Once Upon a Kiss (Book Club Belles Society) Read online

  After that near miss, Justina decided a husband would only get in the way and be a terrible drain on her patience, so she stepped into the role of future spinster. Without expectations heaped upon her, she had an easier life and a liberty her sister would never know.

  Not that Cathy seemed to mind her role as the one upon whom all hope now rested. She bore the burden of her good looks with a solemn sense of responsibility, almost like a religious calling. Nothing Justina told her could dissuade her from the idea of marriage.

  “When you marry,” she had warned Cathy, “a husband will dole out the pin money and tut-tut over ink-stained fingers.”

  “Our father does that now,” her sister replied complacently.

  “But a husband will expect you to manage his house, no matter how little you care about dust on the shelves or weeds in the garden. And be polite to his guests, even if you are not in a mood to make pointless chat and sip tea. He will lose things incessantly and expect you to find them for him.”

  “Goodness, how dreadful!” Cathy had laughed. “Worry not, Jussy. You may yet find the perfect gentleman for you. One who would not mind a wife occasionally drifting off into daydreams of a somewhat bloodthirsty bent. A wife who would prefer tutoring her daughters in sword play with garden canes than teaching them at the pianoforte.”

  Quite certain such a man did not exist, Justina let it be known, at every opportunity, that she would be a great nuisance in anybody’s life.

  Now along came the Wrong Man again, with his dark eyes and stormy frown. The new owner of Midwitch Manor had fixed her in the stern rays of his perusal until she felt as if he’d tipped her upside down and emptied her out. He’d dared suggest she was a troublemaker who caused mischief because she was bored, had nothing more worthwhile to do with her time, and no one to punish her. Insufferable, conceited man!

  “…You are a young lady who doesn’t want to face her future. Part of you would rather be a child forever and have no responsibilities, no adult concerns…for you, life is always a game.”

  Remembering the heated way he’d looked at her while tapping a riding crop against his boots, Justina felt certain his sudden change of mind, his extended stay in the village, did not bode well for her.

  Like a fool, she had felt the need to kiss his cheek and thank him for the fruit. She gave him an inch; he took a yard.

  Teasing prickles breezed across her skin as she recalled the way he’d kissed her in return. How his tongue had tasted of cloves. How his firm lips took possession, stripped her of any chance to protest. The know-it-all had ravished her mouth, fondled her breast.

  Justina squirmed on the window seat, wriggling on her belly as she felt that tightening begin again, the low, thudding pulse seizing her body in its heavy rhythm. Once the Maiden’s Palsy started, she had great difficulty making it stop.

  As for the cheeks of her posterior, she was afraid to look in the mirror, but she was quite certain his fingers had left her bruised. She could not watch Clara knead bread dough these days without blushing and fanning herself with whatever came to hand.

  She propped her trembling chin on her knuckles, still staring angrily through that window, her back turned to the other women in the room.

  If the sly blackguard knew what was good for him, he would keep his arrogant lips shut in regard to their encounters. She certainly would never speak a word to anyone about it, or her mother would be ordering wedding clothes before she could run off with the gypsies. Usually every argument and every set-down Justina enjoyed giving was proudly and faithfully scribbled in her very full diary. Every shocking encounter with Mr. Wainwright, his stiff appendages and his firm hands, however, were markedly absent from the dog-eared pages.

  She prided herself on being a lifelong citizen of Hawcombe Prior, one of its most outspoken residents and a tireless recorder of events, but Justina had learned there were certain happenings better kept to oneself. Not even worth risking to pen and ink in her diary. As a young lady who generally found news burning to be let out—especially if it was scandalous and might be embellished a little with her own imagination—the value of discretion was a new discovery for her. At nineteen, she realized with chagrin, it was probably an overdue one.

  Ten

  Darius blotted the last letter and reached for the wax to seal it. When news of his decision to remain a little longer in the wilderness reached his friends and business associates in London, they would immediately wonder at his sanity. But there, it was done. Heaven help him.

  In answer to his bell, the study door eventually opened to admit the housekeeper he’d inherited along with the property.

  “Mrs. Birch, will you see to it that these letters are taken with the post at the first opportunity?”

  She advanced with the wide, plodding, uneven gait of a bulldog. “Shall you be ready for a slice of game pie, young man? I noticed you haven’t eaten all day. That won’t do you any good, will it?” She glanced at the fireplace. “And you need some more coal on the fire before it goes out. You’ll catch your death o’ cold in this drafty old place. I’ll bring up some coal from the cellar and then a nice slice of pie. Can’t have you fading away, can we?”

  Darius could not remember a time when anyone concerned themselves with what and when he ate, or how warmly he dressed. Perhaps this was “motherly.” He would not know, having grown up without one—only a busy, stern, no-nonsense father whose first concern was always work, and a rakish brother whose first concern was always getting out of it. His stepmother had come along when he was already a young man and his character formed, which was a very good thing, since she seemed to view Darius and his brother as mere inconveniences that must be suffered if she wanted the comforts of being married to their father.

