continued to sleep, and to snore,
and she merely shrugged and turned her head
forward again.
When the lecture was over, St. Clair stood
impatiently and jostled the man into waking
before stalking off.
At the next week’s lecture, St. Clair stopped
as soon as he entered the hall.
As soon as he saw a hideous hat placed jauntily
over muddy brown eyes.
His eyes flicked to the matron sitting beside
the woman and he stalked up to say uncharitably,
“Is this one going to stay awake?”
The younger woman didn’t tip her head up
to look at him but nonetheless said conversationally,
“Most likely.
She’s married, therefore has extensive experience
staying awake while a man pontificates about
a subject she has no interest in.”
St. Clair found he had no reply to that.
He stood there looking down at bare twigs
sticking out of her hat, then grunted and
took his now customary spot.
The older woman did stay awake, taking out
her knitting halfway through and click, click,
clicking through the lecture.
St. Clair did not miss that the longer the
clicking continued the wider the younger woman’s
mouth smiled.
St. Clair glared at the back of her head.
When the lecture was over, and he’d missed
one word out of every four, he stood with
a huff and left.
He nearly made it out the door before turning
around and stomping back to the pair of women.
He growled, “I assume you will be here next
week?”
The younger woman looked up then, a demure
smile stuck on her face but her eyes jabbing.
“Yes.”
“Would you be ever so kind as to sit in
the front.”
“I don’t think so.
I like to see the crowd as well as the speaker.”
“Well, so do I.”
“Oh, good.
Then we will see you next week.”
The next week she was indeed sitting right
in front of his spot but this time she’d
brought a maid.
St. Clair debated with himself but then, finally,
moved to sit in his accustomed place.
He would not be chased off.
Especially not by a woman who murmured bravo
condescendingly into her leaflet.
George made himself comfortable and said to
the back of her hat, “I will not be mocked
by a woman I have not been introduced to.”
“Very good.”
She turned slightly in her seat to look at
her maid and said, “And since we cannot
be introduced, you are protected from my scathing
wit.
Perhaps I will bring my uncle again next week
and we can dispense with the niceties.”
St. Clair could only think Dear God and Please,
don’t so he said nothing.
The harpy did not heed his silence.
“It doesn’t really work, does it?
Introductions and societal standing, not when
there are too many new people one must interact
with.
Not when we must decide on appearance alone
how we should act toward each other instead
of comparing our familial connections.”
“Appearance alone is enough.
I can tell all I need to about you by those
barren twigs sticking haphazardly out of your
bonnet.
You are a bluestocking from a good enough
family.”
Her lips tipped up.
“Bluestocking?
I suppose I can tell all I need to about you
from that term.
But then I remember you’ve come to learn
about the wonders of steam so you must not
be so out-of-date and old-fashioned as I imagine.”
The lecturer moved toward the dais, shuffling
his papers, and George leaned forward quickly.
“And I would enjoy being able to actually
hear all about steam today.
Your maid did not bring her knitting, did
she?”
The woman turned her head away from him and
back toward the dais.
“She will refrain.”
“If she snores, I will jab her with my walking
stick.”
She looked down at her leaflet again.
“Put up again thy sword into his place:
for all they that take the sword, shall perish
with the sword.
Matthew 26:52.”
The surly gentleman sitting behind Honora
did not use his walking stick on her poor
maid but only because he’d been too narrow
in his threat.
The maid didn’t knit or snore; she fidgeted.
And with every fidget came a creak and a moan
from her chair.
With every creak and moan came a loud sigh
behind her.
Honora was hardly able to hear the lecture
with all the moaning and sighing, and she
sighed quietly herself.
She really did want to hear all about the
wonders of steam, and she was running out
of companions.
Uncle Hubert and Aunt Gertrude refused to
come again and Honora could hardly blame them.
The wonders of steam– pistons and water
and coal– were a bit dry.
Honora wouldn’t bring her maid again and
there was only one other person she could
ask to attend with her.
She didn’t want to.
She wanted to keep him far away from anything
pertaining to Honora Kempe, and Miss Letitia
Blackstock would have no reason to be excited
about a lecture, about steam.
But she wouldn’t be run off by a sour-tempered
man.
Especially one who grumbled and sighed and
cleared his throat impatiently at her when
he rose to leave.
I can tell all I need to about you by those
barren twigs sticking haphazardly out of your
bonnet.
Honora watched as he stalked out the doors
and thought, No, you don’t.
Halfway through the next week, Miss Letitia
Blackstock had her first ever mental excitement.
It surprised everyone involved, but Honora
the most.
Perhaps she had underestimated the girl.
In any event, one morning when the quietly
charming and acceptably solicitous Mr. Moffat
came to visit, he found her weeping prettily
into a handkerchief and fell promptly to his
knees.
“Miss Blackstock!
You are unwell!
Let me call for your aunt at once.”
“Oh, Mr. Moffat!
I must look a fright.”
Miss Blackstock’s eyes sparkled from her
unshed tears and her nose was nowhere near
red since she’d been careful to pat it gently.
Mr. Moffat, ever the courteous gentlemen,
said, “You look radiant as always.
Please tell me what the matter is.”
“It’s uncle.
He’s so tired of hearing about the wedding
and the flowers and the trousseau that he
says my aunt and I have lost all reason.
That we are both too, too silly.”
“What else is an engaged woman supposed
to talk of but flowers and her trousseau?”
“Steam.”
Mr. Moffat sat back on his heels.
“Steam?”
“My uncle thinks I should be interested
in…science.
And progress.”
“Science?
Progress?”
Letitia nodded.
“To be well-rounded.
You know how he feels about being well-rounded.
The heart of the prudent getteth knowledge;
and the ear of the wise seeketh knowledge.
Proverbs 18:15.”
Mr. Moffat closed his eyes tightly, the scripture
quoting the least favorite feature of his
future wife.
Miss Blackstock did try to remember but Honora
had little hope she would be able to stop.
She said, “There is a series of lectures
about steam that he began taking me to but
this week he’s cried off.”
Letitia sniffed and stamped her foot.
“He thinks I’m silly!
I will finish this series to prove that I
am not.
Do you think I’m silly, Mr. Moffat?”
“Of course not.
I will take you.”
“To the lecture?” she cried, and he preened
at her.
“Of course.”
She leaned forward to whisper conspiratorially,
“It is terribly dull.
And the company is…objectionable.”
He smiled, obviously relieved to hear that
she did not actually find steam an invigorating
subject.
And then he frowned.
“I am sure your uncle would never have let
you go in the first place if the company was
not respectable.”
“Oh, it’s respectable.
Just…sour.
But you’ll see, when you take me.”
And she beamed at him.
They arrived at the lecture hall early and
Miss Blackstock gossiped about the attendees,
making up stories about them to make Mr. Moffat
laugh.
Her maid, to both women’s relief, waited
outside.
They made their way to their seats, Honora’s
eyes meeting the surly gentleman’s in the
next row back long enough for him to say,
“Let me guess.
Your brother, or a cousin.
Is there any hope he will be quiet for the
duration of the lecture or will you two be
chattering away the entire time?”
Mr. Moffat stopped and turned at the rude
intrusion.
“Not her brother or her cousin.
Her fiancé.
Mr. Anthony Moffat of Cheapside.
And you are, sir?”
Sourpuss looked completely taken aback and
Honora tried not to roll her eyes at him.
A woman wears a twig in her hat and the man
thinks she’s an open book.
Pfft.
He finally said, “Mr. George St. Clair.
Of Lancashire.”
“And this is Miss Letitia Blackstock.
At least for a little while longer.”
Mr. Moffat beamed down at her and Miss Blackstock
beamed back.
Mr. George St. Clair of Lancashire looked
like he wanted to vomit.
She nodded her head at him and said sweetly,
“So good to finally meet you, Mr. St. Clair.”
He looked even more taken back at her sweet
tone and then the skin between his eyes puckered
and he narrowed his eyes.
Honora quickly bade Mr. Moffat to sit down
and when he did, leaned in to whisper, “Sour.”
Mr. Moffat snickered, and Mr. St. Clair sat
back in his chair and folded his arms, studying
the two of them as if they had suddenly sprouted
smoke stacks.
Honora would have enjoyed it more if Mr. Moffat
had not then chattered throughout the entire
lecture.
Mr. St. Clair stood at the end of it and said
loudly, “These lectures are so very illuminating,
I wish I could hear more of them.
Mr. Moffat, a pleasure.
Miss Blackstock, your hat reminds me of springtime
in the country, all these flowers bobbing
happily.
Almost makes me long for dead twigs.”
Mr. Moffat watched him walk away with a perplexed
look on his face.
“He’s an odd fellow.”
Miss Blackstock nodded, then held her hand
out to be helped up.
“Yes, very odd.
But also well-rounded, wouldn’t you say?”
George St. Clair was intrigued.
And he didn’t like it one bit.
For seven days, he’d thought of only one
thing.
One woman.
Two hats.
Two smiles.
Countless barbs and insults delivered with
bite.
And a sweet hello delivered with none.
If he hadn’t recognized her muddy brown
eyes, he wouldn’t have thought it the same
woman.
Different hat, different mannerisms, different
voice.
Same woman.
He arrived early at the lecture hall the next
week, then loitered outside until he felt
like a fool and forced himself in.
He wondered who she would be bringing today,
and when she finally came in the door, it
was no one.
She met his eyes, then sat without a word.
He cleared his throat.
“Mr. St. Clair.
You really should have that looked at.”
“I see you’re back to your twigs today.
And alone, as well?”
He looked around the room filled with men,
and a handful of women, in somber-colored
coats.
“Do you think that wise?”
“I brought my maid again, she’s just outside.
Should I tell her to come in?”
He made a face.
“No.”
“It is unfortunate that I have tested and
failed all of my acquaintances.
I will simply have to hope that my honor is
safe among steam enthusiasts.”
She shook her head.
“I take my very life in my hands in this
pursuit of knowledge.”
His lips twitched.
“We are a rowdy bunch.”
She nodded in total agreement with him and
he leaned forward in his seat to say quietly,
“Does your Mr. Whoever know he is marrying
a woman who wears two hats?”
“Mr. Moffat.
And you must not know very many women if you
think my two hats is at all remarkable.”
“I’ve known more than a few.
And none have had different smiles and different
voices underneath those different hats.”
She paused and George could practically hear
the gears turning as she tried to come up
with a response.
She finally said, “A woman’s hat is a
reflection of her mood.
When I am with my fiancé, I am happy.
When I am here, I am…
I…wish to be left alone.”
He sat back in his seat.
He opened his leaflet.
She turned to glare at him underneath this
hat.
“It’s only a twig.”
“And when your Mr. Moffat was here, it was
flowers and a bird’s nest.”
“I do not dictate fashion, Mr. St. Clair,
but am merely a slave to it.”
“Quite the slave.
Your entire personality changes with it.”
He leaned forward in his seat again and her
eyes widened, not with wariness but with outrage.
He murmured, “Tell me it’s nice to meet
me while you’re wearing this hat.”
“So.
Good.
To.
Finally.
Meet.
You.”
He smiled.
“So good to finally meet you as well, Miss
Blackstock.
Oh look, the lecture is about to begin.”
Chapter Two
George didn’t stop smiling, not for a long
while.
Not when the lecture ended and Miss Blackstock
leapt from her seat and stuck her nose in
the air and walked determinedly away from
him without another word.
Not when he arrived home to find a letter
from his father and cheerily tossed it in
the fire without reading.
Should have done that with Sinclair’s letter
as well.
He had the vague impression that some people
enjoyed receiving correspondences but George
did not.
No good news ever came in one.
He sat down with one of his cigars, closing
his eyes to imagine mud-colored eyes.
Engaged mud-colored eyes.
Poor fellow.
He was in for a rude awakening on the wedding
night.
Or perhaps Miss Blackstock would keep her
happy hat on during the honeymoon phase.
But one morning, Mr. Moffat would find himself
peering underneath that twig hat wondering
what had happened to the woman he’d married.
Honora Kempe fumed for seven days.
Miss Letitia Blackstock was asked multiple
times over the course of the week if she was
quite well.
She snapped at her intended and insulted anyone
who got near her, and Honora eventually quarantined
herself.
And then she was forced to suffer her aunt
and uncle tiptoeing around and whispering
in hallways.
Honora squeezed her fist and shouted, “I
can hear you!”
They poked their heads around the corner and
Aunt Gertrude said softly, “The stress has
got to you, my dear.
Perhaps it was too soon to jump into the fray
again.
We should have waited, given you time to rest.”
“It is too late now.
We shall simply have to wait until Mr. Moffat
decides he has had enough and pays us off.”
Uncle Hubert muttered, “Shouldn’t be too
long now.”
Aunt Gertrude patted her husband’s arm.
“Is that your plan then?
To use this ill temper to force his hand?”
It hadn’t been her plan.
She hadn’t had a plan, yet.
But she’d had five engagements broken and
had never floundered for a reason for ending
it yet.
Gentlemen, or at least those who thought of
themselves as gentlemen, were willing to preserve
the illusion of honor at any cost.
Uncle Hubert noted, “He hasn’t been round
in two days.
You’ve scared him off.”
“I told him I was not feeling well and I
would send a note when I was better.”
Her aunt and uncle exchanged a look, then
came all the way into the room.
Honora sat down and traced the pattern of
the sofa with her thumb, and her aunt sat
next to her.
“It might be for the best, dear, if you
never sent that note.
End this one, and we’ll go have a rest.
Be ourselves for a little while.”
“It’s too soon to end it.
We’ve only been engaged for a month.
We’ll just have to use this foul temper
to our advantage.
Miss Letitia Blackstock will be her old happy
self again tomorrow, and then in another month,
I’ll let Honora out and we can end this
charade for good.”
Another month of being Miss Letitia Blackstock,
and Honora could feel her temper bubbling
and boiling.
Perhaps her aunt was right and they’d rushed
into this one.
Honora couldn’t explain why this persona
chafed so but Miss Blackstock was getting
on her last nerve.
She stood restlessly.
“I am going to my lecture.”
“Shall I go with you, my dear?”
And when Honora shook her head, her aunt continued,
“I don’t know why steam interests you
so.”
Miss Blackstock would have explained, again.
But Honora simply said, “I know,” and
left the room.
Honora was late to the lecture– a carriage
had overturned, blocking the road– and when
she finally left her maid to wait outside
the hall and quietly tiptoe inside, her temper
and frustration gnawing at her, someone was
sitting in her seat.
She stopped and glared at the offending gentleman.
One row back, Mr. St. Clair shifted in his
seat and tried not to smile, and Honora turned
her glare to him.
His eyes tipped up to look at her, yes, twig
hat, and then he moved his walking stick from
off the seat next to him and turned his attention
back to the lecture.
Honora sat.
And when Mr. St. Clair held out his leaflet
to her, she took it without a word.
Mr. St. Clair leaned toward her and whispered,
“Your hat is quivering.”
Honora took a calming breath, opening the
leaflet and willing her temper away.
And then she laughed softly because she was
sitting next to Mr. St. Clair and her temper
wouldn’t be improved with the experience.
But he said not another word and neither did
she, and when the lecturer left the podium
at the end, Honora was herself again.
Or as close to it as she could get while not
actually being herself.
Mr. St. Clair held his hand out to Honora
and she stared at it.
“Er, yes?”
“The leaflet.”
“Ah.
Thank you for the use of it.”
“You may be able to get another if you ask
nicely.”
He glanced at her hat.
“Or perhaps not.”
She turned her head to look at him and his
eyes were close.
And gray.
And amused.
“If I was wearing my other hat, I could
probably get yours from you.”
“I doubt it.”
She did, too.
But, “You simply can’t imagine how men
fall for a few flowers.”
“Mm-hm.”
He folded the paper, putting it inside his
coat, and Honora asked, “Did you save this
seat for me?”
“I didn’t.
But when I saw you getting ready to attack
the poor gentleman who’d unwittingly sat
in your favored spot, I decided I would rather
hear the lecture.
You were already causing a commotion by being
late.”
She smiled slightly.
“A carriage overturned.
You can hardly fault me for that.”
“I can.
I did.
I will.”
She rose and he followed her as she headed
to the exit.
“Next week, I trust, I will be able to hear
the entire lecture.
A man should be able to expect that at least
once.”
“You’ve already had your once.
Last week.”
“Then once more, if you please, Miss Twiggy
Blackstock.
Next week is the final lecture.”
Honora reared back.
“Twiggy?”
“Your alternate ego is Miss Apple Blossom
Blackstock.”
She laughed, shaking her head as they exited
the hall together.
She spotted her maid and waved her over, and
said, “Should I wear the other hat next
week?”
“I can’t imagine why you would.”
He turned away from her after a quick head
nod and Honora said to his retreating back,
“No, I can’t imagine why either.”
Reparations were in order for Mr. Moffat,
and Honora was forced to do what women had
been doing since time immemorial.
She baked him a tart.
Of course, she burnt it, and she thought that
if Mr. Moffat didn’t get scared off because
of her temper, her cooking might just do it.
Mr. Moffat’s wife would have to know how
to cook, at least occasionally, and Honora
was convinced that that was one skill that
needed to be learned while young or else it
just never took.
She’d thought about bribing Aunt Gertrude’s
cook to make a tart, then decided the truth
might be better after all.
She packed a picnic basket and invited Mr.
Moffat and Uncle Hubert and Aunt Gertrude
and put on her Miss Apple Blossom hat.
They trudged through Victoria Park and when
she found a suitable place, bade Mr. Moffat
to lay down the blanket in as sweet a voice
as she could muster.
It must have been good enough because Mr.
Moffat smiled at her and they settled, Honora
pulling out bread and boiled chicken and lemonade.
She waited until they had lunched, and then
with a flourish pulled out her burnt strawberry
tart with a bright smile.
She cut it up, placing it carefully on little
plates, and when she passed Mr. Moffat his,
said shyly, “A sweet treat to make up for
my sour temper.
Forgive me?”
Mr. Moffat said, “Of course, of course,”
as he looked at the tart with a frozen smile
on his face.
Honora took a big bite of her own and said
with obvious satisfaction, “Why, I think
this is the best tart I’ve ever made.
I remembered the sugar this time!”
Uncle Hubert choked and Miss Blackstock, ever
solicitous, poured him more lemonade.
Aunt Gertrude got into the spirit of it and
said, “You do not make the same mistake
twice, Letitia, at the very least.
This tart is a vast improvement, although
a tad on the overdone side.”
“Well, only a little.
But I like my tarts well done.
Don’t you, Mr. Moffat?”
Mr. Moffat rapped his fork on the crust and
finally said, “Er, yes.
Wonderful, wonderful.”
The next week, having learned her lesson about
carriages and traffic, Honora was early to
the lecture.
And when she sat down, it was next to Mr.
St. Clair again.
He looked at her.
“You’re not getting attached to me, are
you?”
“I’m engaged.”
He grunted.
“Engaged is not married.”
Honora thought no truer words had ever been
spoken.
She said, “But you were relieved when I
brought Mr. Moffat, weren’t you?”
“Astounded was more like it.
There should be some form of address for engaged
women so as to warn a fellow.
Not a miss, not yet a missus, but something
in between.”
“That is absurd.
And unfair.
You were born a mister, and there you’ll
stay.
Whereas my very name, my very being, is dependent
on whether I’m married or not.”
“It’s not about being fair, it’s about
keeping civilization going.
A man needs to know if a woman is taken when
he first meets her or else all hell would
break loose.”
“You’re joking.”
“No.
A man needs to know at the first introduction
so he stays away from another man’s territory.
A woman doesn’t.”
Honora realized her mouth was hanging open
and she closed it with a snap.
“What you’re saying is that a woman’s
form of address is there simply to let a man
know whether she is available or not?
Fascinating.”
He shrugged.
“If your fiancé hadn’t introduced us,
you would have worked it in somehow that you
were engaged.
Isn’t a form of address so much simpler?”
“I do believe I could have made it clear
that I wasn’t a possibility for you without
resorting to my fiancé.
But you are right about one thing.
A woman doesn’t need a man’s form of address
to tell her whether he’s married or not.
You’re not.”
“You don’t know that.
I could be married with four children and
you wouldn’t ever know.”
“I know.
You’re not.
And I think it unlikely you ever will be.”
“Would that I was so lucky.”
The lecturer took his place behind the podium
and Mr. St. Clair leaned over to whisper,
“Because I think that your Mr. Moffat, like
all men, is in for a world of trouble once
he says ‘I do’.”
Honora thought that if she really was going
to marry Mr. Moffat, that was probably true.
Mr. Moffat looked, last time Honora had seen
him, like he was beginning to realize that
as well.
But it was going to take more than burnt tart
and a bad temper to get him to break the engagement.
Honor.
Bah.
Honora pushed every problem from her mind
and listened as the lecturer waxed eloquently
about what steam might bring them.
Faster trains and ships.
More goods and foreign foods from halfway
around the world.
The impossible not only possible but already
happening.
She glanced at Mr. St. Clair and knew that
he saw it, too.
The future.
She smiled at the curmudgeon, then turned
back to the lecturer and imagined what steam
would bring them.
When the lecturer stepped down from the podium
and the audience had stopped clapping, Honora
sighed.
“I will miss these lectures.
You notwithstanding.”
Mr. St. Clair gathered his walking stick.
“Why?
What is it about steam and coal and ships
that grabs your attention?”
