Page 15 of The Virtues of Christmas
Indeed, the stalwart Lucille had fortified herself with two cups of tea at the last inn and was now wedged against the opposite squabs, a lap blanket tucked beneath her chin, her snoring a counterpoint to the rhythm of the horses’ hooves.
“My former employer had the same ability to sleep any time,” Michael replied, “though Heathgate limited himself to naps and delighted in making me think he was asleep when he was in truth eavesdropping.”
“You miss him.”
Michael missed his sisters. Did they ever miss him? “Heathgate and I became a good team. Ten years ago, I was the shy Irish lad willing to do anything to better myself. Heathgate was a fundamentally decent man trying to impersonate a jaded rogue. I had the better classical education and stronger organizational skills, while Heathgate had business intuition and daring. He took a modest fortune and made it enormous, if you’ll excuse a vulgar reference to commercial matters.”
Miss Whitlow rustled about on the bench beside Michael, tucking the lap robe around her hip.
“Patch leaf,” he murmured.
Her fussing paused. “I beg your pardon?”
“The scent you wear. It reminds me of the patch leaf used to keep the moths away from Kashmir shawls. I couldn’t place it and have never come across its like on a woman before.”
She extended her left arm beneath his nose. “I have it made up specially. At first I was simply storing my clothing with the leaves used to protect the shawls, but then my Parisian perfumer found a way to capture the scent.”
Michael turned her wrist and sniffed translucent skin. Blue veins ran from her forearm to her palm, and a single tendon stood out.
“It’s different,” he said, resisting the urge to taste her pulse. “Unusual.”
“I don’t care for it. Too exotic, too… loud. I no longer have to be loud or exotic, and what a relief that is.” Her fleeting glance asked if her admission offended him, though her idea of loud was probably a healthy man’s notion of a seductive whisper.
“What scent do you prefer?” he asked.
“My favorite scents are green tea and freshly scythed grass, but those would hardly do for a fragrance. My mother hung lavender sachets all about the house, from the bedposts, in the linen closets, in the wardrobes, and among the dry-goods pantries. In the new year, I will wear proper English lavender.”
On her, that common herb would smell anything but proper. “Why wait until next month?”
“I am determined on an objective, my lord. I expect to fail, but I must try. My success will depend on remaining very much the woman in possession of herself, rather than the meek girl who left Amblebank ten years ago.”
The coach lurched sideways, then righted itself. Logan was a first-rate coachman, and thus when he slowed the team to a more cautious pace, Michael didn’t countermand his judgment.
And yet, these conversations with Miss Whitlow were driving him barmy. He wanted to kiss her, though his job was to betray her, to the extent purloining one book was a betrayal. To blazes with Beltram, favors owed, and Yuletide travel.
“I find it hard to believe you were ever a meek girl,” Michael said, though he well knew she had been. Beltram damned near took pride in “making Henrietta Whitlow what she is today,” as if ruining a housemaid was a rare accomplishment rather than a disgrace.
“I was a drudge,” Miss Whitlow replied. “A pretty drudge, though I grasped too late how that beauty could affect my fate. I quarreled with my father over his choice of husband for me and decamped for the metropolis, as so many village girls have. The tale is prosaic and my fate not that unusual.”
“Your fate is very unusual,” Michael countered. “Those village girls often end up plying their trade in the street, felled by the French disease, or behind bars. You had your choice of dukes and, I hazard, are wealthy as a result.”
“I am wealthy, and all that coin only makes my father hold me in worse contempt. The wages of sin are to be penury, disease, disfigurement, and bitter remorse, not security and comfort.”
Two hours ago, she would not have been that honest.
“Your father’s household is the objective you’re intent upon?”
She tucked one foot up under her skirts, a very informal pose. “Papa refuses to enter any room I’m in, he will not say my name to other family members, and he’s removed every likeness of me from his house.”
And to think Michael was pouting because his sisters had declined to join him for Christmas. He did not want to know that Henrietta Whitlow was afflicted with heartaches. He wanted to believe she’d leave her London life, become an intriguing fixture among the lesser gentry of some backwater, and never miss one small volume from among her store of books.
When Christmas angels took up residence at Inglemere, perhaps.
“Why bother with further overtures in your father’s direction?” Michael asked. “He deserves to have the cold comfort of his intolerance directed right back at him.”
Miss Whitlow peeked beneath the shade rolled down to keep the worst of the cold from leaking through the window.
“I hope your coachman knows this road well. The weather is turning awful.”