  Most women he knew were concerned only for the well-being of his bank account, not for his health or his stomach. Mrs. Birch’s attempts to fuss over him, therefore, were puzzling for Darius. He did his best to discourage her, but the housekeeper treated these attempts as if they were no more than a fractious child’s tantrum. He got the distinct impression she might squeeze his cheek between her thumb and forefinger one day while urging him to eat all his crusts. Perhaps that same curious deafness and thickened skin with which she handled him had helped her deal with crotchety old Phineas Hawke when the other staff gave up and left.

  “Any news on my carriage, Mrs. Birch?”

  “Oh aye, Sam Hardacre says he’s nearly done putting the pieces back together.”

  “He has been nearly done for two days. Does that phrase mean something different here in the country?”

  “But he says he’d never seen such a wreck as you made.”

  “Me?” He scowled. “I certainly didn’t—”

  “Racing along recklessly, no doubt. You young men! I don’t know. Shouldn’t be on the roads, if you ask me. There’s enough death and danger about without you lot careening up and down the countryside, galloping yourselves into ditches.”

  Irritable and not having the patience to argue further with her, he glanced at his fob watch. “Perhaps I’ll ride down into the village now and see these letters to the post. Then call upon Mr. Hardacre myself.”

  Although he generally avoided too much fresh air, he wanted his letters to go with the next post, not in a day or two. After observing the housekeeper’s somewhat eccentric temper for several days, he knew she did things in her own time, when she thought they were necessary, not always when she was asked. It was, he supposed, a country thing. Another one.

  “Be sure to wear a warm coat, and don’t dally. It’s a brisk, windy day out there, and I shouldn’t be at all surprised to see rain this afternoon.” She gave him a crooked-toothed smile. “You mind how you go, now. The lane into the village is little better than a mire since the ditches overflowed in that recent spell o’ rain. You’d do well to go the long way by Rooke’s farm. Take a right out of the gate and follow t
he elm trees until you get to the crossroads and you’ll see the church spire.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Birch, I did come by that road when I arrived.” He was hardly likely to get lost anywhere in the three lanes that made up Hawcombe Prior, was he?

  “If it were drier out, you might cut across the fallow field by Dockley’s old barn, but with the ground so soft, you should stick to the road. Wouldn’t want you to get mud all over your fancy breeches and coat.”

  Letters in hand, he edged around his desk, keeping a careful distance from the housekeeper. “Quite.”

  “And what do you mean to do about that pig you found in the orchard?”

  Ah, yes. The pig. Sir Mortimer Grubbins, as a certain irritating, undisciplined creature had referred to it when she climbed over his wall to steal fruit last Saturday.

  How she ever got the pig through a locked gate he had no idea.

  Looking out on the orchard through his study window, Darius shook his head. She’d had the sheer unmitigated gall to suggest he become guardian of an animal that had no more right to be there than she did.

  He knew country folk were different, but he’d not expected to be ambushed in his own orchard by a hoyden. With full, rebellious lips, dangerous curves, and wide eyes full of curiosity.

  A woman in need of guidance, before she got herself in worse trouble. If she had not already.

  Of course it was none of his business. He should count his good fortune that no one saw him kiss her.

  He squeezed his fingers tighter around those letters.

  “I will make inquiries in the village, Mrs. Birch,” he replied finally to the housekeeper, “and see if I can find someone to take the pig away.”

  “Oh, I thought you were growing fond of it.” She chortled.

  Turning swiftly from the window, he used his frown upon her, but she shooed him toward the door with her apron.

  “Off you go then, young lad. When you get back I’ll have your supper laid out and a fire in the dining room.”

  It did sound rather comforting on such a bleak day, he must admit.

  “Now you be wary of the young ladies down in the village. If I were you, lad, I’d take care not to make eye contact. They’re a troublesome lot and some worse than others.” She sniffed, folding her arms. “They get up to more than they should. What with the reading of romance novels and the like. I ask you, what good can come of it?”

  She made it sound as if they were headhunters and cannibals, but since he had met one of them already, this warning was not required either. “Rest assured, Mrs. Birch, I am quite safe from their villainy.”

  In fact, they, he thought, should be wary of him. One of them should, in particular.

  ***

  After hearing Martha Mawby’s news, the Penny sisters walked arm in arm down the main street of Hawcombe Prior that afternoon, with Catherine valiantly pretending that the arrival of a strange bachelor in their village made no ripple upon her placid waters.

  “Gossip is so dreadfully unladylike,” she said.

  “Quite so, sister.” Justina nodded with more fervency than was required. Sadly, while she still battled the demon temptation, all her gestures had a tendency to be stronger and less controlled. It was a failing she’d noticed before, but the more she tried to rein in her body parts, the more they misbehaved.

  “Even if there is a strange gentleman taking possession of Midwitch Manor, even if he is single and has a large fortune, that is no one’s business but his own,” said Catherine.

  Justina knew her sister was not so much upset by this item of gossip—which was undeniably interesting in a village of so few unattached males—as she was by the fact that it was the slovenly laundress, Martha Mawby, who bore the news. In claiming to be one of the very few souls, so far, to meet Mr. Wainwright, Martha had transformed into a person of importance. Anyone might think she was his intimate friend and privy to every move he made. But Catherine was widely acknowledged to be the loveliest girl in this village, and therefore Mr. Wainwright, in the minds of many, was already her property—should she find him agreeable. With this state of expectation in the air, it must have been galling for Cathy that she had not yet caught a glimpse of her man, while Martha Mawby had already handled his unmentionables. Justina could see that her dear sister was very nearly forced to say something unpleasant about it.