“I don’t care whatsoever about steam or
coal or ships.”
“Then why do you come every week?
Simply to torture me, I can only infer.”
“It does have its perks.
I do so enjoy the sound of a man clearing
his throat at me.
Have you had that looked at yet?”
He raised his eyebrows at her, not saying
a word, and she said, “It’s the future,
isn’t it?
Speed and power and change.
I care about the future.
I care about paying for the future.”
He turned fully in his seat to face her.
“Of all the things I imagined you saying,
that wasn’t it.
You care about paying for the future?
Surely Mr. Moffat will take care of that for
you.”
Honora studied the leaflet in her hands.
“My interest in paying for the future is
no indication of Mr. Moffat’s ability to
provide.”
“Do you think he will take it that way?”
“Are you giving me marriage advice, Mr.
St. Clair?”
“Someone has to if you think you can invest
without your husband’s interference.”
“Mr. Moffat did not seem too interested
in steam.”
“…no.”
“It’s the future.”
“Well, yes, but–”
“You think I should leave it to him.
Because he’s a man.”
“I have never known any woman to have an
interest in money beyond where to spend it.”
She said, “We have already established that
you must not know that many women.”
“I know absolutely zero women like you.
I would have guessed that you insist on coming
every week to interrupt my enjoyment.”
“I didn’t interrupt you today.”
He said, “No.
But it is the seventh week and only the second
time you haven’t.
I might be forgiven for my hyperbole.”
“Perhaps you might be forgiven.
If I was wearing a different hat.”
“An impasse, then.
I won’t forgive you; you won’t forgive
me.”
Honora widened her eyes.
“However will we live with ourselves?”
“Lesser men would crumble under the weight.”
“But not us.”
Mr. St. Clair was silent a long moment, then
finally his lips tilted northward and he dipped
his head toward her.
“Not us, Miss Twiggy Blackstock.
I assume you will be coming to enjoy the next
lecture series as well.”
She cocked her head.
“I wasn’t.
What is it about?”
“Trains.
Steam trains, specifically.”
“Hmm.
Perhaps I will.”
He stood, waiting for her to rise and then
following until she met up with her maid.
He bowed.
“Perhaps I will save you a seat.”
Miss Twiggy Blackstock adjusted her hat and
said, “Perhaps I will save one for you.”
There was another letter waiting for George
when he arrived home and he tracked down his
valet to thrust it at him.
“I told you to refuse the post.”
“Yes, sir.
It is from your father.”
“Yes.
I specifically do not want any correspondence
from him.
I specifically do not want any correspondence
from anyone.”
“Yes, sir.
Should I read it for you?”
George crumpled the letter and found the nearest
fire.
“Collin, if you looked any less like your
sister, I would throttle you.”
“If I looked any less like my sister, you
wouldn’t have hired me as your valet when
I hid in your carriage.”
“I should send you back home.”
Collin said, “Five years later?
The threat has grown old, sir.”
It had.
He should have sent the boy back home when
he was still a boy and not a man.
Should have sent him home before he’d got
his first glimpse of a London woman.
Should have sent him home before London had
shown him all that was missing in the country.
George stared at the fire and not into good,
kind eyes.
“Any news from home?”
“…another girl.
They’ve named her Winifred.”
“And your brother?”
“Still a pompous prig.
Sir.”
George nodded.
“No more correspondences.”
Collin sighed.
“Yes, sir.”
George went to his club to smoke.
And be bored.
He didn’t know when life had lost its sparkle.
Didn’t know when everything he’d once
found pleasure in had become dull.
He thought of the country and his home, and
wished he could go back.
Go back to his youth, go back to his family.
Go back and rewrite the past.
But that was all impossible and he had no
interest in going back to what currently was.
So he smoked.
And thought of absolutely nothing and talked
to absolutely no one.
No one hailed him, no one came over to bother
him, not now that Sinclair was off to India
again.
George was happy that no one bothered him.
Happy.
But he thought of muddy eyes that liked to
spar with him.
That liked to irritate him, and he thought
she must like to irritate everyone.
Liked to poke and rile when civilized men
and women knew how to keep the peace.
And then he remembered her alter ego, Miss
Apple Blossom, and thought she must know how
to keep the peace as well.
Must know how to be sweet and womanly, she
just didn’t like to.
George puffed and smiled, forgetting that
he was bored and lonely and instead imagined
again the surprise Mr. Moffat would wake up
to on his wedding day.
The harpy had saved a seat for him the next
week and when she picked up her leaflet to
make room for him, he said, “This is perilously
close to indecent, Miss Twiggy.
What would Mr. Moffat say?”
She cocked her head and really thought about
it.
“Do you think he would be worried that you
were poaching on his territory?”
“If I was Mr. Moffat, I would be worried.”
“You men are so very strange.”
She looked at him out of the corner of her
eye.
“Are you poaching?”
“You were the one who saved me a seat.
If anyone is poaching, it is you.”
“Oh, good.
Because I’m not, you may rest assured.
Now, if you were engaged, it might be poaching
but in your case I think the correct term
would be hunting.”
He coughed.
“Are you hunting me?”
“No, I was just pointing out the correct
term.
I’m engaged, Mr. St. Clair, please try to
remember.”
“If you acted like you were engaged, I might
be able to.”
She shifted in her seat to study him.
“Would you be worth hunting?
Are women lined up trying to catch you?”
“No.”
“Not the eldest son of so-and-so?”
“No.”
She faced forward again.
“Ah, well.
Better luck for the future.”
“I have two older brothers.
And a twin.”
“Good God, there are three more of you?
Your poor mother.”
“Dead.”
“Oh.
Yes.
Mine, too.”
He nodded and they said not another word.
No condolences, not when they both knew condolences
were worthless.
She rustled her leaflet and finally asked,
“Three brothers.
Any sisters?”
“I was spared.
You?”
She fought a smile.
“If half-sisters counted, I would have three.”
“You don’t like them?”
“I’m sure they are wonderful people now
that they are out of leading strings.
I haven’t seen them in a long time, and
stop me if you’ve heard this story before.
Mother dies, Father remarries, new mother
insists on breeding repeatedly so eldest daughter
goes to live with her mother’s sister.”
He nodded.
“The story is as old as time itself.
I assume your aunt then treats you very poorly.”
“Oh, no.
She, and my uncle, spoil me rotten.”
“That was my second guess.”
“They weren’t able to have children, you
see.
So they didn’t realize that I was a handful.”
His laugh surprised him.
“How could they have missed it?”
The next week, he got there first and she
huffed when she saw him already seated.
“You are too early.
I’ll have to leave the night before to get
here before you.”
“You must have quite the distance to travel.
Your sacrifice for the future is impressive.”
“No one cares more for my future than I
do.”
“You have a fiancé, and an uncle who spoils
you rotten.
My guess is that there is a line of people
who care for your future at least as much
as you do.”
Honora opened her mouth for a scathing retort,
and then closed it.
Because how could one softly spoken truth
make her stomach clench with anger and shame?
How could it make her feel ungrateful?
A long moment passed as they sat in silence
and when her emotions were back under control,
she said, “My fiancé and my uncle are both
fine and wonderful men, but they don’t have
that need, that drive, to want more.”
“And your father?”
“My father is too busy with his new family.
If it was up to him, he would leave my mother’s
portion in her majesty’s service for a measly
five percent.”
“Many widows and orphans live on that measly
five percent.”
“I know.
I don’t want to be one of them.
And perhaps you’re right.
There is a line of men who care for my future;
they just see it differently than I do.”
“Ah, well, that is different then.
And something I have experience with myself.”
She remained quiet and met his eyes, and he
said off-handedly, “My father.”
“All fathers, I suspect.
Did he want you to go into the military?”
“No.
I did exactly what he wanted.”
“Since there are few paths for a younger
son from a fine family, I think you’ve trained
to be a man of the cloth,” she said and
his eyebrows flew up in surprise.
He looked at her.
Looked at her and saw her and Honora’s heart
raced.
She said, “Only those who’ve trained for
it can invoke guilt, shame, and ingratitude
with a single phrase.
Only those certain of their place in God’s
kingdom can be so condescending and self-righteous.
The rest of us muddle along the best we can.”
“Is this you muddling along?”
She held up her leaflet.
“No.
This is me studying.”
This time it was he who fumed silently in
his seat and she didn’t let him get his
emotions back under control.
She said, “I’m right, aren’t I?”
“You’ve already decreed it.
I doubt anyone dares contradict you.”
“I have no doubt you would contradict me
with great pleasure if you could.”
“You know, Miss Twiggy.
Though I barely met the man, I find I have
great sympathy for your poor Mr. Moffat.”
She said, “Behold, we count them happy which
endure, Mr. St. Clair.
James 5:11.”
Chapter Three
George did not stay long after the lecture
to argue with Miss Twiggy.
He kept hearing her confident tone declaring
him to be a man of the cloth as if it was
written on the lines of his face, the timbre
of his voice.
I have no doubt you would contradict me with
great pleasure if you could, and damned if
she wasn’t right.
He was a man of science.
Of the future.
Not a man forced to believe and parrot what
was written down in a book centuries ago.
And yet, he was.
Or should have been.
But he’d returned home from university to
find that his sickly twin had been nursed
for the last few months by the love of George’s
life.
That she was, instead of waiting for George,
quietly engaged to his brother.
His father had sat him down.
“It is a good match for everyone, George.”
And George had told his father, shock still
making his voice weak, “But I love her.
And she loves me.
I am sure of it.”
“Perhaps.
But she loves Henry as well.
She is a sweet, country girl with no ambition
and Henry will stay here, a country gent,
and they will have a small, quiet, contented
life.”
George had whispered, “Father.”
“Go to London,” his father had said.
“Enjoy yourself for a little while now that
you’re done with school.
When the right living becomes available, I’ll
send for you.”
George hadn’t gone.
He’d cornered Alice and begged her to run
away with him.
And she’d patted his cheek and looked at
George with good, kind eyes.
“You will always hold a place in my heart,
George.
But I love Henry.”
Then, George had gone after his brother.
Henry had been born thirty minutes earlier
making him the older and George the baby of
the family– but it had always been the other
way around.
Henry had always been weak and sickly, had
always been babied and protected.
Had always been loved, by everyone.
George had locked eyes with him.
“You knew.
You knew I loved her.”
“I knew.”
“And you asked for her anyway?”
“I loved her, too.
You just never saw it.”
George had stayed for the wedding, he didn’t
know why.
Except maybe he had to see with his own eyes.
Had to see because he couldn’t simply believe.
Had stayed, hoping to see regret in either
of their eyes, but all he saw was happiness.
And a love that should have been his.
He’d finally left when Alice had started
feeling ill in the mornings.
Gone to London just like his father had suggested
and then had refused every living offered
him since.
Even George agreed that his father had been
patient beyond words.
Five long years of support until that very
afternoon when his banker welcomed him into
his office and said, “Your allowance has
been cut off.”
George nodded.
Good show, Father.
Good show.
George trudged home and when he arrived, Collin
was polishing boots.
George watched for a long moment and then
sat.
“Very well, tell me what was in the letters.”
“Sir?”
“I know you opened them.
Any self-respecting valet would.”
Collin continued to polish.
George said, “I assume you knew my funds
were to be cut off.”
Collin sighed.
“He did it?”
George nodded, closing his eyes and leaning
his head back.
“He did it.”
“All is not lost, sir.
He’s found a living for you.”
“Oh, God.”
“Manchester.”
George said again, “Oh, God.”
“Yes, sir.”
George decided he didn’t need to open his
eyes ever again.
He felt as if the very marrow had been sucked
from his bones.
“When?”
“He wants you to come home first.”
“He would.”
“I have…appropriated…some funds for
the trip,” Collin said and George nearly
smiled.
“You would.”
“Shall I begin packing?”
George said, “Oh, God.”
Mr. Moffat was finally getting a bit nervous
about his fiancé’s continued interest in
steam lectures and kept trying to talk her
out of going.
When that proved impossible, he asked, “Shall
I accompany you this week?”
“No!
Of course not.
You were bored silly last time.”
“I worry about you.
Flitting about all by yourself.”
“I have my maid.
And really, Mr. Moffat, I go straight to the
lecture hall and then straight back.
You saw the kind of people steam interests.
It is not a fearsome bunch.”
“But there were hardly any women present.
I’m not sure it’s seemly for you to go.”
Mr. Moffat loved that word and Honora had
to duck her face for a moment before answering.
“What is unseemly about education?
And anyway, no one cares that I am a woman.
No one has ever bothered me.”
“What about that man who talked to you?”
“You mean Mr. St. Clair?
There is no need to worry.
He is as sour as always; I think it a permanent
affliction.”
Mr. Moffat said astutely, “Nothing goes
better with lemons than sugar.”
Miss Blackstock simpered and tinkled a little
laugh.
“Mr. Moffat, you are so poetic.
But there are many things sugar goes with.
Strawberries, cherries.
Oh!
Shall I make you another tart when I get back
from my lecture?”
She arrived nearly half an hour early for
the lecture but before she could enter the
hall and make sure she had bested Mr. St.
Clair, a youngish boy tugged at her dress
with his filthy hands and said, “Miss Twiggy?”
Honora stopped, preparing herself to fight
him off and saying cautiously, “Yes?”
“Here.”
He thrust a folded up piece of paper at her.
“The cove said you’d give me something
for it.”
She took it, unfolding it to read the name
signed evenly and perfectly legible at the
bottom, and her heart thumped.
She folded it back up quickly and dug in her
reticule for a coin.
“I’m sure the cove gave you something
already but thank you for keeping it clean.”
He snatched the coin out of her hand and ran
off, and Honora went inside the lecture hall.
She took a leaflet and when she was settled
and she couldn’t take one more minute of
imagining what George St. Clair could possibly
write to her about, she unfolded the letter
and placed it inside her leaflet to read surreptitiously.
One minute later, the excitement had been
replaced with something else.
Not dread.
How could she dread Mr. St. Clair leaving?
He was nothing to her except an entertaining
interlude.
Not anger.
He wasn’t foiling any plan of hers.
Perhaps disappointment.
Regret?
She looked at his even handwriting and knew
Mr. St. Clair had felt the same something
that she did.
A single gentleman sending a note to an engaged
woman was perilously close to indecent and
their relationship, if it could even be called
that, did not require him to inform her of
his imminent departure from London.
For good.
For ever.
She stared at the podium.
Then down at her leaflet.
Steam.
Trains.
The future.
Her future.
Honora Kempe got up quietly and left the lecture
hall.
It took two weeks to get rid of Mr. Moffat.
A few temper tantrums.
A couple dinners, handmade.
Honora thought it most likely that her blackened
toast and the resulting tantrum when Mr. Moffat
could not get his teeth through it had been
the final straw but eventually Mr. Moffat
could take the thought of his future no longer.
Honora had sobbed and screamed and hysterically
shouted how she was ruined and generally made
Mr. Moffat absolutely sure that he was willing
to pay any price to get rid of her.
And when Uncle Hubert stepped in with his
quiet voice and calm acceptance, Honora had
collapsed onto the sofa and cried into her
handkerchief.
She cried and cried, never hearing the negotiation.
Cried for herself, cried for poor Mr. Moffat
and the five gentleman who had preceded him.
Cried for her aunt and uncle.
Cried for her mother, gone so long ago.
Cried for the home she missed.
Cried knowing this game was all she would
ever have.
Honora cried until she was all cried out.
She took a few shaky breaths and when she
heard nothing, slowly lifted her head to find
her uncle alone, his eyes closed.
Just here in the room with her.
Honora’s eyes prickled again and she blinked
them back.
She wouldn’t cry because she wasn’t alone.
Wouldn’t cry because her aunt and uncle,
for some reason, had taken her in and loved
her when no one else would.
Uncle Hubert asked, “Feeling better?”
She nodded though he couldn’t see it and
patted her sore eyes.
“I do so hate Miss Blackstock.”
“She is indeed very volatile,” he said
and Honora’s laugh was wet and watery.
She wiped her nose on her soaked handkerchief
and pushed herself into a more upright position.
“I believe it would do us all good to take
a little break, Honora.
Be ourselves for a while.
With Mr. Moffat’s donations, we have enough
for a small cottage in the country.
Enough for bread and cheese and the occasional
joint of meat.”
They had enough.
Just enough.
The word reminded her every time of what had
been stolen from her and she said, “Letitia.”
Uncle Hubert opened his eyes.
“Still?”
“Still.
I know where we’re going next, uncle.
I’ve found our Earl of Ferrers.”
George St. Clair walked home.
The coach from the rail station had dropped
him and Collin off at the village inn and
despite Collin’s wish to stop at the tap
room for a refreshing and fortifying drink,
George had merely picked up a bag in one hand
and a side of his travel trunk in the other
and waited.
Collin grabbed the other side sullenly and
muttered, “The lord’s son slinking home
with his bags in his hand.”
“The prodigal son.
Everyone will enjoy the story.”
“I want it to be known that I am not slinking
home.
I am merely following my employer.”
“You’re not going home at all.
You’ll be staying with me at the hall.”
Collin blew out a breath.
“Downstairs.
And my sister up.”
“That is awkward.
Would you prefer to stay with your brother?”
Collin made a rude gesture and George laughed.
“Funny how going home always brings out
the child in each of us.”
“Hilarious.”
“I am sorry, Collin.
I’m afraid I only thought how awkward this
would be for me.”
“You’re a lord’s son, sir.
Selfishness is expected.”
“You would think a lord’s son could have
trained his valet better.”
“It is a complicated situation.
But I will blame it all on Alice.
Complicated awkwardness is unavoidable when
someone marries above their station.
I think your father was right to push Alice
toward marrying Henry instead of you.”
George stopped, his hand tightening around
the handle of the trunk, and Collin stopped
beside him to quietly say, “Henry was always
going to stay here.
Her low parentage only makes it awkward for
us, for family.
But when you take your living, when you start
moving up the church hierarchy as your father
has always planned for you to do?
Her birth and station would have been awkward
for everyone.”
“I should tell my father to take his living
and his plans and give them to someone who
wants them.”
“Are you going to?”
“It does not seem likely.”
Collin sniffed.
“Manchester, then.
And will you need a valet when you take your
position or should I find my way back to London
before I run into my brother?”
“Collin, who else is going to mouth off
while dressing me if not you?”
“You have a point, sir.
Now, should we go meet our nieces and nephew?”
Collin started walking again without waiting
for a reply and George followed wordlessly,
thinking selfish thoughts like any lord’s
son would do.
They had only just been welcomed inside when
Alice came running, and when she saw her brother,
her eyes filled with tears and she covered
her mouth with her hand.
“Oh, Collin.
You became a man.
You’ve been gone too long!”
She hugged him, squeezing tight, then fussed
with his suit and his hair.
Collin blushed bright red and he hissed, “Alice!
I’m working!”
She laughed and swatted at him and she turned
to George.
“You too, brother.
You have been gone too long.”
Lord St. Clair came out from a room, saying,
“I agree.
Too long.”
Collin tried to get out of line of sight of
the viscount, unsuccessfully since Alice was
still clinging to his arm, and George had
to give his father credit.
He welcomed Collin warmly, told Alice to take
her brother in to the sitting room so she
could visit with him, and turned to greet
his son.
George nodded at Collin to go and then stared
back at his father who said, “Glad you could
come.”
As if I had a choice, George thought.
And, I’m not.
But he’d only just accused Collin of being
childish now that they were home so he said,
“Yes.
It has been a long time.”
“Let’s go into the library.
Henry is resting right now and you can say
hello to the children when they come down
to say goodnight.
I think Alice and her brother will be busy
for quite a while, which leaves us to discuss
your new position.
I confess when I heard how close it was to
home, I jumped on it.
I wish all my sons could stay near at hand
and close enough to visit more often than
every five years.”
George said, “Hard to do when one son is
stationed in Africa.”
“He’s a good writer, though,” Lord St.
Clair said to the son who wasn’t.
“Been promoted to Major.
Moving up.”
His father sighed as he sat, satisfied with
his second eldest son’s progress.
“And you’ve seen Alice.
Already recovered from the newest; I expect
there will be many more.”
“The child is…healthy?”
Lord St. Clair nodded proudly.
“Healthy and strong.
Her lungs!
You’ll hear her.”
George couldn’t keep the bitterness from
his voice.
“It’s all falling into line for you, isn’t
it, Father.”
“I have always said that your mother gave
me four sons for a reason.
One, for my heir.
Two, for the military.
Three, for the church.
And four, to stay at home and bless me with
a multitude of grandchildren.”
“It is lucky for you that three of your
sons followed your plan to fruition.”
“The fourth one will as well.”
The fourth one said, “Why?
Why would I?”
“What else are you going to do?”
George sunk into his seat and closed his eyes.
His father said softly, “I know you wanted
her, son.
But you didn’t need her, not like Henry.
Her health when Henry has none.
His relations when hers are lacking.”
“Father, I don’t want to hear how you
bred them.”
“And if I did?
Their children are healthy and strong and
they have a far better future than they would
have, had their parents married others.”
George opened his eyes.
“Am I the only one who sees this part of
you?
That you think you are God?”
His father got that satisfied look on his
face.
“That is because you are a man of the church.
You’ve been trained to see God everywhere.”
George’s disgust turned to dread.
The fourth son was falling into line as well.
“Yes.
I see God everywhere, as you say,” he said
and tried not to roll his eyes.
