Page 37 of The Lady's Companion
It was power she had never imagined before, and it frightened her even more than the actual act of love for the first time. To exert that kind of authority over another human being awed her, humbled her, and took her breath away. She leaned against thewindow, wondering how many glittering diamonds each season flirted and danced and teased while fathers and lawyers drew up documents and transferred funds, all in the name of love. It was the way theton—herton—did things, but sitting there watching the immensity of the morning come, and examining her own raw feelings, she knew suddenly how wrong it was.
I worried so much about no dowry and no come out, she thought, shaking her head over her own stupidity. Even if I had possessed those things, those proud badges of my class, there was never any guarantee that I would be happy with my husband, in bed or anywhere else. Quite the contrary. It’s not called the Marriage Mart for nothing. Well, I am far away from my social sphere’s matrimonial marketplace here, and I must trust myself to do what will make me happy.
“How frightening,” she murmured and drew her name on the windowpane. “I wonder that anyone makes right decisions.”
It can’t be easy, she thought, reminding herself of the way her brain dissolved into mush last night from nothing more than a kiss. How can rational judgment withstand a kiss from Davie Wiggins? I do suspect that in the annals of kissing, it was quite a kiss, she told herself. If there were contests for such things, the bailiff would at least be eligible to compete. Oh, my word, he would win, was her next fervent thought.
She had no experience to base that on, beyond the certitude that no woman had ever been so thoroughly entertained in such a brief space of time. She smiled at her own silliness and drew a circle around her name. “Susan, it’s not as if you’re the only female on the planet who ever felt this way.” She drew an exclamation point after her name. “It just seems like it.”
She took her time dressing, choosing a dark green wool with a white collar she had crocheted. For all this, she hoped the bailiff would not be in the kitchen when she came downstairs. I must compose myself, she told herself as she tucked in hairpins hereand there to anchor her braids. I must remember that I am a lady.
She sighed and rested her hands in her lap. And that is part of the problem, she reflected. I suppose the bailiff had no business kissing someone of my class, and here I go again, putting that between us like a partition. Aunt Louisa would say that we all have our place in life and that the classes have no business mingling. Susan looked at her name on the window, with its hopeful exclamation mark melting as the sun hit the glass. Oh, I hope she is wrong. I hope I have enough wisdom to do the right thing, as soon as I figure out what that is.
Whatever glee, joy, and luck she had felt in David Wiggins’ embrace last night was gone at breakfast, replaced by the most exquisite sort of confusion. The bailiff was finishing his porridge when she came into the kitchen. If it was any consolation, he stared into his bowl in thoughtful fashion, and his eyes didn’t look any livelier than her own. She watched him quietly from the doorway, shy beyond words and wondering what to do with him.
I mean, do I just sit down and chat about the weather, or the sheep, or that your lips ought to be bronzed and preserved under glass? What am I thinking? she asked herself from the doorway. Calm, Susan. You still have to eat and perform the functions of life, even though you are intrigued with the possibility of all this, and feeling friskier than a spring colt.
She must have made some sound from the doorway (Am I whining and don’t know it? she wondered), because the bailiff looked around and smiled at her. “Good morning, Susan,” he said. She hunted for some sign of shyness on his part, but he looked the same as usual. His calmness deflated her. Either you are not as involved in this as I am, or you are a master at hiding your feelings. I will pretend it is the latter, she told herself.
“Ready to face the lion again?” he asked.
I wonder which lion you are referring to, she considered asshe nodded, too bashful to speak, and sat in the chair he patted. She accepted the porridge from Mrs. Skerlong and began to eat. She stopped soon enough, looking down at the bowl in surprise, curious to know why the housekeeper would feed her wood pulp. But no, it was the same porridge;shewas different. She applied herself to breakfast again, and Mrs. Skerlong went to her chair by the stove, where the cat was waiting to leap into her lap.
The bailiff shifted his chair a little so he could look at her. “Do I owe you a rather large apology?” he asked in a low voice.
It was a good question, and she was struck all over again how different this situation was from any she had ever encountered before. She considered him thoughtfully, mindful of his nearness, but less fearful of it than if he were a marquess, impeccably dressed and bearing down on her from across a ballroom. The bailiff was so comfortable-looking. She met his eyes briefly, then blushed and looked away. And yet you have the power to disturb me profoundly. I do not remember that quality about any of the viscounts, marquesses, or baronets I pined over, she marveled. Sir, you take my breath from me.
“No, you owe me no apology, large or small,” she said honestly, and set down her spoon. She turned to face him; a man used to plain-dealing deserved more than her profile. “Now, if you had held me down against my will and forced such a kiss on me, I would demand one.” She looked at her hands in her lap, uneasily aware of the warm glow that was spreading throughout her body again. “But as I offered no objection then, I could not expect to make one now. No, you owe me no apology.”
It was the bailiff’s turn for confusion, and it relieved her to know that his air of assurance did not go all the way to the bone. This is not a case-hardened rascal, she thought, and I am so glad. His sudden bewilderment pleased her as nothing else could have.
“Well, I... I don’t go around kissing like that on a... well, aregular basis,” he managed finally, backing up his chair slightly as though some of her own warmth were reaching him, too.
Or perhaps Mrs. Skerlong was adding a ton or two of coal to the Rumford. She glanced toward the stove, but there were no stokers around it, shoveling in coal. This is an odd kind of warmth, she thought. I like it, but it could make me peevish.
She reached out to touch his arm, to reassure him that she did not mind, but she stopped at such a prosaic gesture. How odd this is, she considered, as shyness took over again. After last night, I am amazingly familiar with this man’s lips, his teeth, his tongue, and yet I won’t be so forward as to touch his arm. This is strange, indeed.
She sighed and looked him in the eye. “David, I don’t want to talk about what happened last night.”
“I can’t wonder at that,” he murmured and started to get up.
“No!” She did put her hand on his arm to detain him then, and he sat down quickly. “No,” she repeated, her voice softer. “But I do want to think about it. There’s a difference.” His shoulders lowered, as though in vast relief, and she was touched to the heart.
“Maybe tonight in the succession house we should talk about it? I won’t have you thinking me a scoundrel.” He shook his head at his own words. “A bastard, a liar, a poacher, and a thief maybe, but not a scoundrel,” he said with some humor evident.
“Perhaps we’ll talk tonight,” she said, smiling, too, at the absurdity of what he was really saying. “And I do not think you are a scoundrel,” she assured him. “The circumstance of birth was out of your control, and maybe you poached and thieved, and you’re one of the most accomplished liars in the realm, but you’re not a scoundrel.”
“Thank you!” he exclaimed with a laugh. He pulled his watch out and looked at her over the edge of it. “All joking aside, are you avoiding your incarceration in the library with LadyBushnell and the dread piano?”
He turned the watch around and she gasped and rose hurriedly to her feet. It’s interesting, she thought as she carried her dishes to the sink, but somehow I am not so frightened by Lady Bushnell now. I have other matters to concern myself with.
Or so she thought, until she stood outside the library door and steeled herself to open it. She reminded herself that this was what she wanted. Lady Bushnell needed something to take an interest in, and if it turned out to be an interest in the shortcomings of Susan Hampton, so be it.
“Need a little push, Susan?” said the bailiff.
She jumped. Why did he persist in sneaking up on her? Before she could scold him, he had opened the door, applied enough pressure to the small of her back to propel her in, and closed the door gently behind her.
“Miss Hampton, so kind of you to come!”