  Fortunately she didn’t need to, because she had Justina to say it for her.

  “Martha is an ungainly slab of mutton with no manners, sister, and no couth. Nor does she have the presence of mind to keep rumors to herself.” She slid her arm out from under Catherine’s so they could skirt a large puddle in their path. Only a week ago she would have been tempted to take another of her running leaps over that puddle; today she struggled to hold her natural instincts at bay.

  A child with no responsibilities and no adult concerns, indeed! She’d show him.

  “I know I shall ignore everything Martha says about the man,” Justina exclaimed. “We all should. That is the surest way to stem her gossiping.”

  “Very true, Jussy. But I would have imagined you to be most curious about the stranger and to have scandalous stories collected about him already. Mostly made up.”

  She blinked rapidly. “Me? Good gracious no. I have too many other things to do with my time.” Keeping her gaze sternly on the road ahead, she struggled to think of anything that might keep her face from changing color. “Why would I care sixpence about him?”

  “Because he is something new. You constantly lament that nothing significant happens here, and we are all so dull.” Catherine halted abruptly. “You went to Midwitch Manor on Saturday to steal pears. Did you see him there?”

  “Certainly not! I told you, sister, I met no one at Midwitch when I went there. Neither was I stealing! The fruit was left to rot there since old Phineas Hawke died. No one wanted it. Why should we not have it?”

  Catherine digested this reply with evident skepticism. Nineteen years of her younger sister’s company must have taught caution, yet surely, Justina reasoned, poor Cathy would not wish to know what really happened. In a sense, she was saving her virtuous sister from no little anguish by denying the entire incident.

  Obliged to be mute and dignified, she must let the lumpish Martha Mawby bask alone in glory this time.

  Clearly in need of something more with which to admonish her, Catherine pointed out that her coat was unbuttoned. “You’ll catch cold,” she exclaimed.

  Too busy maintaining an innocent face to bother with a little thing like buttons, Justina tucked her arm under Catherine’s again and gave her a wide smile. “Let’s make haste or we shall be late for the post.”

  The mail coach was due to pass through the village that afternoon, and Justina awaited a reply to a parcel she’d sent to a publisher in London several weeks ago. Her sister didn’t know why she’d taken to waiting for the post so diligently, for it was a venture about which she’d told no one.

  They walked on a few more steps. “I cannot make you out, Jussy,” her sister muttered. “I know I shouldn’t believe you, and yet if you had met that man, I’m quite certain you could never keep silent. It would have burst out of you at once. Unless,” her eyes narrowed, “something happened there that you do not want anyone to know.”

  Looking about with some desperation, Justina was exceedingly thankful to spy a familiar shape hurrying toward them, skirt billowing in the wind, bouncy wheaten ringlets visible under the hood of a scarlet cloak. “Ah, look, there’s Lucy!”

  Catherine turned to observe the approaching breeze-buffeted figure. “I thought she was still punished and not allowed out.”

  “No, no, that is all over with. Her father has relented and given her permission to join us for the Book Society meetings.” Justina was glad to have Lucy back again after the unfortunate demise of her father’s rowboat.

  His former row
boat, strictly speaking. Really it wasn’t a safe vessel in which to be out, as Justina had assured Mr. Bridges when they returned the pieces. “In fact, sir,” she’d earnestly explained, “we have probably saved someone else from a certain drowning by disposing of the boat for you.”

  Lucy’s father did not reach the same conclusion. Then he discovered they’d also lost his pig.

  “I’m afraid poor Sir Mortimer Grubbins took such fright, sir, that he ran away into the woods,” Justina had told him.

  “He ran?”

  “And speedily indeed for such a plump creature. I believe he was betaken by a sudden joie de vivre that gave lift to his trotters. Certainly he did not look back, and given that he owed us a debt of gratitude, I think he might have made an effort to show his appreciation in some way. But no, there was not even the slightest grunt of thanks.”

  Lucy’s punishment would probably have been extended a full month if not for the approaching harvest dance, but her father could hardly ban his only daughter from the most important social event of the year, especially with a strange, wealthy bachelor at large. In the end, since Justina took the blame firmly upon her own shoulders, he forgave his daughter and let her out of the house again.

  Although Justina was also punished over the same incident, her time was served not by confinement—even her own parents didn’t want her under their feet all day in their small cottage—but by making her perform at least one helpful deed to every household in the village. Only when she could show her father the list of worthy acts completed would he give her the necessary coin to repay Mr. Bridges for the loss of his boat.

  She should have found a way to blame the Wainwright person, she thought suddenly. Surely he was at fault for something.

  When she touched her lips with two gloved fingers, they felt different these days. Perhaps, she thought sadly, because they were forced to spend more time shut tight rather than joyfully spinning a tale of her undoing at the hands of a merciless ogre.