“Tell me about this living.”
“It’s on the outskirts of Manchester,
in the newly created diocese.”
His father beamed with pride, as if he’d
not only single-handedly created this opportunity
for his son but also the textile factories
that employed the ever-growing number of immigrants
looking for work, the coal mined in nearby
hills that powered the heavy machinery, and
the railways that transported finished goods
out to the world.
“The town is growing so quickly!
Nearly two dozen churches have been built
in the area since you left school and a dozen
more are in the planning stage.
Your living should be comfortable enough for
a bachelor, though you won’t be able to
stay one for long now.”
“Sounds…”
Horrifying?
Depressing?
Lord St. Clair said, “I’ll be going with
you.”
Torturous.
“I don’t need a chaperone, Father.”
“I’m not going for you.
I’ve ordered the house opened.
I spend some time there every year, checking
my investments.
Might as well do it now.
You may stay with me until you’re settled,
if you like.”
George said, “I assume my allowance will
not be reinstated any time soon?”
“You assume correctly.
Once you’ve picked a wife, the matter will
be revisited.
We need to attract the right kind of woman
for you, the kind of woman who will be comfortable
hosting archdeacons, bishops… the archbishop.
You won’t be able to find that on a vicar’s
salary.”
The entire thing was horrifying, depressing,
and torturous.
George said, “When are we leaving for Manchester?”
“Is a week too long for you to spend at
home, to visit with the family you haven’t
set eyes on in five years?”
Yes, it was.
George stood.
“I’ll need to bathe before dinner.
I’ll go find Collin.”
Collin unpacked while George bathed, putting
clothing away with a running commentary.
“She’s the exact same.
I thought maybe your family would have put
some polish on her, but no.”
“My father doesn’t need her polished.”
Alice was warm and welcoming and her children
would be just like her.
Healthy just like her, and George closed his
eyes.
Hating that his father had been right; hating
that George could see it.
Collin said, “She’s happy.”
“Good.”
“She says Henry’s health cycles but at
the moment he is doing well.”
“Good,” George said again.
“After we’re done here, I’m going to
run up to the nursery, see the children.
Do you want to come?”
George opened his mouth to say that the children
would be coming to say goodnight before dinner
and he would see them then.
And then he thought of seeing Henry and Alice’s
children for the first time with his father
watching and said, “Yes.
Yes, I do.”
Two towheaded children greeted the men when
they entered the nursery, shouting, “Uncle
Collin!
Uncle George!
Mummy said you would come!”
And though Collin had seen the children as
often as George, meaning never, the young
man fell to his knees and hugged them both.
“It looks like Mummy was right.”
A soft-spoken voice behind them said, “Mummy
is always right.”
George turned, looking over his brother carefully
as he sat in a plush chair near the fire.
Noting the frailness that never went away
thanks to the wasting sickness that had plagued
him since birth.
Noting that he looked happy beneath the frailty
as he watched his children pull Collin here
and then there, showing off their toys.
“You’re looking well, Henry.”
“Feeling well, George.
You look tired.”
Tired.
Of life.
But he went to stand next to Henry’s chair
and tried not to sound more tired than his
sick brother.
“It was a long trip from London.”
“I hope you’ll stay to rest.
Take walks with me in the morning and naps
in the afternoon, and you’ll be feeling
yourself again in no time.”
George didn’t think so.
He was pretty certain that what ailed him
couldn’t be fixed with walks and naps, but
he nodded at the brother he hadn’t seen
in years.
“I would love to join you on your walks,
though I might skip the naps.”
Henry chuckled lightly.
“I know it sounds childish, but Alice swears
by them.
And I must admit, I feel better when I am
able to sleep for a bit partway through the
day.
Invigorates me enough to last through dinner,
at least.”
Henry watched the children and Collin play
with one toy after another, and George remembered
how his brother had always had to sit and
watch others play.
Henry said, “Alice and Father will appreciate
having company a sight more active in the
evenings and we’d all love to hear about
London.
How long are you planning on staying?”
“A week.
Then I’m off to finally start my life.”
But it felt as if George’s life was ending.
As if he knew exactly what the future held
in store for him.
And he didn’t like it one bit.
But, indeed, what else was there?
Collin played toy soldiers with the children,
dying exuberantly and making them squeal with
laughter, and when all three of them finally
tired of it, Collin pushed himself from the
floor, remembering loudly that he was a grown
man of twenty and while he would have liked
to stay all day playing, he had dinner clothes
to prepare.
George said, “Awkward, indeed,” and Collin
said over his shoulder as he walked out the
door, “I’ll remind you for Boxing Day.”
Henry shot a disappointed look at George.
“Boxing Day?
He is family, George.”
“As he points out every year, he is both
family and a servant, and so deserves gifts
on both Christmas and Boxing Day.”
Henry laughed.
“Ah.
Very well then.
I am glad you have someone, George, who is
not afraid of you.
I am glad you are not alone.”
“Afraid of me?
Are you?”
Henry thought for a long moment.
“Not afraid, but you can be very severe.
I’m glad Collin is there to poke at you.”
“He does an admirable job of it.”
“Perhaps once you’re comfortable in your
new living, you can add a wife to that small
circle.”
George sighed, and thought he might need a
long nap every day after all.
“Father will no doubt find me a suitable
wife who loves to poke at me as well as Collin.”
“For an old widower, he does not do a bad
job of picking out exactly what one needs.”
The baby started her howling at that moment,
the sound making George’s ears tingle even
through the closed door.
“How in the world can something so small
be so loud?”
Henry smiled as if her screams were the sweetest
sound he’d ever heard.
“You should hear when she really gets going.”
“Father did say she had some lungs on her.”
Henry closed his eyes to listen to the life
bellowing from his child, and George watched
him, wondering how many of the seven deadly
sins a man could commit while looking at his
brother.
A week was far too long to stay but he did.
And at the end of it, he hugged the children
goodbye, kissed Alice’s cheek like a brother,
thumped Henry gently on the back as if they
were good friends.
He didn’t look back when the carriage began
its journey to Manchester.
Lord St. Clair sat across from him and said,
“I was right about them, wasn’t I?”
“Yes, Father.”
The older man nodded.
“I’ll be right about you, as well.
You’ll see.”
Part II - Manchester
Sinclair,
Glad to hear you have landed in India.
The place must agree with you, or it is as
I have always suspected and you are simply
a lucky scoundrel.
The widow has made an honest man of you and
there is a child on the way?
Just how long is the journey to the edge of
the world?
All joking aside, I am very happy for you,
old friend.
Happy to have been wrong about that, and well
wishes to the both of you.
Your friend, who will be joining you in matrimony
fairly soon if Father has any say in the matter,
St. Clair
Chapter Four
Miss Letitia Blackstock had changed a little.
Scandal will do that to a girl.
She smiled a little less.
She wore her twiggy hat a little more.
Those who had known her in London, and there
were a few unfortunately, noted the change.
And whispered about it.
Aunt Gertrude stood at the edge of a smallish
ballroom, watching those around them dance
and laugh and include them not at all and
said, “I didn’t think any place could
be worse than London.
Perhaps it is the season.”
Honora said, “It’s the rain.
It hasn’t stopped since we got here.”
Uncle Hubert cleared his throat.
“It’s rained no more than it did it London.
It’s the welcome.”
It was the welcome.
Or, rather, the unwelcome.
The few acquaintances who’d known her, or
of her, had made short work of her ruined
engagement.
She was surprised they’d been invited to
any gathering at all, and if she had still
been Miss Apple Blossom Blackstock, she would
have been grateful and thankful to be allowed
here on the outskirts.
She wasn’t Miss Apple Blossom Blackstock
any longer, thank the Lord.
And Miss Twiggy wouldn’t be grateful for
small, poisonous favors.
She said, “I don’t care a fig whether
they welcome me or not.
There is only one person I care to see and
I want him to know that I am a free woman.”
“But will he welcome you, my dear?
Miss Blackstock has been tarnished.”
“I must believe that he won’t care, Aunt.
The real problem is running into him.
Our circles do not overlap.”
“You mean his and Miss Blackstock’s circles
do not overlap.”
That was what she meant.
Honora Kempe might have been his equal but…
“Since Miss Blackstock is how he knows me,
that is who I must stay.”
“I would say he must know you very little.
Did the matter of who your father is come
up at all?”
Honora tried to remember.
Had she ever mentioned her father?
And if so, what had she told him?
Lies were so easy to confuse.
“If we can but find him, I can figure out
what I told him about my father.
And embellish, should I need to.”
“Perhaps Mr. St. Clair is not in Manchester.”
Perhaps.
His note had given her very little information.
Only that he was leaving London for Manchester,
and offering her and Mr. Moffat a hearty “good
luck”.
It had turned out to be harder than she’d
expected to find one man in a town that was
rapidly approaching 300,000.
Honora said, “Then we are here, in this
dreary and hostile land, for nothing.”
Her aunt and uncle shared a glance over her
head and Honora pretended not to see it.
Pretended not to see the conjecture in the
men’s eyes and the contempt in the women’s.
It did not improve her mood to know that she
deserved both, though not for the reason they
assumed.
She knew she would not see the same in Mr.
St. Clair’s…
She hoped she would not.
She had not a clue how to find him though.
He was indeed out of Miss Blackstock’s circle
and she could not go chasing after a man openly,
not now.
Could not ask about him, though she sent her
uncle to try and find him.
Had she known that one day she would hunt
Mr. St. Clair, she would have asked more direct
questions of him.
“Letitia,” her aunt began, and Honora
shook her head.
She could hear the defeat in their voices.
Could hear the exhaustion, could hear that
at some point this game had stopped being
fun.
“We only need one more and then we are done
for good.”
Honora tipped her head up, resolved.
“We’ll stay here until we know of somewhere
else to look.”
Uncle Hubert said, “Just imagine, Gertrude.
A small house on the edge of a small town.
Enough money for warm rooms, fine clothes,
good meat.”
“Good ale, I suspect as well.”
“If you must,” he said and made both women
laugh.
Honora slipped her arms through theirs, one
on either side of her.
“Enough for books and the well wishes of
our neighbors.”
“He’ll give that to us?
All of it?”
“He will,” Honora said.
“I know he will.”
If they could ever find the blasted man.
It was months before she did and she’d nearly
given up on him.
Uncle Hubert and Aunt Gertrude had, and while
they’d asked once if perhaps there wasn’t
another gentleman in Manchester that might
work in his stead, Honora had refused.
One more man.
One more engagement.
She would save it for him.
And then one day, she found him the exact
same way she’d found him in the first place.
At a lecture on the wonders of steam boilers.
She stopped stock still and stared at him
and blinked wildly, wondering if perhaps Manchester
and its rain and unwelcome society had made
her go mad.
He rose and made his way to her, looking just
as shocked as she, although perhaps less stupidly
so.
“Why, Miss Twiggy.
Or should I say Mrs. Twiggy?”
Honora opened her mouth and blinked some more.
“Miss Blackstock?
Er, Mrs. Moffat?
I now quite understand how irritating one
could find a name change.”
Honora closed her mouth and stopped her incessant
blinking and said scintillatingly, “Yes.
Quite annoying.”
“It is.
Yes.”
“…it is Miss Blackstock still.”
“Ah.
And here I was imagining running into Mr.
Moffat and seeing what wedded bliss had turned
him into.”
He offered her the seat next to him and she
sat wordlessly.
Just how, she wondered blankly, was one supposed
to bring up the fact that Mr. Moffat was no
longer?
She’d thought, months ago, that she could
simply laugh and say he met Miss Twiggy and
called off the wedding.
But it had been too long, now.
After a long awkward moment, she simply said,
“I’m sorry, Mr. St. Clair.
You’ve surprised my wits away.”
“I have no doubt they will return with force,
Miss Blackstock.”
“I do hope so,” she said with an embarrassing
wobble.
She looked down at her leaflet, sitting next
to him once again, and nearly cried out, I
thought I had lost you.
I thought I had missed my chance.
And here you are.
He said, “Now, what are you doing in Manchester?
Has it become fashionable?”
“Nooo.”
He chuckled.
“I am relieved.
I’m not sure I want to live in a world where
Manchester is the place to go to be seen.”
The speaker began to make his way to the podium
and Honora leaned toward Mr. St. Clair.
She said softly, “Do you remember you said
that if you’d never met Mr. Moffat, I would
have still worked him into the conversation?
To warn you that I was taken and off-limits.”
“I remember.
You seemed to be quite insulted by the idea.”
“I think you were right.
It would be so much simpler if there was a
form of address for a woman who used to be
engaged, but now is no longer.”
This time, it was he who sat there looking
stupid and awkward and uncomfortable.
“Did he…pass?”
“No,” she said.
“He met Miss Twiggy.”
Mr. St. Clair sucked in a breath and said
softly, “Before the wedding.”
And then, sharply, “He called it off?”
She nodded.
“A cad, I thought so from the very beginning.
I am sorry, Miss Blackstock.”
Honora’s wits, at last, returned and she
stuck her nose in the air to haughtily say,
“I’m not.”
Honora did not go straight home.
She couldn’t.
She simply couldn’t.
So she walked, her maid trailing farther and
farther behind and unable to see the tears
streaming down her mistress’s face.
It was the weather.
It was Manchester.
It was being unwelcome and unliked and pitied.
There was nothing worse than being pitied
by those you yourself pitied.
Those who were silly and blind and stupid.
Except, it was worse being pitied by someone
you very nearly liked.
Someone who, if one wasn’t going to swindle
a nice and comfortable living from, one would
actually enjoy being around.
Someone who wasn’t silly or stupid, though
probably still blind.
He had to be.
He would be.
He would be worth the last few horrid months.
He would be worth being Miss Letitia Blackstock
for a little while longer.
And then, when it was over, when they were
assured a warm and well-fed and free future,
she would finally let Miss Honora Kempe out
again.
And try and remember just who she was.
St. Clair smiled on the way home, remembering
Miss Twiggy’s I’m not.
He stopped smiling when he remembered her
shocked face and defeated posture when she’d
first seen him.
How could any honorable gentleman do that
to a woman and force her to Manchester of
all places?
No wonder they’d left London.
A broken engagement was a spinster sentence,
and George could very well imagine why Miss
Blackstock had been so shocked to see him.
Especially when the first thing out of his
mouth was to ask about Mr. Moffat.
How could he have known?
He couldn’t have.
But that didn’t change the fact that he
wished he had.
That he wished he hadn’t said anything and
could have remembered her as the ferocious
Miss Twiggy for always.
He hoped it would return.
Hoped she would return, next week.
That stopped him and he paused before going
inside.
Surely, Miss Twiggy could not be scared away.
Surely, Miss Twiggy was in there still.
Licking her wounds, perhaps.
But still there.
He pushed in the door to his little home,
calling for Collin before shrugging off his
coat.
The vicarage suited him, he’d been surprised
to find.
A new home, next to a new church built to
accommodate the growing population on the
outskirts of town.
The congregation was welcoming but that might
have only been because he was young and there
was an overabundance of unmarried young women
in the vicinity.
A woman came in to cook and clean during the
week and George had thought that he might
hire a dedicated cook but the need had never
arisen.
Collin could make tea and boil an egg if needed,
but since baskets of meat pies, savory stews,
and freshly baked bread invariably found their
way to his doorstep with a note inviting him
to dinner, it was rarely necessary.
The women wanted to make sure that the bachelor
vicar remained robust, and not a bachelor
for very much longer.
He tried not to abuse their hospitality but
it was his duty to get to know the members
of his parish.
And, because he was a man with limited experience
in fawning women, he did enjoy a few dinners
every week.
Collin came down the steep stairs lightly.
“And how was the lecture?”
“You remember I told you about the steam
woman in London?”
Collin paused.
“Er, no.”
“The one at the steam lectures with the
poor fiancé.”
“Oh, yes.
The abrasive one.”
“She’s here!
She was at the lecture.
And sans the fiancé; a free woman, as it
were.”
Collin resumed his descent, going straight
to the coat George had just hung up to brush
the dust from it.
“That is a very strange coincidence that
she turned up here, in Manchester.”
“Very strange.
She nearly fell over in shock when she saw
me.”
“And yet, still managed to let you know
the fiancé was no more.”
“I did ask about him quite pointedly.”
“Hmm.”
“What?”
Collin pulled papers from the coat pockets
and sorted through them.
“Just, hmm.”
“She suffered a change of circumstance and
wanted a fresh start.”
“And she chose Manchester.”
Collin pointedly looked at him.
“You’re the son of a lord.
With a living.
Need I remind you that you’re a catch?”
George snorted and shook his head and went
to sit before the fire for awhile.
To warm his toes and remember.
London and a woman who’d shocked him senseless.
An engaged woman he’d been overly familiar
with because she was safe.
Taken.
And now she wasn’t.
He remembered a woman who had looked at him
with a spark in her eye and said, In your
case, I think the correct term would be hunting.
The next week he was late to the lecture and
he’d rushed in to find Miss Blackstock already
seated with an empty spot beside her.
George sat down with a brief nod and a curt,
“Are you hunting me?”
Miss Blackstock glanced at him.
“We’ve already had this conversation.
Please try to keep up.”
George tried not to find her amusing, really
he tried.
But she was.
And he did.
“I see your wit has returned.
Good for you.
But during that conversation, you had a fiancé
and now you don’t.”
“It’s true.
I did, and I don’t.
I…am not at all sure I would like to have
another.
You are safe with me, Mr. St. Clair.”
The lecturer took his spot and began speaking,
and George leaned close to whisper in her
ear, “I’d like to believe you.
I would.”
She replied just as quietly, “And I am wondering
why exactly you don’t.”
She moved, just a small shift, and her arm
brushed his.
“Perhaps it’s your choice of wordage.
I am safe with you but am I safe from you?”
“There is a distinction, isn’t there?
Because I assume I am safe from you but with
you…
I should make my maid come in next time.
She can sit between us.”
“Sounds horrible.
I assume this maid is as loud as the last
one.”
“It does seem like a reasonable assumption.
Perhaps there is some assurance you can give
me so we don’t need to go down that path.
Perhaps you became married since London?
I can’t tell by your address, and either
I’ve become immune to your manners or else
there is a woman working her magic behind
the scenes.”
George couldn’t help his smile.
“No wife.
No fiancée.
I can’t even assure you that I am not looking
for one, either.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that
a single man in possession of a good living
must be in want of a wife, no matter his feelings
on the matter.”
She gasped, twisting to meet him eye to eye.
“I knew it!
I knew you’d trained for the cloth.”
Her triumph was palpable and loud, even though
it was still whispered, and a gentleman two
rows forward turned around to scowl at them.
George stared into Miss Blackstock’s eyes–
brown, they were brown with green and gold
flecks– and said, “You knew it because
I am condescending and self-righteous.”
“Yes.
Preach the word, be instant in season, out
of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort…
2 Timothy 4:2,” she said, but there was
a smile on her lips and a twinkle in her eye.
They lasted a long moment, facing each other
and glorying in their own triumphs until Miss
Blackstock pulled away from him.
She sat back in her seat, turning her attention
to the lecturer again and George watched,
a twisty unfamiliar emotion swirling inside
him.
Intrigue, perhaps.
Interest, definitely.
Because he wouldn’t mind at all if she was
hunting him.
“I know nothing about her!”
George threw the letter he’d just received
toward the fire.
He’d been expecting it and therefore had
saved it from the now customary fiery fate–
only to find that his solicitor could not
find any information on Miss Letitia Blackstock.
To be fair, George had given the man very
little information to work with.
Her name.
Her former fiancé’s name.
She lived with an aunt and uncle, and no George
didn’t know their names.
Blackstock, he would imagine.
Unless the aunt was the blood relation.
Names were so very trying, he was beginning
to realize.
Collin watched George pace back and forth,
back and forth, and repeated mildly, “You
know nothing about her.”
He’d said that before, when he’d watched
George pen his original letter to the solicitor,
and George had replied, “I know.
I want to find out more.
Thus, the letter.”
“And why this sudden interest?”
“It’s not sudden.
I’ve been telling you about her since Lon–”
“Then why this suddenly serious interest?”
“She asked if I was married.
Not in so many words, of course.
And don’t interrupt your employer.”
Collin had waved away George’s admonition
with a satisfied nod.
“She’s chasing you.”
“No.
It’s not a chase.
There’s a glimmer in her eye, there’s
a flush to her skin, there’s a…brain…a
will…a plan.
It’s something more than a chase.
She’s hunting me.”
Collin’s eyebrows had slammed together.
“You sound positively happy about it.”
George had smiled.
“I am.
Yes.”
“And you know nothing about her.”
George had stopped smiling and said a word
no vicar should even know.
He said that word again, today, and then said,
“I don’t know nothing.
I just don’t know enough.
Yet.”
Collin ran a finger along the mantelpiece,
checking the housemaid’s work.
“I think I would like to know a little bit
more about Miss Blackstock.
Perhaps I will join you today at the lecture.”
“Because having one’s valet accompany
you to a lecture is not strange at all.”
“Then perhaps I will go as your brother-in-law.”
George paused in his pacing and cocked his
head.
“Slightly less strange for the general population.
Slightly more strange for me.”
Collin said, “That’s decided then.”
They had already arrived and found their seats
before the thought occurred to George that
this might have been a horrible idea.
“Collin, you will be quiet during the lecture.
No chatting, no fidgeting, no snoring, no
knitting.”
Collin raised an eyebrow.
“I’ll do my best.”
“This was a horrible idea.
What was I thinking?
If you interrupt the lecture, I will be forced
to replace you.”
“Try again, George.
And try to remember that today I am your brother-in-law
and not your valet.”
“I did remember.
And don’t call me George.”
“Of course not.
Sir.”
Collin turned in his seat to get a better
view of George and said, “Are you always
so nervous to see her?”
“Nervous?
I don’t want you interrupting the lecture.
It has nothing to do with her.”
“Of course not.
Sir.”
Collin’s eyes roamed toward the door and
he jerked his chin at it.
“Since I’ve only seen one other woman
here and she must be older than my granny,
this must be Miss Blackstock.”
George turned in his seat to find Miss Twiggy
heading right for them and he rose as she
approached.
“Miss Blackstock, may I introduce Mr. Collin
Clarke, my brother-in-law…so to speak.
Our siblings are married.
His sister, my brother.”
“Mr. Clarke.
Have you come to be entertained by the wonders
of steam?”
“Not in the least,” Collin said and George
said over him, “I’ve taken him under my
wing.”
Miss Blackstock looked between them for a
long minute, then sat and made herself comfortable.
When George and Collin had followed her example,
she said, “He’s not going to interrupt
the lecture, is he?”
Collin nearly fell out of his seat laughing
and George tried mightily to ignore him.
“I’ve already warned him off knitting,”
George said gruffly and when Miss Blackstock
chuckled at his wit, he suddenly found it
much easier to keep his attention focused
on her.
George apologized for his brother-in-law’s
laughter.
“He’s young.”
“Yes.
Should we send him out with my maid?”
George and Collin walked home in companionable
silence.
George, because he had sat next to Miss Blackstock
and whispered to her and been whispered at,
and he didn’t care what Collin thought.
Not at that moment.
Perhaps he never would.
George realized Collin’s silence was not
quite as companionable when the young man
sighed and said, “Why do you always fall
for the most inappropriate woman?
It’s as if your heart won’t even wake
up to notice unless your father would hate
her.”
George blinked and suddenly felt the coolness
of the night.
“What’s inappropriate about her?”
“She’s…outspoken.”
George nodded.
“So are you.”
Collin snorted, then nodded his head in acquiescence.
“True.
Though not to your father and I suspect the
same could not be said for Miss Blackstock.”
George was glad for the darkness.
Glad no one could see how he smiled at the
thought of Miss Blackstock meeting his father.
“I suspect you are correct.”
“And if that doesn’t carry weight with
you, I suspect she would also be outspoken
with bishops, arch or otherwise.”
George’s smile grew a little meaner.
“She would be quite unimpressed.”
“Think, George, what that would mean for
your career.
Your future.”
“You mean my father’s hope for my career.
This line of reasoning is not going to change
my mind about her, you know?”
“I know.
Because you’re the lord’s son and you
think what you like.”
George grinned, then nodded when Collin said,
“She’s a little long in the tooth.”
There was something about the woman that proclaimed
she had seen the world.
There was a lack of naivete.
Of wonder.
As if her innocence had left her long ago.
George shut that thought down quickly.
“She’s not old.
She’s just not young.
I would guess we are near the same age.”
“Like I said, long in the tooth.”
George said, “Perhaps you should ask her
next time you meet just how old she is.”
“It worked for her uncle’s name, didn’t
it?”
“Yes.”
It had.
And neither of them had missed the attention
she paid to the question.
Collin said, “There’s something too aggressive
about her.”
“I think Miss Blackstock could handle any
situation she found herself in.
Father would like that.”
“We know nothing about her, George.”
“This is a very bad habit you’re starting,
with this name thing.
And we have her uncle’s name now.
We’ll just learn a little more about Miss
Blackstock, won’t we?”
Collin sighed.
“Why couldn’t you have fallen in love
with the girl who made those hot cross buns?”
George stopped on the pavement.
Fallen in love?
Had he?
He’d only loved one woman before and the
memory now was distorted.
Corrupted by everything that had come after.
In love?
No.
He didn’t know enough about her.
Not yet.
But for the first time, he thought he might
be willing to fall again.
George started walking and when he came level
with Collin, he patted his friend, brother,
and valet on the back.
“I couldn’t ever fall in love with the
hot cross bun girl.
I don’t want a tubby valet.”
Chapter Five
When Honora arrived the next week, there was
Mr. St. Clair, alone, in their customary spot.
She sat down next to him without a word, he
continuing to read his leaflet with great
concentration, and Honora wondered how they
could be here, surrounded by people, and yet
it was just the two of them.
It had been illuminating to see him interacting
last week with his brother-in-law, with someone
he was obviously close to and fond of, and
when he began to speak softly, she thought
he sounded like he was still talking to a
friend.
“How do we proceed, Miss Blackstock?
I am lost.”
Honora turned her head enough to see that
he was still studying his leaflet.
“Perhaps there will be another lecture after
this one, Mr. St. Clair.
Steam is not likely, but perhaps…
Egyptian antiquities?
I admit I have no real fondness for mummies
or the desert or long-dead languages.
Still, I had no interest in steam before falling
into my current fascination.
There’s hope.”
“Is there?
Another lecture and another because we did
this all wrong?”
She smiled slightly at his profile.
“We did, didn’t we?
No balls, no dancing, no chaperones.”
“No context.
I am supposed to be able to ask delicate questions
to your relations and acquaintances, and you
are supposed to be able to do the same to
mine.”
“I missed my chance.
I should have asked your brother-in-law.”
Mr. St. Clair sighed.
“I never had the chance.
Unless you count the time I physically accosted
your uncle.”
Honora blew out a breath before it turned
into a much-too-loud laugh.
He said, “Or the time I verbally accosted
your aunt.
And your maid.
And you.
Bloody hell, I should just be happy I can
sit next to you in a crowded lecture hall.”
He turned his head toward her and he didn’t
have to say that he was.
Happy to sit here with her, as happy as Honora
was to sit here with him.
They sat together, alone in the crowded room,
and she said, “I suppose I could bring my
uncle to the next lecture.”
George closed his eyes and Honora wanted to
laugh again at his pained look.
Before he could agree to such a ridiculous
suggestion, she said, “Or I could extend
to you his invitation to dinner.”
“His invitation or yours?”
“Both of ours.”
He opened his eyes and raised an eyebrow at
her.
Honora smiled.
“My uncle is a good, kind man.
Slow to anger and quick to forgive.
Besides, he was hardly awake when you assaulted
him.
He doesn’t equate you with the gentleman
I’ve been…”
She stopped and looked down at her lap.
Then decided to give him the truth.
Because she’d begun this dance half a dozen
times before and had never had a truth to
give any of them.
“…the gentleman I’ve been boring them
with for the last few months.”
When she looked back up, he was looking forward
and smiling stupidly.
He said softly, “You know nothing about
me.
And I know nothing about you.”
“Nothing?
Then you must be very unobservant because
I know quite a bit about you.”
His smile grew.
“You’re right, Miss Blackstock.
It’s not nothing.”
Honora flew around their Manchester home,
making sure everything was perfect for Mr.
St. Clair.
Every pillow in its place.
Every table setting just so.
She did not dare step foot in the kitchen,
just in case her presence burned the meat
or scalded the soup, and instead kept sending
her aunt in to make sure everything looked
good.
They’d spent days agonizing over what to
serve for dinner.
“Something simple?” her aunt had asked.
“No.
He’s somebody.
Somebody’s son.”
“He’s a vicar.
A bachelor vicar.
I expect meat and potatoes and bread, and
he’ll be happy.”
Honora made a face.
“He’s nothing like Mr. Moffat.
He won’t be impressed by country fare, nor
worried at all about whether his wife can
cook.
Do you think our cook could make turtle soup?”
Aunt Gertrude choked.
“No.
Not even if we could afford it.”
Honora blew out a breath and tried to remember
back to a different lifetime.
She muttered to herself, “What would Father
have served to a dignitary?” and Aunt Gertrude
had nearly fallen out of her chair in shock
at the mention of the man.
They’d finally settled on oxtail soup, roasted
hare, stewed cardoons, pigeon compote, kidney
beans, lamb’s tongue with spinach, and almond
cake.
A beautiful dinner, Honora told herself over
and over again, trying to calm her abnormally
nervous stomach while her maid curled her
hair.
The girl looped and tugged and smoothed, and
completely ignored the ornament Honora had
told her to use.
“You’re forgetting something.”
“Please don’t make me put it in your hair,
miss.
Look, I brought some baby’s breath.
It’ll look lovely draped down your neck.”
Honora said, “The twig,” and her stomach
settled.
Mr. St. Clair arrived right on time with his
brother-in-law and when Honora introduced
her uncle, she laughed.
“We really have gone about this in completely
the wrong way.”
Her uncle said, “The world is changing and
quickly.
My niece tells me all about steam and I am
appalled at the speed of this new world.”
“You’re not appalled at what that speed
brings, though.
Oranges are his favorite treat.”
Mr. St. Clair said, “Cigars are mine.”
Uncle Hubert perked up.
“Oh, do you smoke…”
And off they went into the land of ghastly
manly pleasure, whence no woman could possibly
want to follow.
Aunt Gertrude said, “They’ll be awhile,
I think.
Do you smoke, Mr. Clarke?”
“Not at all.
I can’t stand what it does to a good coat.”
Aunt Gertrude nodded.
“Oh, I agree.
Though hopefully, you like oranges?”
Mr. Clarke professed he did and they chatted
about fruit while Honora wished she’d listened
about having an even number of guests.
She’d fallen down in her duty as a hostess,
purposefully– after all, who would they
have invited?
And if they’d been familiar with any other
families in Manchester, why would she want
another female around her Mr. St. Clair?
Honora paused and looked at her Mr. St. Clair.
Hers.
Hers?
Mr. Clarke caught her staring at his brother-in-law.
“Forgive me, Miss Blackstock.
I’m sure I can think of something more scintillating
to talk about than fruit.”
“Enjoy your conversation.
Your turn will come soon enough when Mr. St.
Clair and I bore everyone silly with our talk
of water and coal and trains and ships.”
Mr. Clarke and Aunt Gertrude closed their
eyes in supplication but Mr. St. Clair heard
her.
He turned his head enough to meet her eyes
and a slight smile hovered at the corners
of his lips.
Honora’s uncle continued to wax lovingly
about cigars, and Mr. St. Clair continued
to smile, and Honora tried to pay attention
to her aunt and Mr. Clarke as they turned
the conversation to London.
There was no agreement here.
Mr. Clarke had loved every bit of it and her
aunt felt the opposite.
“York,” she said, “is the finest city
in all of England.
A wall that surrounds and a minster that watches
over.
Have you been?”
He shook his head.
“I’ve never been able to talk St. Clair
into sightseeing at Brighton or Bath.
Do you think I’d have better luck with York,
Miss Blackstock?”
“Perhaps.
Would he be tempted by ancient Roman artifacts?
A ruined abbey?
Richard III?”
As she listed all of York’s ancient wonders,
Mr. Clarke’s shoulders slumped and when
she finished he said, “No.
Unless there is loud machinery and unpardonable
speed, he won’t care at all.”
Aunt Gertrude shook her head.
“What a shame.
It’s a lovely place.
I hope we can return one day.”
When she met Honora’s shuttered eyes, she
amended, “For a visit.
I wouldn’t mind taking a stroll atop the
wall one more time.”
Mr. St. Clair and Uncle Hubert had wandered
over during the discussion and Uncle Hubert
laid his hand gently on his wife’s arm.
“It must be the memories and not the place,
my dear.
What could be so special about a wall?”
Honora looked away from their secret smiles.
Away from all that they’d left behind in
York.
People and places they’d never see again.
Memories.
The future.
Mr. St. Clair touched her elbow.
“And do you feel the same about York, Miss
Blackstock?
I confess my one visit did not impress me.”
“You’ve been to York?”
“A pilgrimage of sorts.
My father wanted me to see the minster.
And the ruined abbey.
But I was young, and well, disagreeable, so
perhaps that colored my visit.”
“Disagreeable, Mr. St. Clair?
I can hardly believe it of you.”
Aunt Gertrude tsked.
“Letitia!”
But Mr. St. Clair looked at the decoration
in her hair and then down into her eyes and
even her aunt could see that he did not look
at all disagreeable now.
Aunt Gertrude found something on the other
side of the room for Mr. Clarke to look at
posthaste and Mr. St. Clair murmured, “I’d
have been truly worried if there were spring
flowers in your hair and not a twig.”
“No flowers for you, Mr. St. Clair.
I fear you have always been privy to my true
disposition and there is no use hiding it
now.
I am but an open book.”
“Now that, I doubt.
But you may try and prove it by telling me
what you thought of York.
You did not look as misty-eyed as your aunt
and uncle during the discussion.”
Honora inhaled a deep breath, then lied.
“We lived there only for a short time.
Right after my mother died.
I hardly remember it.”
“You are quite nomadic, Miss Blackstock.
York, London, Manchester.”
Bath, Edinburgh, Wales.
It was easier to list the places they hadn’t
lived.
She said, “When one loses something important,
Mr. St. Clair, one will search the world for
its replacement.
Or, at least the entirety of the British Isles.”
“Yes,” he said, and his own loss was in
his voice.
She knew he’d lost his mother, too.
And was happy to let him think that’s what
she was speaking of.
He took her hand.
“Have you found it yet?”
She looked down at his gloved hand cupping
hers.
She didn’t dare look up; knew she couldn’t
keep her thoughts off her face as she whispered,
“Have you?”
The gentlemen were pressed to come to dinner
again the next week and neither one of them
was reluctant to accept.
Collin waited until they were nearly home
before offering his opinion.
“I will not squirrel you away from her machinations
just yet.”
George could still feel her hand in his, could
still see the twig in her hair, could still
smell her scent.
He said, “Good.
You would have a rough go of it.”
“I could always write to your father.”
George grunted, and Collin said, “But it
does seem mutual, this complete loss of reason,
so…I’ll hold off on that.”
George murmured, “Excellent.”
He was nervous as a school boy the day of
the next lecture.
Collin helped him into his coat and said,
“Shall I come with you?”
“No.”
“But who will keep you in line?” he asked,
making George wonder how out of line Miss
Blackstock would let him get.
Wondering if he should make her bring her
maid inside today because the thought of sitting
next to her without any kind of chaperone
suddenly seemed ill-advised.
But then, she was right there next to him.
And he couldn’t remember why he wanted a
chaperone.
He couldn’t remember anything except his
own name.
He didn’t even notice the silence until
she said, “Well, this is awkward.”
He jerked.
“It is?
I was simply enjoying your company.”
Her voice was quiet and warm when she replied,
“Mr. St. Clair, you are simply ruining your
reputation.
I expect gruffness and irritability and a
sour bite to all your declarations.”
He said, “I detest how much I enjoy your
company, Miss Blackstock.
Is that better?”
“Yes.
Quite perfect.
And interestingly enough, exactly how I feel
about the situation.”
But it was a step too far, this mutual declaration
and he adjusted his seat.
“Nothing may come of this.
I want to warn you.”
She nodded, still without looking at him.
“I don’t mind walking down this path with
you a little further.”
He smiled.
“That is exactly what I am proposing.”
“I will warn you, Mr. St. Clair.
Something may come of it.”
“Yes.”
He nodded.
“Yes, something might.
And since there is no one else to ask, I’ll
have to be gauche and direct.”
“Oh, dear.
However will I survive.”
“About Mr. Moffat.”
“Oh…
Dear.”
She opened the leaflet that had been sitting
on her lap and began to read.
Or at least pretend to.
“A broken engagement, Miss Blackstock, is
noteworthy.”
She nodded her head once, sharply.
She chewed on her top lip for a brief moment
and then said briskly, “The truth is, Mr.
St. Clair, that I didn’t like who I had
to be when I was with him.
And I didn’t realize until too late that
perhaps I could simply be myself.
I don’t blame him for calling it off.
He thought he was marrying a woman sweet and
kind.”
“I met her.”
She smiled, then stopped.
“Do you miss her?”
“…I didn’t know her well enough to miss
her.
And I doubt I would have noticed her at all
if I had not met you first.”
She finally turned her head to face him and
he said, “I’m confusing myself.
I know it was you, always.”
She sounded infinitely sad as she said, “No.
This is me.”
“Miss Twiggy.”
“Yes.”
She smiled tightly and leaned closer, staring
into him with wide eyes and whispering, “There
was no impropriety on either of our parts.
I actually think…
I think it was quite brave of him.
He did something that I was unwilling do and
it would have been much easier if I had been
the one to call it off.
He sacrificed his honor and saved us both
from a very unhappy future.”
“He was a scoundrel for calling it off.
Not brave at all.
And I would thank him heartily if I could.”
He turned forward and didn’t look at her
again.
Couldn’t look at her again.
But when she sat back in her seat, he said
conversationally, “Would you care to take
a stroll with me after the lecture?
With your maid, of course.”
“I would love it.”
Miss Blackstock opened her umbrella, hoping
to protect herself from the Manchester drizzle.
Her maid trailed a few feet behind them, and
George wondered just how a tiny mouse of a
woman was supposed to keep her mistress safe
from any man who didn’t want to be a gentleman.
Miss Twiggy said, “So, tell me about your
three brothers, your father.”
He groaned and she chuckled wickedly.
“You don’t get along?”
“No.
At least not with my father.”
She waited.
“He has plans for me.
Has always had plans, even before I was born.”
“They disagree with your own?”
“I don’t have any plans.”
George nearly stopped when he admitted to
it.
Why it was so shameful, he didn’t know,
but he felt heat flood his face and he cleared
his throat.
“My father’s plans have always been there,
right in front of me.
Perhaps having no plans at all was the only
way I felt I could have my own.”
“So what are these diabolical plans of his?”
“Oh, I suspect anything less than archbishop
will disappoint him.”
She laughed, and then realized he’d been
completely serious.
He said, “My father has grand plans for
all his sons though I suspect he is destined
to disappointment regarding me.
Have you ever felt, Miss Blackstock, like
you were living a lie?
That every day another piece of the real you
was being sloughed off, and that one day you
would wake up and there would be nothing left
at all?”
She tripped and he grabbed for her elbow,
catching her before she could fall.
She looked up at him, the umbrella forgotten
and the drizzle coating her stricken face.
She whispered, “Yes,” and he hauled her
up.
“Forgive me.
I did not mean Mr. Moffat.
I wasn’t thinking at all.”
He picked up her umbrella and her maid came
over to fuss and Miss Blackstock stood there
in the rain letting them.
When she was put to rights and they finally
began moving again, George said, “Enough
about me, I think.
What of your family?”
She laughed weakly.
Humorlessly.
“I don’t know that my father ever had
any plans for me but I think it’s safe to
assume I have not achieved them.”
“And your mother?”
“I loved her.”
George said quietly, “That is a lovely epitaph,
Miss Blackstock.”
She adjusted her umbrella and cleared her
throat.
“She spent her life trying to give my father
a son and died doing it.
And when she died…
I wanted to die, too.
My aunt came to take care of me and stayed
when my father remarried.
And when my father’s new wife gave birth
two years in a row, I left to live with my
aunt permanently.”
They walked a ways in silence before George
asked, “And they’ve been good to you?”
“Better than I deserve.
They’ve treated me not as a child but as
an equal.
As an adult.”
“Sounds wonderful.”
She nodded.
“There is a kind of peace one feels when
the people who know every one of your ugly
secrets loves you.
When they would follow you to the ends of
the earth to help you get back what you lost.
Good people who would give up their comforts,
their home, their souls for you.”
She said softly, “I wish with all my heart
that it had been enough to know that they
would have and had not actually required them
to do it.”
George helped her across a busy street, his
hand lingering on hers.
“Manchester is fairly terrible.
But I am glad you left London, even if it
cost your aunt and uncle their souls.”
She smiled at him, the stricken look that
had remained in her eyes since she’d tripped
finally fading.
She took her hand back slowly and said, “Mr.
Clarke followed you to Manchester.
You must know the cost family will sometimes
pay.”
“Only too well.
He reminds me of all he left behind in London
with regular consistency.”
And he decided right then to share his ugly
secrets with her.
Because he knew hers.
Her broken engagement.
And he wondered what she would say about his
odd family when she had her own.
“Though, he had little say in moving to
Manchester with me.
Mr. Clarke’s father was a farmer and he
is my valet as well as my brother-in-law.”
She looked at him with surprise, but he was
gratified to find no censure.
“That is not a relationship you hear of
everyday.”
“No.”
George shook his head.
“I loved his sister, and when she married
my brother it helped to have Collin with me.
It helped to not be alone even if it sometimes
hurt to look at him.”
Miss Blackstock tilted her head to the side
and studied him.
“You loved his sister, and she married your
brother.”
George nodded.
“Your eldest brother,” she said as if
that explained it, and he laughed.
The first time that he’d ever laughed at
his broken heart.
“No.
My twin.”
She sucked in a quick breath and George answered
before she even asked.
“He’s not anything like me.”
“Then perhaps she was the brave one.
Painfully, heartbreakingly brave.
And I would thank her heartily if I could.”
George smiled at his own words.
And knew when he deposited her at home that
he wouldn’t ever want to get off this path.
And the next evening, sitting down to dinner
next to Miss Blackstock and her aunt and uncle,
Mr. and Mrs. Turpin, George was even more
certain.
He and Mr. Turpin were happy to talk cigars–
the flavors, the brands, their favorites.
And he grinned when both Collin– “Not
at the table, please”– and Mrs. Turpin–
“After dinner, we will leave you and Mr.
Turpin to smoke all you like, Mr. St. Clair”–
interrupted them.
Miss Blackstock smiled.
“Now you know.
Should you ever tire of anyone’s company,
simply bring up the subject of cigars and
they will banish you themselves.”
“I will remember for the next time I visit
with my father.”
Mr. Turpin spoke up.
“Is your father a vicar as well, Mr. St.
Clair?”
Collin threw a long glance at George, who
said carefully, “My father is the Viscount
St. Clair.”
Mrs. Turpin froze with her fork half-way to
her mouth and Miss Blackstock said slowly,
“I suspected you were the son of somebody.
I didn’t expect…that.”
George felt a tad gratified that his father’s
title was so unwelcome; he’d thought the
same thing himself a time or two.
“We all have our embarrassing relations.
Remember, I am only a vicar.”
Miss Blackstock said, “We could hardly tell,
tonight.”
“I don’t have to be condescending and
self-righteous all the time.”
“I’m simply surprised you can turn it
off.
You being a vicar and a lord’s son.”
Collin nodded agreeably with her and George
said to the both of them, “I can only turn
it off when I am in the most agreeable of
company.”
Mr. Turpin smiled at the pretty compliment
to his niece, though Mrs. Turpin still seemed
shaken.
Miss Blackstock cocked her head.
“You must mean my aunt and uncle then because
you have been disagreeable oft enough in my
company.”
Collin snorted into his drink, sending himself
into a short coughing fit, and Mrs. Turpin’s
color rushed back into her cheeks after the
apparently devastating news of who George’s
father was.
“Oh, Mr. Clarke,” she cried and patted
Collin’s back solicitously as he continued
coughing.
George watched, smiling, and said, “I must
mean them.”
Chapter Six
Before the ladies left the dining room to
the men, George nodded at Collin.
Collin sighed, spared a glance for Miss Blackstock,
then, finally, nodded back.
Giving his blessing, and George smiled at
his friend and then swallowed.
George helped Miss Blackstock with her chair
and when Collin distracted Mr. and Mrs. Turpin
with a question, George quickly followed her
out of the room.
“Miss Blackstock, my father is…difficult.
There’s no getting around that.”
She continued to the sitting room, saying
over her shoulder, “I have never met a father
who wasn’t.”
“Met many, have you?”
She quoted the bible, proving her point.
“And, ye fathers, provoke not your children
to wrath…
Ephesians 6:4.”
George took a breath.
“Every vicar’s wife should be able to
quote the bible.”
Miss Blackstock froze, then whirled around
to stare at George.
“Is that a requirement nowadays for the
Church of England?
I hadn’t realized.”
“I hadn’t realized there were any requirements
at all.
They approved me, a man who doesn’t even
pray,” he confessed.
Because he wanted her to know.
“A vicar who doesn’t pray?”
“I suspect there is a range of vicar and
they all have their own vices.
Ingratitude is mine.”
He came to stand right in front of her and
she chuckled softly.
“Is that what you call your failure to pray?
Ingratitude?”
“I call it a great many things.
Necessary being the most important.”
“Why?”
“Because the last thing I prayed for was
the death of my brother.
God doesn’t need to hear anything more from
me.”
She lifted her hand and grazed the side of
his cheek with one finger and when he caught
it gently, he held it to his chest.
He looked into her bright eyes– how could
he have ever compared them to mud– and asked,
“Does that make you hate me?”
She flattened her palm over his heart and
said softly, “It makes me feel a great many
things for and about you.
None of them are hate.”
“You should know what kind of man I am,
Miss Blackstock.
I want you to know.”
She smiled at him.
“And you’re the wicked vicar?
Mr. St. Clair, I already knew you were.
It was a wicked thing to do, to make me dream
of you.”
He closed his eyes and she whispered, “George?”
“Hmm?”
“Are you going to kiss me?”
“I’m thinking about it.”
“Stop thinking.”
“If I kiss you, Miss Twiggy, I will then
have to deposit myself in front of your uncle.”
“You want to kiss him, too?”
“If I have to.”
He opened his eyes to find hers smiling back
at him, and George hadn’t realized eyes
could.
She said, “I don’t think he will require
it.”
“I’m relieved.
And unafraid.”
“That’s…odd.”
“Do you want to know why I am unafraid?”
“You want to tell me, and I have no objection
to hearing it.”
“Your eyes are not shy and your smile is
not demure.
Your eyes are determined.”
There was no giving Miss Blackstock to anyone.
She would choose, her alone.
She would choose…him?
“And I try so hard to hide the determination.
What a pity I did not succeed.
But tell me, Mr. St. Clair.
What of my smile?
What does that say about me?”
He looked at her lips and said softly, “Twiggy.
So very twiggy.”
Her lips opened and her determined eyes softened
and George said, “Perhaps a short engagement.
I can’t wait to find out what I’ve married
on my wedding day.”
She agreed with a nod.
“A short one.”
George smiled.
“Was that a yes?”
“Was that a question?”
“Yes.”
“Then…yes.”
George’s heart started beating again and
he leaned toward her.
“It was a wicked thing to do, Twiggy.
To make me fall in love with you.”
She whispered, “Did I?”
He put his lips against hers and whispered
back, “Oh, yes.
My Letitia.”
Her uncle did not require kisses, though George
did offer one to her aunt.
Letitia kept her arm linked tight with his
as they celebrated with glasses of wine and
when Collin congratulated them, there was
real happiness in his voice.
“I think you will make my friend very happy,
Miss Blackstock.”
“Thank you, Mr. Clarke.”
And when they left too late that night, Miss
Blackstock’s uncle returned the favor and
distracted Collin while Miss Blackstock followed
George out into the darkness, shutting the
door softly behind her.
Her hand found his, her skirt brushed his
leg, and her breath puffed against his cheek.
He closed his eyes, wrapped his arm around
her waist and kissed her, and he was happy.
When he opened his eyes again, they’d adjusted
to the darkness and he could see the smile
on her face.
See her happiness as well.
“Letty?”
She pulled back.
“Yes, Georgy?”
“Twiggy?”
Her fingers grazed his lips and she whispered,
“I like Twiggy.”
“So do I.”
“I like you.”
“I rather gathered that when you agreed
to marry me.”
“I don’t know why I like you.
And to be honest, I don’t know why you like
me.
Not this me, the real me.”
He wasn’t entirely sure either.
Except he thought she might have been made
just for him.
Made to stand toe to toe with him.
He said, “We’ll think on it, and perhaps
have an answer before we actually wed.”
She leaned against him, whispering in his
ear and slipping something into his hand.
“Maybe this will help.
You did say a short engagement?”
He nodded, feeling her cheek slide smoothly
against his own and realizing the item she’d
given him must have been the twig that had
once again been in her hair.
He let go of her, putting her bodily away
and reminding himself that he was a man of
the cloth and the walk home would do him good.
Reminding himself yet again that they were
going to have a very short engagement.
Twiggy called out softly, “I’ll dream
of you tonight.
And figure out why.”
George decided abruptly that he and Collin
would take the long way home.
Honora stayed outside in the dark.
Stayed outside and pretended she could see
him walking down the lane for far longer than
she actually could.
She closed her eyes and remembered how he’d
told her he’d fallen in love with her.
Not the first time a gentleman had proposed
the idea to her, not even the first time she’d
believed it.
She remembered his non-proposal, and she believed
for the first time that sometimes no words
were needed.
She was still smiling when she went inside,
still smiling when she bid her aunt and uncle
a good night.
Her aunt stood.
“Honora?”
“Yes, Aunt Gertrude?”
“Aunt Beatrice.
Uncle Arnold.
Have you forgotten?”
“Of course not.
You know I try to stay in character.”
“I don’t think you’ve been in character
for quite a while.”
Honora hadn’t been.
And it was as if she could breathe for the
first time in years.
“I don’t need to be in character as Miss
Blackstock.
This is who he knows me as.”
“I’m not talking about him.
I’m talking about you.
You are forgetting that this isn’t real.”
Aunt Gertrude glanced at her husband and he
rose, saying, “I think I’ll go see about
some tea.”
Uncle Hubert shut the door behind him and
Honora remained standing, the smile on her
face and in her heart fading.
The silence lengthened and both women waited
for the other to speak.
When Honora finally did, it was with gut-wrenching
honesty.
“I don’t want to play the game with him,
Aunt Gertrude.
He’s not…he’s not like the rest.”
The older woman closed her eyes.
“No, he’s not.
His father is a viscount.”
The son of somebody.
Somebody important.
Honora had known just by how he expected the
world to fall into line around him.
She said softly, “We don’t have to swindle
him,” and her aunt opened her eyes.
“Good, good.
Call it off.
Tomorrow.
Tonight!”
“I mean that I could marry him.”
She remembered his lips on hers and her hand
in his.
The countless afternoons they’d sat next
to each other, bickering and trying not to
laugh, and Honora thought a lifetime of that
would be wonderful.
It seemed like a future one could welcome.
Her aunt sat suddenly, heavily.
“Honora, you can’t get married as Miss
Letitia Blackstock.
It wouldn’t be legal.
She doesn’t exist.”
“It wasn’t legal for me to become engaged
under countless names, to collect reparations
under those names.”
Her aunt whispered, “You must see that this
is different.
Must see the consequences of such an act would
not mean disaster for us but for your children.
If it were found out that you’d married
under a false name, they would be illegitimate.
They would have nothing.
Be nothing.
And there would be no hiding it, not like
last time.”
Oh, it hurt.
As it was meant to, and Honora could only
forgive her aunt because there was just as
much pain shining in the older woman’s eyes
at that hateful reminder.
The woman who had cried with Honora when first
her mother had died– Honora only fifteen
and still in need of a mother even if she
wished she didn’t.
The woman who had cried her own tears over
the death of her sister.
The woman who had held Honora again when her
father had remarried– those tears hot and
angry.
And then, finally, when Honora had discovered
that a man could lie and take advantage of
that loss and anger and guilt, promising the
sun and moon and stars only to steal her virtue
and her honor.
Leaving her to discover that he was already
married and that her child would never have
a last name.
Those tears had been filled with fear.
Those tears had been helpless.
And her aunt had wiped them away gently, crying
her own even as she made plans to protect
her niece.
Even as she stood between Honora and Honora’s
father as they screamed and shouted at each
other for months, the whole family hidden
away in the country until the birth.
Honora had stopped screaming when her stepmother
had taken the baby from her body.
Had stopped shouting when the baby was given
a last name and a family.
A mother and a father and sisters.
A future.
But Honora hadn’t stopped crying, not for
a long time.
And when her father and stepmother had finally
moved back to town, her littlest “sister”
nearly six months old and her stepmother pregnant
again, Honora had talked her aunt and uncle
into renting a cottage far, far away.
They’d lived simply on the small portion
Honora had inherited from her mother and when
the tears had finally stopped, anger had taken
its place.
White-hot rage at a world that made women
helpless and useless and worthless, and Honora
had sworn she would never be helpless again,
even if she had to steal her security pound
by pound and man by man.
Again and again until she could only remember
who she was in the midst of strangers.
Until she’d accidentally found a man who
could love her as herself.
She hadn’t believed such a man existed.
Honora whispered to her aunt, “He knows
me.
He likes me.
Loves me.
It shouldn’t matter what name I go by.”
“Then tell him the truth.”
Honora closed her eyes and the lies she’d
been happy believing came crashing down.
He wouldn’t love her if she told him the
truth.
And that must mean he didn’t love her now.
Couldn’t, not when he didn’t really know
who she was.
Aunt Gertrude said, “We love you.
We have sold our very souls to the devil for
you.
But this we can not do for you.
We will not, because it is not our souls we
would be casting away but your children’s.”
Honora opened her eyes and whispered, “I
can’t tell him the truth.
He’ll hate me.”
“I know it.
Know he won’t forgive you the lies no matter
if he finds out now or in twenty years.
Know that his father won’t forgive us.”
Aunt Gertrude clutched at her neck.
“You should have said no.
You can’t marry him and we can’t swindle
him, not without risking swinging from the
nearest tree.”
Honora should have said no when she’d realized
he was different from the rest.
But she’d wanted him.
Wanted him still.
Wanted to marry him.
Wanted to have children and a home with him.
Wanted him to call her by her real name.
“You’ll have to call it off.
Tomorrow.
Tell him–”
Honora turned toward the door.
“I know what to tell him.”
All she had to tell him was the truth.
She’d had a child out of wedlock.
No good man would marry her after that.
No vicar either, even one who didn’t pray.
Her aunt said quietly, “We’ll leave this
dreadful town.
Go somewhere warm and dry.”
Honora didn’t answer, merely opened the
door and left, climbing the stairs without
a lamp and shutting herself up in the darkness
of her room.
She didn’t throw a tantrum.
There was no wailing and gnashing of teeth.
It wasn’t a Miss Blackstock performance.
And she didn’t go downstairs to be comforted
by her aunt.
To have the tears wiped away gently by someone
who loved her despite everything.
Because this was a private release of all
the despair a woman could hold within herself.
A woman who had been forced to accept the
truth.
A woman who had lost any hope of a family
and a future for herself.
This was how Honora cried now.
In the dark.
Quietly.
With her tears sliding so slowly down her
cheeks it was as if she was loathe to let
them go at all.
Honora didn’t sleep.
She tossed and turned, and came to the conclusion
sometime near morning that she only had two
options.
One, call it off.
Tell him she didn’t love him and never had
and end it.
Or two, tell him everything.
The child, the lies, her name.
And hope that he loved her more than all of
that.
And the only reason she could think any sane
woman would pick option two was if she was
pathetically and hopelessly in love.
Because if she did tell him, there were only
two reactions he could have.
One, he would refuse to have any contact with
her ever again.
Or two, he would hate her and do everything
in his power to destroy her.
There wasn’t even a sliver of a chance that
he wouldn’t care that she had lied every
moment they were together.
Had lied about who and what she was.
Had lied to half a dozen men before him.
Not a prayer that he would take her hand and
say, “Honora?
I never liked the name Letitia anyway.”
She steepled her fingers over her flat stomach.
The stomach that had bulged with another man’s
child.
All she had was a single flickering hope that
he truly loved her and would forgive her her
sins.
And the only reason she would risk everything
for that hope was because she was quite pathetically
in love with him.
George didn’t come in the morning, and Honora
paced.
Wishing he would come sooner rather than later,
and then wishing that he wouldn’t come at
all.
Aunt Beatrice and Uncle Arnold– there was
no reason to stay in character now– packed
the rest of the house up, leaving the sitting
room for last.
For after.
Whether Honora decided to tell him the truth
or just simply end it didn’t matter to them.
They would all be leaving Manchester anyway.
It was only Honora who had a choice to make.
Only Honora who had any options and it made
her laugh when she realized it.
A woman with options.
It was as horrible as having none because
she couldn’t decide.
Telling herself one minute that she couldn’t
tell him and the next that she couldn’t
not tell him.
Her stomach was a mess and her temper was
thin and she waited impatiently.
It was her experience that a newly engaged
man visited his fiancé the day after.
Always.
So she waited, and paced, and flung her hands
out wildly as she fought an invisible foe,
and when his knock finally came, she fell
into a limp pile on the sofa, exhausted before
it even began.
Her aunt and uncle entered the room, came
to stand with her in her time of need as they’d
always done, so Honora pushed herself to her
feet, as ready as she’d ever be.
The housemaid led George into the room and
then Mr. Moffat walked in right behind him.
Aunt Beatrice gasped and Uncle Arnold took
a step forward.
Honora stared at George and he stared back,
not saying a word.
Mr. Moffat said, “Good day.
I almost feel as if introductions are in order
again.
Or for the first time, really.
I can’t call you Miss Blackstock, can I?”
Honora’s stomach dropped.
Mr. Moffat continued on conversationally,
“I received a letter a while back on behalf
of Mr. St. Clair, wondering if I could spare
any information regarding a Miss Letitia Blackstock.
Apologetically, of course, considering our
sad history but any help would be appreciated
and might lead to a happy ending for the lady.
What gentleman wouldn’t jump at the chance
to redeem himself?”
He smiled.
An ugly and frightening lifting of his lips
that showcased the anger in his eyes.
“I sat down to answer it at once and realized
just how little I knew of you.
I didn’t know your father’s name, only
your uncle’s.
I didn’t know where you were born besides
that it was someplace north of London.
Did you know that quite a bit of England resides
north of London?”
He laughed hollowly.
The sound of a man who finally knew what a
fool he’d been.
“And the more I tried to remember about
you and us, the more I wondered why I didn’t
know where my fiancé was from.
I certainly remembered where your solicitor
was located.”
There was anger in Mr. Moffat’s eyes and
righteous fury in his voice.
They’d played him for a fool; they’d stolen
his honor and his money.
Honora looked only at George.
Mr. Moffat said, “I thought it was only
because we hadn’t yet finalized the marriage
settlement.
We would get around to it and in the meantime
you were enjoying shopping for your trousseau
and discussing flowers, and I was happy to
accommodate you because I was marrying a nearly
perfect woman.”
George moved then, blinking rapidly.
His eyes softened and Honora almost thought
that he was going to smile at how “perfect”
Miss Apple Blossom had been.
She almost imagined he might smile and laugh
and call her Twiggy.
Mr. Moffat turned to George.
“Has she started throwing tantrums and baking–”
He closed his eyes and swallowed hard.
“Has she started baking yet?”
“Not yet,” George said and the smile stopped
before it started.
He looked at Honora and she closed her eyes
against the anger filling them.
She wouldn’t get a chance to explain.
Wouldn’t get a chance to choose.
And then she opened her eyes and took a step
toward him because she had to try anyway.
“I wanted to tell you.”
Mr. Moffat snorted.
“Lord, how many times have you done this?
Every move rehearsed, every contingency accounted
for.”
George said, “Is this rehearsed, Letitia?”
Mr. Moffat fingered a silhouette portrait
hanging on the wall.
“Oh, not Letitia.
Not Blackstock.
She was Dorine Calmly in Edinburgh.
I don’t know who she was before that, yet.
I don’t know her real name.
Yet.
But I believe a man should know the name of
the woman who ruined his life.”
Honora watched him walk around the room, fingering
every picture.
He picked up a book and flipped the pages,
and Aunt Beatrice’s hand went to her throat.
George apparently agreed with him.
He said, “Your real name.”
She met his increasingly angry eyes and said
nothing.
She couldn’t tell him, not with Mr. Moffat
ready to take that real name to the nearest
magistrate.
She couldn’t put her aunt and uncle at risk.
George’s hat crumpled between his fingers.
“You won’t tell me.”
Honora said softly, “She’s no more real
than Miss Blackstock.”
He turned away, heading for the door.
Honora opened her mouth and he stopped suddenly,
not turning around but saying over his shoulder,
“I wondered, you know.
Why you never said it.”
Why she’d never said she loved him.
Last night when he’d declared himself.
“Georg–”
“Too late, Twiggy,” he said, and he left.
Miss Blackstock and her entourage had disappeared
during the night, Mr. Moffat felt it important
to come tell George early the next morning.
The man ranted and railed against the injustice
in the world, swore he would get back his
money if not his honor, and swore yet again
that they would pay.
She would pay.
George sat in front of the fire and wondered
if he’d feel less tired and more angry in
a few months, when the shock had worn off.
He thought maybe if he’d lost money along
with his heart that it would have been easier.
Money and a broken engagement, that must have
been the plan all along, and he scolded himself
for feeling even a smidgen of regret that
they hadn’t got to that part.
Rehearsed.
Everything had been rehearsed.
And he couldn’t believe it.
Not yet.
Collin finally shooed Mr. Moffat out and then
set a cup of tea down beside George.
He tiptoed out of the room without making
any kind of snide remark about Miss Blackstock,
and George knew he must look pitiful.
Again.
Love had destroyed him again.
Mr. Moffat returned a few more times but when
he could get nothing useful out of George,
returned to London to interview anyone She
had talked to– George didn’t know what
to call her.
Not Miss Blackstock, obviously.
Not Twiggy, too familiar for a woman he hadn’t
been properly introduced to.
So she became She.
She.
Woman.
Deceitful, lying thief who’d stolen his
heart and hadn’t given it back before disappearing
into the night.
George wondered if that had been the plan–
to collect as many hearts as she could along
with pecuniary payments.
Weeks went by.
And then months.
George felt no less pitiable but he must have
hidden it well since Collin began to act his
normal self again.
Mr. Moffat kept Collin apprised of his progress.
George didn’t care, didn’t want to know
anything.
But when Mr. Moffat wrote from Bath telling
the story of a haberdasher who’d got himself
engaged to a woman who had loved hats, a woman
who’d lived with her aunt and uncle, a woman
who had been so excited to help but whose
energetically awful designing abilities had
made the haberdasher fear for his livelihood,
a woman he still had fond memories of, and
a woman he’d paid a nice sum to for breaking
off their engagement and ruining every chance
for her to have a happy and fruitful life,
George was forced to accept the fact that
Twiggy hadn’t been the real She, either.
Another part, another character, and it was
most likely she didn’t even know who the
real She was.
Simply became whatever a man needed to secure
his love, and then twisted that need until
it was impossible for him to actually marry
her.
George said dispassionately, “I wonder what
she would have turned in to with me,” and
Collin gave him a friendly pat on the shoulder
and offered him tea.
George sent Collin away with wave of his hand,
realizing he must still look a little pitiful.
He must still feel a little pitiful because
oh, how he wished she’d been real.
Wished that the woman who’d been everything
he needed really existed.
Part III - York
St. Clair,
Forgive my penmanship.
The twins insist that day is night and night
is day, and will not believe a word I say
on the matter.
I suspect that one day, I will sleep a whole
night through again…suspect it, but am far
from assured of it.
Have you found a bride for your father yet?
No, that’s not quite…
Have you found a bride for your father to
happily object to? …you know what I mean.
Write to me and tell me all that I am failing
to ask.
Elinor sends her love, and don’t snort at
me like that.
Your friend, when he remembers his own name,
…er, Sinclair?
Chapter Seven
It would not be an exaggeration to say that
Honora’s father was surprised to see her.
He’d walked into the drawing room with his
mouth open and his face turning red.
His greeting consisted of, “No notice that
you were coming to visit?
Has the post stopped delivering and I am unaware
of it?”
“My letter must have been lost.
I assume that’s what happened to every one
of yours these last ten or so years?”
Honora’s stepmother, Fanny, stepped forward
to hug her gently and interrupt their feud
before it had a chance to start.
“You look well, if tired.
Was it a long journey?”
Honora nodded.
“From London.
On the train.
My aunt and uncle could use a bath and a long
nap.”
Aunt Beatrice and Uncle Arnold could use a
few meals and a few weeks of uninterrupted
sleep.
They’d run from Manchester, leaving what
they couldn’t carry and catching the train
to Birmingham and then from there, to London.
They hadn’t stopped looking over their collective
shoulders until they’d been lost in the
crowds and even then they’d hardly dared
to venture out of their cheap and seedy lodgings
for bread.
They’d argued and worried for weeks.
Unsure of where to go.
Unsure of just how much Mr. Moffat had found
out.
They hadn’t dared contact any of their banks
and when the last of their funds ran out,
they knew they’d have to leave London.
Close an account and leave that day.
And go where no one could accidentally recognize
them.
Where they could have a warm bed and plentiful
food and not spend any money until they knew
they were safe.
Home.
And if Honora couldn’t say the word without
wanting to both sneer and cry, it didn’t
mean she didn’t still have one.
Even if both she and her father wished it
otherwise.
But The Very Reverend Charles Kempe was gracious
to his dead wife’s sister, their family
beneath him but at least respectable, and
he was grateful to them for taking over the
care of his eldest daughter after her fall
from grace.
He said to them, “You are welcome to stay
while you are in York.”
“How very welcoming you are, Father.
I thank you for your condescension.”
He pinched his lips together and she said
quite convincingly, “We won’t stay long.
Adventure awaits us in Brighton but when I
saw the train now came to York…
I wondered what else had changed.”
Not him, she didn’t have to say.
Fanny took the older couple in hand, directing
the housekeeper to prepare a room and send
a tray up, and it was then that eleven-year-old
Temperance came rushing through the still
open door and skidded to a halt.
She blinked and blinked, staring at Honora
hopefully.
Her blond hair fell in ringlets down her back
and her blue eyes were framed with long lashes.
She was beautiful, like her mother, and though
Honora hadn’t seen her since she was a toddler,
she’d been described enough by her jealous
younger sister.
That sister, ten-year-old Chastity, rushed
in just behind her.
Brown hair, brown eyes.
Not beautiful but her inquisitive personality
made up for it.
She was the one to ask, “Honora?”
She was the one to jump forward, to wrap her
arms around the sister she’d only ever written
to, only ever been told about.
And then Temperance came forward, too, and
Honora could drop to her knees, squeeze the
two young girls in return, and wonder how
she would ever be able to force herself to
leave them again.
Aunt Beatrice and Uncle Arnold retired gratefully
and her father escaped his female brood the
moment he could, but the girls hung on her
and when Honora collapsed onto the nearest
piece of furniture, Chastity squished herself
between Honora and the arm of the sofa, refusing
to move away.
Honora didn’t mind, not in the least, even
when Chastity turned to scowl at her and say,
“You forgot my birthday this year.”
“I am sorry, my darling.
It was last week, and I did not forget, but
the packing” –the rushed and fearful packing–
“forced it completely from my mind.
I will make it up to you now that I am here.”
She’d written every birthday since she’d
left.
From Bath, from Edinburgh, London, even Wales.
When they had been far too young to even realize
that she had left, that she had even existed,
and Honora had always wondered if her father
and stepmother told the children about her
at all.
But as they got older, the return letters
from her stepmother began to include snippets
from the girls, and then snippets written
by the girls themselves, and then individual
letters that Honora had to assume never saw
a parental eye.
Temperance complained about Chastity, and
Chastity complained about Temperance, and
Honora had known that they were truly sisters.
That they were both loved and cared for.
They were both safe and fed and warm.
Temperance, on Honora’s other side but not
squished against her, said, “Was Manchester
a grand adventure?”
“Er…”
Nine-year-old Faith, her hair blond and her
eyes a warm chocolate brown, leaned against
her mother’s legs and said, “Did you find
a husband?”
“I wasn’t looking for one.”
And then she paused because all three of her
young sisters looked disappointed.
“But yes, I did find someone.”
Chastity jumped up and grabbed Temperance’s
hand, pulling her from the sofa and dancing
around the room with her.
“Did you dance with him?”
Temperance tried to keep up and say at the
same time, “Was he handsome?”
They laughed at each other and at the idea
of Honora dancing with a man.
Honora said over the laughter, “No.
Handsome men are too much bother.”
“Oh.”
“But he wasn’t ugly, either.
He was normal looking.
A man you would walk by without tripping over
your own tongue.”
They flopped onto the floor in front of her,
excited and wistful, and seven-year-old Frederick
Charles sat down cross-legged next to them.
He looked like a little miniature version
of their father, brown hair and brown eyes,
and Honora could only be thankful that his
appearance made Chastity look less like a
changeling.
Fanny moved closer, joining Honora on the
sofa and putting Faith between them.
“Is this why you’ve finally come home,
Honora?
To get your father’s permission?”
Honora looked down at the ten-year-old sister
who was not a sister and didn’t look at
her stepmother.
“No.”
She sighed theatrically.
“Because I do not have a love story to share
with you, only a tragedy.”
Freddy’s eyes got very round.
“Did he die?”
“He did not die.
He was a troll.
A sour, grumpy troll and he is still living
under the bridge where the beautiful princess
found him.”
Beautiful, blond Temperance looked skeptical.
“Was the beautiful princess you?”
Honora leaned forward and spoke so softly
that the children had to scoot closer to hear
her.
“There once was a not-beautiful-but-not-ugly
princess who loved picnics.
Especially picnics on bridges with her feet
dangling over the edge and water rushing beneath
her.
And every week she would find a new bridge
and eat her bread and cheese and smoked ham
and listen to the loud water.
So loud it drowned out the rest of the world.”
Faith jumped from the sofa to sit with her
siblings and Honora said a little more loudly,
“But one week, just as she was settling
into a comfortable position, a grumbling at
her feet interrupted her solitude and before
she could jump up and run away, a large head
poked out from beneath the bridge.
It was a troll!”
The children jumped, and Temperance gasped,
“Was he hideous?!”
Chastity squealed.
“Did he smell?!”
“Yes.
And of course.
And he had a large bogie dangling from his
nostril.”
All three girls shrieked and Freddy laughed
hysterically and Fanny shook her head.
“Honora.”
“He’s a troll.
It’s de rigueur.
And before the troll had even come all the
way out from under the bridge, he snatched
the princess up in his large, roughly calloused
hand.”
Temperance covered her mouth and mumbled,
“Did she faint?”
“Did she faint?!
She poked him with her parasol!
And said, ‘You do not scare me, you grumpy
sour troll.’”
Chastity put her arm around her sister and
said, “It’s okay, Temp.
The princess really was scared, she just didn’t
want the troll to know,” and Honora blinked
and then looked down into her lap.
So that no one could see that she really was
heartbroken over what she had given up.
That she just didn’t want anyone to know.
Her stepmother covered her hand and squeezed,
and Honora cleared her throat and channeled
perky Miss Blackstock so she could finish
her story.
“Well, the troll roared at the princess
and he puffed his trolly breath in her face
and she poked him again with her parasol.
‘Stay back, Troll,’ she said.
‘And kindly put me down this instant.’”
“Did he?”
“No.
He didn’t.
But he was a troll, so the princess wasn’t
at all surprised.
And looking down into the rushing water beneath
her, she realized that she had come for a
picnic by the river and here she was, by the
river, so she climbed into a comfortable position
in the troll’s hand, poking with her parasol
until she’d made a nice flat area, and then
she set out her lunch.”
Freddy looked impressed.
“Right there in the troll’s hand?”
Honora nodded.
“And the troll watched her with a stupid,
confused look on his face because he’d never
met anyone who wasn’t afraid of him before.”
Temperance knotted her eyebrows and Honora
amended, “The troll had never met anyone
who didn’t act afraid of him before, not
even when his stomach grumbled loud enough
to make the bridge shake.
And when he lifted his hand up to his nose
and sniffed her freshly baked bread, the princess
whacked him on the nose.”
Her stepmother murmured, “I had no idea
a parasol could be so useful a weapon.”
“Then the princess said to the troll, ‘I
suppose you will want to share my picnic,’
and he replied, ‘I suppose I could just
eat you.’
‘Well, it is my favorite smoked ham so let
me think about it for a moment,’ she said,
and the troll laughed at her wit.”
Honora stopped, remembering her sour troll
trying not to laugh, and Faith said, “She
should share.”
Honora laughed.
“She should, and she did.
The fairly ordinary princess broke her bread
in two and offered half her ham, and they
ate their picnic, both of them surprised to
find the other was good company.
And when the food was all gone, the troll
grumbled that it hadn’t been enough.
“‘No,’ the princess said because it
hadn’t been.
‘Should I come again next week?’
“And the troll sighed and huffed and puffed
and finally agreed that she could come.
The princess nodded and packed up her basket
and when she was down on the ground once again
sniffed and said, ‘I would have come anyway.’”
Temperance said, “Did the troll want to
marry her?”
“Of course he did.
She was a princess, and she made him laugh
when no one else could.
And every week the princess brought her picnic
to the bridge and they slowly fell in love.”
The girls sighed and Fanny smiled and Freddy
made a face, and Honora said, “But the princess
had a secret.”
Her stepmother shifted in her seat and Honora
leaned forward again.
“The princess wasn’t really a princess.
She was a witch!
And when the troll discovered this, he covered
his eyes so he wouldn’t have to see her.”
Chastity crossed her arms.
“But he’s a troll.
That’s no worse than a witch.”
“Maybe if she hadn’t lied it would have
been okay.
But there is one thing no troll will ever
forgive, and that’s lying.”
The children thought about that and Temperance
asked fearfully, “Are you really a witch,
Honora?”
“I am the worst kind of witch imaginable.
The kind of witch who doesn’t visit her
sisters and brother.
The kind of witch who forgets birthdays.”
“The kind of witch who doesn’t bring presents?”
Honora nodded and whispered, “I am that
kind of horrible witch.”
Chastity jumped up.
“But you said you would make it up to me.”
“I will.
And next month it is Temperance’s birthday
and she will be eleven and I will send a present
and not forget because even if I am a witch
who doesn’t bring presents, I will always
be a witch who sends presents.”
Temperance said quietly, “Does that mean
you’re not staying?”
Honora nodded and Faith said, “I wish you’d
stay forever and get married and have babies
and I would hold them for you.”
“Would you?”
“Yes.”
“Well.
If I ever get married and have babies, I will
let you hold them.”
Chastity said, “And stay here, in York?”
“If I can.”
“When you’re married, you won’t have
to live here with Papa and then maybe you
won’t make him so angry and he won’t make
you so angry.”
“It’s a possibility, at least.
It could be that York is just too small for
the both of us.”
“You could live outside the wall.”
Honora smiled.
“Perhaps.”
Temperance decided suddenly that the troll
story was just a story and asked, “Honora,
why aren’t you married yet?”
“I’ve haven’t met anyone I wanted to
marry.”
Fanny said knowingly, “Except for the troll.”
Honora smiled sadly.
“Except for the troll.”
Fanny finally sent Honora to her borrowed
room to rest from the journey and shooed the
children off, telling them they would have
plenty of time to visit later.
Chastity slipped her hand in Honora’s, showing
her to her room and then jumping up to sit
on the mattress of the four-poster bed.
“I’m your favorite,” Chastity whispered
as Honora sat next to her and smoothed her
brown hair and looked into her brown eyes.
Honora tried so hard not to show it.
To not give any indication that she felt differently
about Chastity than she did Temperance and
Faith and Frederick, and she forced herself
to ask why the little girl could possibly
think that was true.
Chastity answered calmly, “Because you named
me.”
“No.
Papa named you.”
“But you picked my middle name.”
Honora nodded because she had.
“Chastity Hope.”
“And that’s why I’m just like you,”
she said with pride.
“Papa says I am.”
“Then you must be just like him as well.”
Chastity nodded solemnly.
“Yes.
Hard-headed and very stubborn, that’s what
Mama says.”
Honora laughed.
“Your mama is very wise.”
“She isn’t your mama.”
“No.”
“Your mama died.”
“Yes.”
Chastity said, “You must have been very
sad.”
“I was sad.
And angry.”
“At your mama?”
Honora shook her head.
“At God.
For taking her away.
At Papa, for letting her go, even if there
was nothing he could have done.”
Chastity leaned her head against Honora’s
arm, forgiving so easily her many, many sins.
“Do you think you could not fight with Papa
and stay?”
Honora swallowed.
“I can try.”
Chastity nodded.
“I’ll tell him not to fight with you,
either.”
“Does that work?
Telling him what to do?”
“It works on Temperance.”
She kicked her foot out.
“It never works with Papa.
He gets angry.”
“Like you get angry when he tells you what
to do.”
“Temperance doesn’t get angry.”
Honora smiled.
“She must take after your mother.”
“Yes.
They are good and kind and sweet and slow
to anger.”
Honora laughed and said, “That sounds like
a quote,” and Chastity nodded.
“But you and me and Papa are strong.
We’ll protect them when they are scared
and hug them when they are sad.
And they’ll love us when we are hard and
remind us when we are prideful.”
Fanny stopped in the doorway, raising her
eyebrows at her wayward child.
“Come, Chastity.
Let Honora rest before dinner.”
Chastity bounced off the bed, running to her
mother and taking her hand and saying, “I
think I’ll have to fall in love with a troll
when I grow up.
He’ll roar and everyone will be scared and
I will whack him on the nose with my parasol.”
Fanny nodded absentmindedly and told Honora
what time dinner would be served.
Honora hedged, not ready to sit down to an
entire meal with her father.
“Aunt Beatrice is very tired.”
“I’ll send a tray up for Beatrice and
Arnold.”
“But not me?”
Fanny smiled.
“Welcome home, Honora.”
Honora did try to get along with her father
when they sat down to dinner.
But all she could think when she looked at
him was that he’d taken her daughter from
her.
She knew that he’d done it to save the both
of them, and himself, from the consequences.
And she still hated him.
And still felt pathetically grateful that
he’d cared for Chastity as if she was his
own.
She had no mild and easy feeling for the man.
He waited until their plates were full before
he said, “I hear talk of a suitor.
I think.”
Fanny indicated to the servants that they
would serve themselves and Honora girded her
loins for a battle.
For an evening of lectures and bible quoting
and she considered for one long moment following
the servants out the door.
But she’d come here.
Thrown herself at their mercy, knowing they
would never turn her away no matter what disappointment
she’d caused them, and she knew, this was
her punishment.
She watched the door swing shut quietly and
said, “There was a man, at least.
And there was interest, I think.
But it’s a new world, Father.
A man can know a woman without wanting to
marry her.”
He snorted.
“We are all aware.
And that is not new.”
Honora remembered one moonless night, George’s
arms around her and his lips touching hers.
It was a wicked thing to do, Twiggy.
To make me fall in love with you.
She’d felt that night.
Not hate, not the bitter raging fire in her
veins for all men.
A different heat altogether, and if she could
have married him, she would have.
She would have risked everything to tell him
the truth, she told herself.
And she wondered if she really would have
been as brave as she was in her imagination.
“He was a grump and a troll, but his interest
was honorable.”
“A suitor, then.”
She shrugged.
“It was cut short.”
And she’d have to talk with her aunt and
uncle before anyone mentioned her grumpy suitor
to them.
Her father said, “Cut short by your lies.”
“We are all aware, Father, what one big
lie I have carried with me for ten long years.”
That silenced him and they looked at each
other, unblinking, until he nodded and went
back to his meal, cutting into his meat with
force.
“It is for the best, Honora.
You’d have to tell any man who wanted to
marry you and then…how could he not but
question your resolve.”
She passed the gravy to her father before
he asked.
“Of course.
I mean, the experience was so very rewarding.
I can hardly keep myself from doing it again.”
The Very Reverend Kempe drenched his plate
with gravy, then stopped before taking a bite.
“Your morality is in question, the very
fiber of your soul has been corrupted.
A fallen woman is more likely to fall again
and any man who married you would not only
question you but also your children.
Were they his?
Were you true?
It would be an intolerable situation for both
you and him.”
“Especially if he was a vicar,” she said
and her father put his cutlery down with a
bang.
Honora patted her mouth with her napkin.
“He was a vicar.
The troll.
My erstwhile suitor.”
Charles settled back in his seat, knowing
she’d meant to insult him.
And maybe he was getting older because he
merely let it go and said, “Even better
that his interest was cut short.”
“The best.
I know I can never marry, Father.
We do not need to rehash this lectur– conversation.”
“If I could undo your actions and give you
the future we all want for you, I would.
If I could give you a husband and children,
even now, I would.”
“I know, Father.
It makes it very difficult to hate you.”
And it did.
She smiled brightly.
“But at least I can travel.
And at least I have an aunt and uncle willing
to accompany me.
And pay for it.”
“You have your mother’s portion.
You could live quite nicely on it if you economized.”
“I was not raised to live simply.”
“You were not raised for a great many things
and that did not stop you, if I recall.”
Fanny interrupted them.
“I do envy your travels, Honora.
How was London?
And Manchester?”
Honora forced a small bite down.
“It was enchanting.
You simply must go.”
And then she felt terrible because Honora’s
stepmother had never shown her anything but
kindness.
Honora took a too-large gulp of wine and said
with less bite, “The children would thoroughly
enjoy the train.
Though I would go north to Edinburgh.
I enjoyed Edinburgh.”
“Not Manchester, then?”
Honora didn’t answer, hoping that was answer
enough, and her stepmother said softly, “Perhaps
you can go back to Edinburgh.”
“I was thinking the continent after Brighton.
Or someplace just as foreign and exotic, like
Cornwall.”
Her father shook his head.
“I don’t think the continent would be
a good idea for you.
They are too loose with their morals.”
Honora folded her hands in her lap and closed
her eyes, suddenly so tired.
“Father, is that all you see when you look
at me?
Seventeen years of trying to be good– seventeen
years of succeeding at being good and one
stupid moment and all is lost?
You have not known me for the last ten years
and still you think I’d fling off my clothing
at the first Frenchman who cocked an eyebrow?”
He didn’t yell but she flinched anyway when
he said, “That is how sin works.”
“I’m not asking God if He can forgive
me.
I’m asking you.”
His silence was his answer and Honora opened
her eyes and pushed her plate away.
“Thank you for giving my mistake a future.
A family.
Comfort and safety when I had none to offer.
I know you didn’t have to.
The sins of the mother, and all that.”
Her father said with all the authority money
and power and respect had given him, “That
sin will not be passed on.
There will be no opportunity.
Not even one moment where she can be deceived
and tempted.
I will protect her as well as I failed you.”
Honora rose.
“And thank you for extending your hospitality
to my aunt and uncle.
To me.
We won’t stay long, a week at most.”
Chapter Eight
The rain dribbled down the window and George
watched it blankly.
So gray and dreary.
Life.
But it continued on.
George had discovered that early on, and here
he was discovering it again.
No matter how one felt about the matter, life
continued on.
Collin pushed in the door without knocking,
he’d probably brought tea, and George, for
one bright moment, was grateful for his friend.
A true and steady friend, here whenever he
was needed.
Collin held a letter in his hands, not tea,
and George closed his eyes.
“It’s from your father, George.”
“Throw it in the fire.”
He’d been so looking forward to writing
his father, months ago.
To having the satisfaction of choosing a wife
before the old man could.
To knowing that, no matter what his father
said or thought, George had chosen his own
future.
And now, he had nothing again.
No want or purpose.
No reason to be anything but what someone
else had long planned for him to be.
Collin dropped the letter on George’s lap
and said softly, “It’s Henry.”
George didn’t wait for Collin to be ready,
didn’t pack anything, didn’t stop to even
think how long he would be gone.
And he was grateful to be so close to home.
Grateful that it only took a couple hours
of hard riding to be running up the front
steps, hardly taking the time to throw the
reins of his borrowed horse to the nearest
servant.
He ran to his brother’s room, stopping with
his hand on the knob.
He didn’t pray, just paused.
And wished he could pray.
He pushed the door in and Lord St. Clair sighed
in relief and then stood, looking as if he’d
aged ten years.
Old and frail and worn out.
And Alice, sitting next to the head of the
bed, stared vacantly at a spot on the floor,
tear tracks marring her face though no tears
were falling right then.
She didn’t look at him; he doubted she knew
he was there.
Henry lay in his bed, his breath ragged, his
face pale and ghostly.
Dying.
Again.
For the last time, it looked like.
Henry had been getting sick for years, closer
to death with each episode, and George had
never come before.
His father had never sent a letter like this
last one.
Henry needs you.
Please, come.
Short, no explanation.
It had been more alarming than if his father
had described every detail of Henry’s failing
health.
But it had seemed as if his father couldn’t
spare the time it would take to even write
how bad this episode was, and George had come
running.
Lord St. Clair helped Alice to her feet and
she protested.
“I can’t leave him.”
“George is here.”
“He’s here?”
When his father nodded, she looked around
the room, and then the tears started falling.
She whispered, “No.”
As if a word could stop Death when he was
waiting.
As if it was George who would swoop in and
take the father of her children, the man she’d
loved for years.
George had no power here.
No way to speed or slow his brother’s passing.
No way to end his brother’s misery.
No way to end Alice’s.
George was a vicar.
Not for very long and not a very good one,
but he knew what his duty was.
Comfort.
Peace.
As much as he could give to the both of them.
But he had none for himself; he didn’t know
how to give it to them.
Lord St. Clair gently guided Alice out the
door and she called over her shoulder, “Please,
George!
Pray for him.
Don’t give up on him yet.
Please!”
Her cries woke Henry and he stirred, groaning.
He took a shallow breath, opening his eyes
enough to recognize his brother and then closing
them again.
“Comfort him, son,” their father said
as he pulled the door shut.
George pulled the chair around to face the
bed and took up the vigil.
He put his head in his hands and stared at
the blankets so he wouldn’t have to stare
at his dying brother’s face.
Henry spoke slowly, haltingly.
“I’m glad.
You came.
I wanted you.
To hear my sins.”
“Henry–”
“Not you, the vicar.
You, my brother.”
George closed his eyes.
“Then I will be forced to tell you mine
and no man wants those to be the last words
he speaks to his brother.”
“Now or never.
George.
And I need.
Your forgiveness.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I loved her.”
George whispered, “Not a sin.”
“Not for you, either.
I hated you.”
George kept his head in his hands but opened
his eyes and looked up.
Henry said, “Forgive me.”
Emotion welled in George’s throat and he
couldn’t speak, and Henry said, “I was
Cain.
You were Abel.
You know, able.”
Henry grinned slightly at his own joke and
George shook his head, suddenly thinking of
Twiggy.
Suddenly thinking she would have something
to say here.
A quote with a double meaning.
And he thought Henry would have liked her.
At least the her George had known.
“I was so jealous.
Of your health.
Your future.
I, the elder.
But treated.
Like the younger.
Like a child.
I hated you.
And when I.
Had the chance.
I killed you.”
George sat up and folded his arms.
“Then we are having a very interesting conversation.”
Henry whispered, “I knew you loved her.
And I took her.”
The room absorbed his confession and the silence
was so loud, the roaring filled every part
of George.
The emptiness filled him.
The emptiness had filled him since the moment
his brother had ripped his heart from his
chest.
Henry shifted painfully on his death bed.
“I should have died.
Before it was too late.
For you and her.
Better for everybody now.
If I just sleep.”
“Better for no one,” George said and scraped
his chair back.
He stomped from the room.
Past Alice leaning against the wall just outside
the bedroom and weeping silently into her
handkerchief.
Past his father, sitting in a chair and staring
blankly at nothing.
He jerked when George flew past.
“Is he…
Did you…
Did you comfort him, son?”
George shouted, “No!”
He stomped down the stairs and out the door
and didn’t stop.
Wouldn’t stop.
He’d keep on going until he hit the sea.
And he wouldn’t stop then, either.
Pray for him, George.
Comfort him, son.
Forgive me, brother.
What was he supposed to do?
What?
Did they think he spoke directly into God’s
ear?
Did they really think he was a man of God?
He wasn’t.
Only a man.
A prideful, lustful, greedy, vengeful man.
A man who’d hated his brother for so long,
he couldn’t stop.
Not even now, when it was too late.
George didn’t make it to the sea.
The graveyard stopped him in his tracks.
His mother’s grave called to him.
They would bury Henry here, next to her, and
George lifted his head to the sky.
He took you.
I asked and I begged and I cried, and He took
you anyway.
And I raged and I cursed and I hated, and
He didn’t take Henry.
He paused before entering the consecrated
ground, just a slight check, and then firmly
planted his boot on the soil.
He wound his way toward his mother’s headstone.
Cold and empty and neglected for so long,
and he didn’t know what she could do.
Mother, your sons need you, and he’d said
that once before.
Right before she’d left them, right before
she’d died, because she’d had no choice.
And he realized the emptiness had filled him
long before Henry and Alice.
He squatted and pulled at the plants growing
at the base of the stone.
“I can’t pray for Henry now,” he said
to no one.
“I don’t dare; God has never answered
any prayer of mine.”
A bird twittered in a nearby tree and a cow
bell rung in the distance.
“And what would I say, anyway?
Let him live?
Let him continue to suffer when all he wants
is peace?
When death would end his pain?”
No answer.
Like always.
And George fell on his rump, propping his
arm on his knee.
No answer.
Only the birds chirping.
Only the wind rustling the leaves in the trees.
Only the cows lowing softly.
Only Alice weeping and his father mourning
and his brother dying.
Pray for him.
Comfort him.
Hear his sins.
Be a vicar, when he would rather be anything
but.
George picked up a little twig that lay on
the grass, twisting it in fingers.
He still had the twig Miss Twiggy had given
him.
A token of her esteem, and he’d felt so
stupid for cherishing it.
For thinking he’d loved her when she’d
been lying about who she was.
Just like he was lying about who he was.
Lying still.
A vicar, when he was anything but.
“It isn’t the same,” he said to the
twig.
But…what kind of woman gave a man a twig
as her favor?
What kind of man would cherish a twig?
And how would she have known?
And he wondered for the first time just how
many there had been.
How many men had thought they’d found their
future when they’d found her.
He still thought of her, far too often.
Still wished he could sit next to her.
Here.
And tell her about his brother and Alice.
Tell her about his father.
Talk with her and tell her all the horrible
parts of himself and listen for her censure
and then, never hear it.
As if she already knew.
I don’t know why I like you, she’d said.
Sour, she’d described him.
George smiled.
He was sour.
And he sourly missed her.
She didn’t exist, and he still missed her.
George went back to his knees and worked once
more clearing around his mother’s grave.
Loving mother, devoted wife.
And then below that, hidden beneath the growth
and neglect.
Thy will be done.
George stopped and stared, wondering why his
father had added that.
The man was not known for being humble, for
meekly accepting what life handed him when
he could just as easily play God himself.
Except he hadn’t been able to save his wife.
Hadn’t been able to heal his son.
Only to work with what he was given.
To somehow know what was a choice and what
wasn’t.
How was one supposed to know the difference?
How was one supposed to know His will when
there was never any answer?
Only the birds and the cows and the wind.
Only a long-buried mother.
Only a brother he loved and hated.
And a woman he couldn’t stop thinking about.
George…didn’t pray, couldn’t pray, but
he whispered, “I’m not a vicar.
I can’t do it.”
But, what else was there?
Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow
not, neither do they reap, nor gather into
barns…
George looked up.
Consider the lilies of the field, how they
grow; they toil not, neither do they spin…
George looked down.
Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the
field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast
into the oven, shall he not much more clothe
you, O ye of little faith?
George stood up.
Matthew 6:26-30
George sucked in a breath and heard nothing
else.
Alice and Lord St. Clair were inside Henry’s
room when George climbed back up the stairs.
They rose, as if to leave, and he stopped
them with a raised hand.
He stood at the foot of Henry’s bed and
opened his Book of Common Prayer.
And for the first and last time, he comforted
his brother and prayed for his healing and
heard his sins.
For the first and last time, he prayed with
his whole heart.
For the first and last time, he was a vicar.
He began, “Peace be to this house, and to
all that dwell in it…”
Honora stayed in York longer than a week.
Three little girls had clung to her, crying
and wailing, and Freddy’s little chin had
wobbled while he’d tried not to, and Honora
had given in.
Her father wouldn’t have been surprised
by her lack of resolve anyway, though she
did refuse to eat meals with him again.
And after the first night she went without
dinner, a tray had been sent to her room each
evening.
There were many things she thought of her
father, but he would not let her starve while
she stayed under his roof.
Would not throw her out if she wouldn’t
leave herself, and somedays she wished he
was universally hard.
That she didn’t have to reconcile his care
for her with his utter lack of respect.
But she stayed, and she stayed away from him.
She surrounded herself with her sisters, brushing
hair and tying ribbons and listening non-stop
because they never stopped talking.
She played with her brother, glad that her
father had finally got the son he wanted more
than anything.
Honora was allowed to take them out of the
house as long as a maid and a footman accompanied
them, and she knew her father hadn’t been
exaggerating when he’d said that he would
keep Chastity from making the same mistakes
her mother had.
That there would be no opportunity for sin
to enter his household again.
The maid and footman sandwiched their little
group today.
Honora, Temperance, and Chastity had decided
to take a walk atop the restored sections
of the city wall– Honora wanted to see the
new Victoria Bar entrance that had been opened
in the wall since she’d left and the girls
had both been promised a small birthday gift.
The girls chatted happily and Honora pointed
out sights that were somehow both intimately
familiar and long forgotten, and she nearly
missed the gentleman leaning against the wall
inside one of the circular tower outcroppings.
His hat sat squarely on top of his head and
he read the newspaper as if he didn’t have
a care in the world and Honora’s stomach
filled with lead.
She stopped pointing and talking, tilting
her chin down to hide her face with her hat.
She forced herself to keep pace with her sisters
and not turn and run like she wanted to.
They passed him, her sisters still laughing
and giggling.
One step, ten steps, fifteen…
And then a voice behind her called out, “Oh,
Miss Kempe?
How do you do?”
The girls stopped, turning to see who had
called out, and Honora ground to a halt.
He knew her name.
Her real name.
Honora turned slowly and faced George.
She forced the dread from her voice before
saying, “Why, Mr. St. Clair.
You’ve found me.”
He folded his paper and took a step forward
and Honora took an involuntary step back.
She murmured to the footman, “Take the girls
ahead.
I’ll only be a minute.”
When the footman hesitated, she said with
a guileless smile, “I won’t stray from
your view.”
The footman began herding the girls forward
and George pulled his hat from his head, sketching
a slight bow.
“You look well,” he said.
“And you.”
She looked behind her, making sure her party
was out of earshot, then dropped her smile.
“Are you here alone or should I look for
Mr. Moffat as well?”
George replaced his hat and motioned for her
to continue on her journey.
She hesitated, looking over the side of the
wall, and he said, “Don’t worry.
It’s too short of a fall for there to be
much use in chucking you over.”
She narrowed her eyes at him, then turned
and began walking toward her sisters very
slowly.
He joined her, saying, “Last I heard, Mr.
Moffat was in Bath.
He journeyed there from Edinburgh.”
Honora forgot to breathe.
“He’d made friends with a haberdasher.
Are you all right, Miss Kempe?
You look pale.”
She sucked in a breath.
“Fine.”
“Hm.
How many were there?”
She didn’t answer, her heart beating too
loud for her to think of anything clever,
and George tilted his head.
“Fellows you’ve jilted,” he clarified,
as if she didn’t know what he was asking.
And when she still couldn’t answer, he frowned.
“That many?”
“Why are you here?
To see that I am punished for my crimes?
I stole nothing from you.”
“Didn’t you?”
“We were engaged for but one day.
No one knew.”
“I knew,” he said and Honora closed her
eyes briefly.
George said, “I wanted to find you.
The real you.”
He looked at the little party ahead of them.
“This was not what I was expecting.
The daughter of a dean?
Well-off and well-cared for.
No need for your charades, at all.”
Need.
Honora supposed she could have stayed and
died living under her father’s roof.
It’s what she should have done.
But every day she’d watched her baby grow
older and everyday she’d been able to breathe
less and less.
Even now she looked at Chastity and the rage
built inside her breast.
Rage at the way the world was.
Rage that she couldn’t do anything to change
it.
Only rage at it, and hurt, and make those
who would never have to suffer like she had,
pay.
She said, “No need.
Only a choice I made.
How did you find me?”
“Would you believe that as soon as I wondered
where you’d run off to, I thought of York?
Realized that you’d spoken of York with
longing in your voice and then it was but
a short jump to conclude you might come here.
Though if you had not been here…
I don’t know where I would have headed next.
Perhaps to Bath like Mr. Moffat; forced to
work backwards to find out from whence you
came.”
“It was very clever of you, Mr. St. Clair.
I applaud you.”
He smiled at her tone.
“Yes, you sound quite appreciative.
Are those your sisters?”
Honora whirled toward him, stepping in front
of him and stopping them both.
She didn’t know what she would have said.
If she would have begged to keep her sisters,
her family, safe.
She’d never thought, never, that anyone
could have followed her trail back to York.
Never thought that if she’d been caught,
anyone else would pay except for her.
But before she could say anything, George
asked softly, “Was it a hard choice?”
“No.
I hated.
It wasn’t hard at all.”
“Did you hate me?”
She didn’t answer and he pulled his hand
from his pocket.
Held a twig up for her to see.
Her twig?
“It’s a strange token,” he said.
“And I’m still wondering, Miss Kempe.
Why I liked you.
If you liked me.”
He looked at the twig and she looked at him.
He said, “I’m still wondering if any of
it was real.”
“Would you even believe me if I said yes?”
“Perhaps.”
He put the twig back in his pocket.
“But I’ve not been eating consistently
since I left my father’s house and I am
hungry.”
She snorted, then looked down quickly.
“And you hate.”
He said softly, “Perhaps.”
He started walking again, forcing her out
of his path.
“But mostly, I’m just confused.”
Honora didn’t follow him.
She watched his back walk slowly away, looked
at her sisters as they tried to get glimpses
of Honora’s mysterious gentleman.
Run.
Run.
George turned and he murmured, “Honora.”
Her real name.
He held out his hand to her and Honora said,
“You know nothing about me.”
He smiled.
“It’s not nothing.
But it’s not enough.
I don’t think I will ever know enough about
you.”
Chapter Nine
Honora took him home and fed him in her father’s
garden.
An impromptu picnic and Chastity had whispered
loudly, “Is this your troll, Honora?”
“Yes.”
“I’d better go find a parasol,” the
little girl had said matter-of-factly and
run inside.
George raised an eyebrow and Honora raised
one in return.
“It seemed a fitting description.”
Fanny clapped her hands, sending her remaining
children to search for a very specific flower
in the organized beds.
They ran around, searching and laughing, out
of earshot but never out of sight.
George bit into his bread and butter, closing
his eyes in near ecstasy.
Honora watched him.
“You really have been hungry.”
“My father has disowned me.
I can only hope it is temporary.”
“And took away your living, too?”
George shook his head.
“That’s why he’s disowned me.
I’ve given up my living.”
Honora looked away.
She’d never stayed to see what happened
after her broken engagements.
Had never wondered how they’d fared with
family and friends.
She’d never cared.
George said, “And since you ask…”
He waited and she didn’t and he said, “I
gave it up because I was living a lie.
And I am tired of lies at the moment.”
He met her eyes over another bite of bread.
“I came for the truth, Miss Kempe.”
“The truth won’t make you feel any better.
Mr. Moffat wasn’t the first, though I’d
hoped you’d be the last.”
“And I’d already known all of that.
How many were there?”
“Counting you?”
“I would prefer if you didn’t.”
She smiled at him.
Then stopped.
She said softly, “Mr. Moffat was the sixth.”
He looked at the large garden, the house behind
her.
“But…why?”
Honora sniffed and shifted in her seat and
folded her arms.
And then she told him the truth.
“Because the six does not include the one
who came before them all.
The one who preyed on a lonely girl and stole
her honor.
A married man who’d lied about who he was
and left her with child, left her alone to
suffer in shame.
You know what he stole from me when he took
my honor?
My life.”
Honora watched the children running around
and didn’t look at him.
There was no middle ground in their world.
An unmarried woman was either a virgin or
a whore.
And she didn’t want to watch him realize
which one she was.
She whispered, “No matter what I took from
those six men, I never took their life.
I couldn’t have; not like mine was taken
from me.”
George asked softly, “Did you love him?”
“If I say yes, does it change anything?”
“Perhaps.”
“I didn’t.
I was young and stupid.
I was lonely and alone…
I thought I was alone, at least.”
A bird twittered in the branches above their
heads and she said softly, “Does it change
anything if I wish I had loved him?
If I wish there had been a good reason for
having to give up my child?”
George sighed, putting his bread down and
pushing his plate away.
“What happened?” he asked with dread in
his voice, because if anyone had a worse life
than a fallen woman, it was the child of a
fallen woman.
And Honora knew she was lucky.
Lucky to know that her child was well-cared
for.
Lucky to know anything at all about her child.
Lucky to feel the pain sear into her soul
again and again.
Honora watched three of her siblings try to
find a flower Honora suspected did not exist.
In a garden that used to be hers, with a family
she did not belong in.
“My father sacrificed his immortal soul,
threatened his earthly comfort, and gave her
his name.
He lied.
Do you know what it does to a man of God to
have to lie every day?
To never be able to confess his sin without
destroying what he loves?
He saved us both with his lies.
And I will hate him and love him for it until
I die.”
The tears prickled and Honora said through
them, “My stepmother took my baby as her
own.
Loved mine when hers wasn’t even a year
old.
Do you know what it does to you when the woman
who replaces your mother is selfless and kind
and you hate her?”
The tears were still swimming when she looked
back at him.
“Swindling half a dozen men doesn’t even
sting.”
“I think that it must have hurt you, no
matter what you say.”
“Are you trying to convince me or yourself
that I am a good woman, George?
A good woman would have stayed here, under
her father’s roof.
Become a spinster and hidden her shame.
Watched her child grow.
Reveled in each stab as her daughter called
someone else mother.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I wanted.
I wanted more than the scraps a husband-less
woman is allotted.
I wanted freedom.
I wanted to forget.
And I wanted to hurt.”
She clasped her hands in her lap, careful
not to squeeze them.
Careful to be relaxed.
“I wanted a life.”
“Did you find one?”
She had.
With him.
She’d found a place where she belonged.
She didn’t answer and George said softly,
“Honora.”
Her name, again.
And every cold part of her warmed.
She closed her eyes, tightening them.
Tightening every muscle to keep from throwing
herself at him and begging his forgiveness.
Begging him to love her when she was Honora
and not Letitia.
“Honora,” he said again, and when she
opened her eyes, George was looking behind
her.
At a dark-haired little girl peeking out from
behind a hedge, her face stricken and her
tears flowing and her hands clutching a parasol
tightly to her chest.
Chastity was her mother’s daughter.
Honora could see the accusation in the reverend’s
eyes and she couldn’t deny it.
The little girl had been listening to what
she shouldn’t, been where she shouldn’t,
and now knew what she shouldn’t.
Honora had jumped to her feet when she’d
seen Chastity hiding behind the hedge and
the little girl had started running toward
Fanny.
Toward her mother, and then she’d just stopped,
as if she’d suddenly realized what the words
she’d heard meant.
George had murmured, “I’ll go,” and
Honora hadn’t even glanced at him.
Had only locked eyes with Fanny, as if they
had both been dreading this moment.
And then the nanny had been called for and
Chastity had been shepherded into the library
before she could speak, before she could ask,
and now she stood, alone in the middle of
the room as if she didn’t know any of them.
Charles motioned Chastity to him and she pinched
her lips together.
“You’re not my papa?”
He shook his head.
“I am Honora’s father.
I am your grandfather.”
Chastity’s shoulders relaxed and she went
to lean against his legs.
He was still hers, even if his position was
one removed from what she’d thought it was.
But now, with someone to lean against, she
could stare holes into the woman who’d borne
her.
She could more easily ignore the woman who’d
raised her.
Honora didn’t know which of them had it
worse.
Chastity stuck her chin out and said bravely,
“You were talking about me.
With the troll.”
Charles’ head came up, a question in his
eyes, and Fanny murmured, “Honora had a
caller.”
“When?
Just now?”
“We were all in the back garden, together.”
Fanny watched the little girl who still wouldn’t
look at her.
“Chastity had run inside.”
Chastity muttered, “I needed a parasol.”
“It was a good idea.
He’s irritated with me,” Honora said,
and tried to remember what else she’d said
to George St. Clair.
What other secrets she’d not been careful
with.
But Chastity only said, “Because you’re
my…you’re my…”
“Because I’m not your sister.
I’m your mother.”
And if a ten-year-old could express utter
outrage, she did.
She turned on Fanny and said angrily, with
disbelief, “Then who are you?”
Fanny said in a breathless voice, “No one.”
Chastity sucked in a deep breath, turning
back to Honora.
“I’m ten!
You didn’t tell me in ten years!”
As if ten years was unbearably long, and it
was.
As if a ten-year-old could understand why
a mother would have to give up her own child.
Why a mother would have to lie about it.
Honora was much older than ten, had been older
than ten when she’d had to make the decision
in the first place, and she still couldn’t
understand it.
“I couldn’t tell you before.”
“Would you have told me someday?”
“Yes,” Honora lied.
“When you were old enough to understand.”
Chastity looked up at Charles, her father
but now her grandfather instead.
“Who is my real papa?”
A thief and a blackguard.
A liar and a manipulator.
Honora jerked when she realized she could
have been talking about herself.
And she wondered, for the first time, if there
had been a reason for his lies, a reason he’d
stolen her virtue.
She would never know; and she didn’t particularly
care.
Her father opened his mouth and Honora talked
right over him.
Lies, lies, and more lies when the truth could
only destroy.
“He was a soldier, and I loved him.”
Chastity looked back at her.
“Did he die?”
“He did.
He was brave and good, and he took care of
his soldier-brothers like you take care of
Temperance and Faith and Frederick.
Because he knew that a brother was a brother
because of love, not blood.”
“Did he love me?
Even though I was his blood?”
“I’m sure he would have.
I know he would have.
But he never knew about you.
He died before anyone knew about you.”
“He would have married you.
If he’d known,” Chastity said confidently,
and Honora nodded, relaxing back against the
sofa and wondering if lies could ever become
the truth.
“And then you would have been my mother
instead…”
Her eyes darted sideways, at Fanny sitting
there quietly, her hands hidden in the folds
of her dress and her calm face frozen.
Honora said, “And then I would have been
your mother.
Just the two of us.
No papa, no sisters, no brother.”
Chastity’s eyebrows crinkled.
“But we would have lived here.”
“No.
We would have been alone.
Living on the other side of the wall because
Papa and I can’t live under the same roof
without fighting.”
Her father let out a loud sigh and Honora
almost smiled at him.
“But, did it hurt you, Honora?
To give me up?”
The tears came suddenly, unexpectedly, and
Honora blinked ferociously.
“It hurt so badly that I have never recovered.
I didn’t want to tell you because I didn’t
want it to hurt you.”
Fanny reached across to hand Honora her handkerchief,
and Honora took it gratefully and said, “I
didn’t tell you because you had a mother
who knew that a daughter was a daughter because
of love, not blood.”
Chastity looked at Fanny, her eyes filling
with tears, and Honora murmured softly, “I
didn’t tell you because the one thing I
could give you, you already had.”
Chastity’s voice was tight and small.
“You’re not my mother.”
Fanny’s tears fell unheeded and she didn’t
even try to stop them.
“I am.”
She opened her arms and Chastity ran to her,
hugging her tight.
Fanny whispered, “And you really are mine,
Chastity.
As much as your sisters and brother.
Mine, and loved.”
Honora dabbed her eyes, hating her stepmother
and loving her, and knowing those opposing
feelings wouldn’t ever go away.
Fanny pulled her daughter into her lap, cuddling
her tight, and after a few minutes Chastity
felt safe enough again to philosophically
say, “It does make sense.
Why they’re so sweet.
And why my hair’s not blond.
Why they’re pretty and I’m ugly.”
Fanny pushed Chastity’s hair back from her
face, saying, “Never ugly.”
Chastity made a face, looking at Honora and
most likely remembering the story of the not-beautiful-but-not-ugly
princess.
Honora said, “If I could have given you
beautiful blond hair and sparkling blue eyes,
I would have.
But I think I passed on my parasol-wielding
abilities, if that is any consolation.”
Chastity cocked her head.
“And the troll likes you.”
The troll had liked her, the real her, and
Honora smiled slightly.
It was unlikely that he still did but she
said, “Yes.”
“And the soldier loved you.”
“Yes,” Honora said, the soldier apparently
already a saint.
“And Mama loves Papa, and we’re just like
him.”
“Yes.”
Honora met her father’s eyes and said again,
“Yes.”
Chastity snuggled deeper into Fanny’s lap
and said quietly, “Am I going to live with
you now?
You and Aunt Beatrice and Uncle Arnold?”
Fanny’s eyes widened and Charles’ chest
expanded and Honora shook her head.
“That choice was made a long time ago, Chastity.
And it can’t be undone.
It will be easier if you forget.
Easier if you think of me as your sister because
that’s what I am.
That’s all that I am.
And you can’t tell anyone, not even Temperance.”
“But she’s my sister!
And I love her and she loves me.”
“Which means you only lie to her when you
absolutely have to.”
Charles opened his mouth, then closed it,
and Honora said to him quietly, “Thank you.”
Chastity sat up suddenly.
“Wait, if you’re my mother and they’re
your sisters and brother, that means they’re
my…aunts and uncle!”
She thought about that for less than a second.
“Well, I’m not ever going to tell Temperance
or Faith or Freddy.
I’m not going to call them aunt and uncle!”
Collin was waiting for George in the tiny
room of the lodging house they’d found.
That meant he’d found no work for today,
and George handed Collin the loaf of bread
he’d bought with coins he could ill afford
to spare.
Collin tore it in half, offering George his
part, and George held up a hand.
“I’ve eaten.”
Collin took a large bite and said around it,
“Where?”
“Miss Honora Kempe’s back garden.”
Collin growled, then took another bite.
George sat down on his trunk and said, “I
know your thoughts on the matter and I don’t
need to hear them again.”
Collin narrowed his eyes, chewing ferociously.
George said, “I need to send a letter to
my father.”
Collin swallowed.
“I hope he doesn’t chuck it in the fire.”
“I hope so, too.
Because I have a valet to feed.”
Collin slowly put down his bread.
“You’re going back to the vicarage.
Perhaps they haven’t given it away yet!”
George eyed his friend.
“I knew you thought I would return to my
living once I found her.”
“You’re not?”
George said slowly, “No.
I have another idea.”
Collin leaned against the wall and crossed
his arms.
“You’re not ever going back?”
“No.”
“I thought that once you found the chit
who’d stolen your heart, you would be able
to resume your life.”
“I know.
And don’t call her a chit.”
“Oh, there are a few other names I could
call her instead.”
“You could try Miss Kempe.”
“I’m afraid that wouldn’t make it past
my lips.”
They stared at each other until Collin finally
shook his head and sighed heavily.
“What else did you find out in Miss Kempe’s
back garden?”
“I found that I still don’t know enough,”
George said and Collin closed his eyes.
He swore, long and heartfelt, inserting a
few phrases he must have picked up from the
manual laborers he’d worked beside since
following George on this pilgrimage.
George stood, opening his trunk and rummaging
around for paper.
“I’m going to tell my father what I’m
going to do, what I’m going to be, instead
of a vicar.
Instead of his fourth son.
Three is enough for one man.”
Because his father did still have three sons
happy to live their life according to plan.
Henry’s health had slowly improved and when
George had left to find his heart, his brother
had once again been sitting in his plush chair.
Watching his children play and disappointing
Death one more time.
Collin said, “I thought you didn’t know
what else there was?”
“I didn’t.
It came to me while sitting in Miss Kempe’s
back garden.
It came to me as I was wondering how a woman,
or a man, could have a future when the one
they were born to is taken away.”
“Or thrown away.”
“Or doesn’t fit.”
“They starve, George.”
“I would have agreed with you last year.
And then Sinclair came home and told me about
his…”
“It’s called trade.”
“Fine.
His trade.
His successful trade.”
And if the word still left a bad taste in
George’s mouth, well, he was a viscount’s
son.
Collin said, “Might I remind you that his
successful trade is in India!”
George nodded.
“It did not escape my notice.
I also met a woman who had scraped together
a life and a living when very few women can.”
Collin’s mouth fell open.
“You.
Are.
Joking.
Scraped together!”
“My point is not that I want to follow in
either of their footsteps but that there are
options I had no idea existed.”
Collin looked around the tiny room, then flung
his arms out wide.
“What options?
They’re not here!”
“No, they’re not here.”
Honora didn’t get out of bed the next morning.
She felt oddly empty, as if she was floating.
As if she was watching her own life disintegrate
around her shoulders.
As if ridding herself of all her lies had
somehow deflated her.
A maid came to check on her and Honora stayed
in bed, sending her away without unlocking
the door.
Aunt Beatrice knocked, and Honora didn’t
want her sympathy.
Didn’t want her aunt to stroke her hair
and tuck her covers around her.
Honora didn’t want to be comforted.
She missed breakfast, took no tea, and dozed.
She was awoken a little while later by Fanny
knocking lightly on the door.
“Honora?
Mr. St. Clair is here to see you.”
Honora blinked the sleep from her eyes and
said to the ceiling, “How strange.
Did he bring the magistrate?”
A long silence greeted her question and then
finally a key was put in the lock and her
stepmother pushed the door in.
Fanny looked at Honora lying listlessly in
bed and closed the door behind her.
She sat down next to Honora’s hand and said
quietly, clearly worried about young ears
listening when they shouldn’t, “Why would
Mr. St. Clair bring the magistrate to see
you?”
Honora woke up the rest of the way, thinking
she might give up lying for good.
Her secrets were spilling from her at an alarming
pace.
Fanny shifted, jostling the bed.
“There has been enough drama in this household,
Honora.”
Honora closed her eyes.
“I know.
I’ll leave.”
“I think I would prefer the truth.”
“You really wouldn’t.”
Fanny said nothing and when Honora opened
her eyes again, her stepmother was looking
down at the skeleton key in her hand.
“I was only a few years older than you when
I married your father and everyone told me
that you would be a challenge.”
“I do so hate when I prove everyone right.”
“I’m so sorry, Honora.
That I was too young to be a true mother to
you after you had lost yours.
That I was too overwhelmed with Temperance
to see that you were in trouble before it
was too late.”
Honora shifted uncomfortably.
“You don’t have anything to be sorry for,
Fanny.
Including marrying my father.”
“I have everything to be sorry for because
you have suffered, and I have raised Chastity,
and not for one moment have I wished that
I could change your fate because that would
mean losing her.”
Fanny stood up and walked toward the door,
then stopped.
“Thank you for her, for my brave little
girl who sees the world like no one else does.
Her life was worth all you lost, Honora.
But if you can have it back, take it.
Be brave.”
“I can’t have it back.”
“Then why is Mr. St. Clair here?
With or without the magistrate?”
Chapter Ten
Honora didn’t know.
And when Fanny left the room, that question
hung so heavily that eventually Honora forced
herself to her feet to find out.
And when she entered the sitting room, George
took one look at her and jumped to his feet
to wrap his arm around her waist and gently
guide her to the sofa.
Fanny went to the other side of the room,
leaving them as much privacy as she could
without actually leaving them any.
And the woman may indeed have been happy to
raise Chastity but she obviously had no intention
of giving Honora any chance to do it again.
“Are you all right, Twiggy?”
Honora looked into George’s eyes.
“It has been a trying couple of days.”
“I’m sorry.
If I’d seen her…”
If he’d seen her, Honora would have had
a few more years most likely but their conversation
would have happened.
The ability to be where one shouldn’t was
also something Honora had passed on to Chastity.
Honora leaned toward George and whispered,
and was reminded of happier days when she’d
sat next to him and whispered, “George,
please.
Whatever you’ve come for, let’s get it
over with.
I am utterly exhausted.”
He looked at Fanny, not very far away at all.
Looked behind him at the open door.
“Perhaps we could go out to the garden.
The sun will do you good.”
“There’s sun today?”
“A little.
Would your siblings like to join us outside
as well?
I’d like to know where everyone is at all
times.”
“You’ve figured us out already.”
He helped her rise.
“I have.”
The girls and Freddy were rounded up and they
all went outside to play in the sun.
A blanket was tucked around Honora as if she
was an invalid, and she wondered just how
terrible she looked.
How empty.
George sat next to her and when everyone was
visible, yet far enough away, he said, “I
loved a good woman once.
Not you.”
Honora smiled and closed her eyes.
“The clarification was unnecessary.”
“I loved her, and I just sat and waited
for her to realize that she loved me.
I just sat and watched her marry my brother.
I’ve been destroyed by love twice now.”
You, and he didn’t have to say that she
had been the second.
“You’ve come back for thirds?”
“I sincerely hope not.
I came for the why.”
“And I’ve already told you.
A few stolen minutes, two lives destroyed,
and very few options.”
The bird twittered again and George waited
until she opened her eyes again to say, “Minutes?
Does it change anything if I wish you’d
thrown away your virtue and future for at
least an hour or two?”
She looked sideways at him.
He repeated, “I wish it had been worth it.
I wish it had been worth all you suffered.”
Honora watched four young children running
in circles around their mother, remembered
how Fanny had said Chastity’s life was worth
all that had been lost.
Perhaps she had been worth it.
George watched them too, and he asked, “Was
your child’s life destroyed by that minute?”
“Minutes, plural.
You don’t need to make it worse than it
actually was.”
“You don’t need to make it worse than
it actually is, either.
Did you give her the best possible life out
of very few options?”
Honora leaned toward him, the blanket suddenly
stifling her, and she whispered hotly, “Yes.
And I refuse to be so helpless ever again.
I would do it all over– take bits of security
from every man until I had enough.
Until I would never have to make that choice
again.”
“So that is the why,” he said and nodded.
“Now I want to know if.
I loved once, before you.
And I still don’t know what was true.
If she’d ever loved me back.
And I don’t think she could even tell me,
not now.
So I want that truth.
From you.”
She raised her eyebrows.
“You want a liar and a swindler, someone
you could have hanged at the snap of your
fingers, to tell you that she really– no,
really she did– loved you.”
He took a deep breath, leaning back in his
seat and closing his eyes.
He nodded again and she watched him for a
long moment.
“What are you doing?”
“Listening.”
Honora looked around, as if she could hear
with her eyes.
“To what?”
“The birds,” he said, and Honora could
suddenly hear the twittering in the tree tops.
“The wind,” he said, and Honora could
hear the leaves rustling.
“The children,” he said, and Honora could
hear the giggles and whispers.
“You,” he said.
“I love you,” she said with all the disgust
she could muster.
“And it’s horrible.”
“Love is.”
“I didn’t mean to.
You were going to be the last, a payment so
large we’d be comfortable for the rest of
our lives.”
“And then you realized you could have more
as my wife.”
“And then I realized I could have everything
as your wife.”
And even she could hear that.
The truth.
She could have had everything with him.
And here he was.
She whispered, “Why are you here?”
He opened his eyes.
He didn’t look at her, just stood up and
adjusted his coat.
“Thank you,” he said.
And he walked away.
Honora huddled beneath the blanket after he
left, cursing all men.
George.
The six who’d come before him.
And the one who’d necessitated them all.
She watched Chastity running around, playing
with her sisters, and thought maybe her stepmother
was right.
She’d been worth all that was lost.
You can have it back.
Take it.
Be brave.
Be brave?
She’d be angry.
George had come here and made her say the
truth to him and then he’d left?
When he loved her, the real her, in return?
The only one who ever had, and he’d left?
Honora flung the blanket off and called, “Chastity.
I need your parasol.”
She’d go find him and poke at him until
she had him right where she wanted.
York was a small city; he’d found her, surely
she could find him in return.
Her father called out behind her, “Honora,”
and when she turned, there was George standing
next to him.
Honora blinked and Chastity ran up to say,
“Should I go get it?”
“I don’t know.”
Charles called for all his children to gather
round and held his hand out to his wife and
when they were all in front of him, he smiled.
“I have given my permission to Mr. St. Clair
to marry Honora.”
Fanny gasped and covered her mouth, the girls
squealed with delight, and Honora stood absolutely
still.
“…you said I could marry him?”
“We had a long conversation,” he began
and Honora sucked in a breath.
Her father continued over her.
“And I am assured that not only does he
know you very well, he also loves you.”
Fanny pulled her handkerchief from her pocket
and dabbed at her eyes.
“Oh!”
“And I’m not going to say no to a viscount’s
son, even if he is currently profession-less.
He seems like a man with a plan.”
Honora finally met George’s eyes and said,
“He does?”
“Oranges.
And cigars.”
She raised an eyebrow at him.
“Steam?”
George curled his lip.
“Trade.
But it is better than the alternative.”
She whispered, “Marriage,” and he smiled.
“It seemed better than the alternative.”
When the girls had stopped squealing and Honora’s
stepmother had stopped crying and her father
had stopped thanking God for his good fortune,
George held out his arm to Honora.
They walked slowly around the perimeter of
the garden and when they were far enough away
from young ears, Honora said, “That was
the worst marriage proposal I have ever heard
of; you didn’t even ask me.
I think you should do it again.”
“How many times have you been proposed to,
Honora?”
“Including both of yours?”
He nodded and she said, “Eight.
And your two were, by far, the worst of the
bunch.”
“Eight is enough.”
It was hard to argue with that even if she
wanted to.
She said, “You could have told me instead
of leaving me there, alone.
To worry.
To get angry.”
“I’ve been plenty worried and angry the
last few months.
I find I am more petty than I previously suspected.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.
For the future.”
He glanced down at her and she said softly,
“Forgive me?”
“Never.
I will never forgive you for making me fall
in love with you.”
She swallowed, blinking back happy tears.
“Petty, indeed.
Haven’t you ever read Matthew 5:7?
Blessed are the merciful: for they will be
shown mercy.”
He reached out, catching a lone tear with
his thumb.
“Blessed are ye that weep now: for ye shall
laugh.
Luke 6:21.”
And she did.
She looked behind her, at her family watching
them, and gestured at the flower beds as if
they were talking about the garden.
She said, “They’re never going to leave
us alone, not until the marriage deed is done,
or else this would be a perfect moment to
kiss you.”
“Since I am no longer a man of the cloth,
that is probably for the best.
You are far too tempting for me to be kissing
before we’re married.”
“Father can get us a special license.”
George shook his head.
“No.
No special license.
The banns will be read and we’ll do this
right.”
She lifted an eyebrow at him because they
hadn’t done anything right and he said,
“Besides, it will give me time to hear from
my father.
I’ve proposed a business enterprise to him.
If he says no, we’ll visit him after the
wedding so you can change his mind.”
“Does this enterprise have something to
do with your steam?”
“Our steam.
We’re going to America.
If my good friend Sinclair can take his bride
to India and send back trinkets, I can take
my bride to America and send back cigars and
oranges.”
Honora stopped and blinked, and George said
softly, “You can’t stay here.
In York.
In England.
Moffat will discover all your sins and then
find you.
A woman does not steal a man’s honor though
the opposite happens with regular frequency.”
“And you’re going to leave your home and
family for me?”
“I am.”
“Because you love me?”
“Because I never truly believed in God,
or his love, before you.
I studied and I knew the words and I knew
what I should feel, but I never did.
And then I found you and realized that He’d
made you just for me.
He made you hardened and cynical and unafraid.
He made me heartbroken and
prideful and slow to forgive–”
She pointed at a tasteful grouping of trees
and started walking toward them, tugging him
along.
“You forgot sour.”
He smiled.
“Sour, too.
All so that when I met you, I would be able
to do anything for you.
So that when I had a choice to make, I could
recognize it.
So that I would know the difference between
no choice and a hard choice.”
“America,” she said slowly, never having
considered it before.
Then, “My aunt and uncle will be coming
with us.”
“I have family of my own that will need
to be accommodated.
Collin would benefit from their older, wiser
touch because he seems far too interested
in the idea of American women.
Although, I don’t see that they ever had
much luck with you.”
“Don’t hold it against them.”
“Oh, I think I’ve placed the blame squarely
where it is due,” he said and she laughed.
“I want Chastity to come to America, too.
When she’s older.
When she wants to.
When we’re settled.
I will never be her mother, I gave that up
ten years ago, but I want to know her and
I want her to know me.”
And then she said, truthfully, “I’m afraid
I don’t even know who Honora Kempe is.”
“And I don’t think you should waste any
more time on it.
It is of far more importance to me who you
decide Honora St. Clair will be.”
She pulled him behind the nearest tree trunk,
sliding her hands inside his coat and pulling
his body tight against hers.
He cupped her face with his hands, tracing
her eyebrows with his thumbs and murmuring,
“How was that proposal?
Any better?”
She nodded, a smile transforming her face.
“Much better.”
“Was that a yes?”
“Was that a question?”
“Oh, yes.
My Honora.”
She sighed happily, going to the tip of her
toes to meet George’s lips with her own.
Her father called her name, telling them both
to come out from behind that tree, and the
children giggled loudly.
The wind whipped the leaves of the trees into
wild applause, the birds sang, and the sun
shone brightly down on them.
And she said, “Yes.”
To George Sinclair, his wife Elinor, and their
two lovely and (I am sure) wild children,
I am sorry, old friend.
I will not be joining you in the east.
I am, as I write this, boarding a steam ship
to the west.
To America.
One, it’s a shorter (thirteen days!) and
faster (ten knots!) journey.
And two, they make better cigars.
I’ll send you some with the birth announcement.
Honora assures me there is no chance of that
happening before the ship makes land, and
she usually says it with cutting droll so
I am forced to believe her.
I am convinced you would love her– nearly
as much as my Father does– which is reason
number three we are heading to the opposite
end of the world.
I, at least, made certain your bride would
never be tempted by me.
Your friend, in love,
George St. Clair
This has been
To Tempt The Saint
The Reluctant Bride Collection, Book Four
Written by Megan Bryce
Narrated by Maureen Cavanaugh
Copyright 2015 by Megan Bryce
Production Copyright 2016 by Megan Bryce
