Chapter Seven
Everett wasn’t overly familiar with women’s fashion, but when he stopped in the doorway of the morning room, even he noticed the difference. She had come to breakfast wearing a walking dress and boots. His heart pounded and a grin spread across his face. Not because she looked beautiful and desirable, the narrower skirts flattering her figure and the boots showing off the slim line of her ankle, though she did. But because after five days, she’d finally given an indication that she was not being strong-armed into walking with him. A walking dress was not just a dress, it was a concession that they walked out together in the morning.
Grace had her back to him, her food was to her side, forgotten. She was looking intently at the table. A letter? No. It took a moment to recognize she was reading the newspaper that Clarke had laid out for him. He hadn’t thought she read current affairs, given she hadn’t known about rinderpest. Over the last few days, he hadn’t seen her reading at the breakfast table with him, but then, the newspaper had been either in his hands or lying by his arm, out of her reach. But this morning he’d been delayed by a minor furor with the housemaids that Mrs. Bishop had wanted his advice about.
She was wholly focused as she read. A tendril of her dark hair had fallen over her face. Even as his arm moved spontaneously toward her, as if to reach and tuck it back himself, she smoothed it behind her ear. The bright morning light lit up the downy hairs on her bare arms and highlighted her cheekbones. In her orange dress, she looked like the sun itself, a sight so compelling that all things would orbit her.
Along with the unpleasant knowledge that he knew nothing about his wife, Everett had a moment of irrational envy. Her absorption was unlike anything he had seen from her toward him. Her brows nudged together in consternation, and he wondered what article she was reading. Certainly, she must be in the habit of reading the news, as when she turned the page, she held the paper out at arm’s length and flicked the page across with ease. There was a skill to reading an unwieldy broadsheet newspaper that was only gained with practice. This one small revelation fueled his desire, and breakfast could wait.
“Up the hill?” he asked a few minutes later when they walked out of the house, and he gestured toward the incline with the large oak, easily a hundred years old, on the brow of the hill. A small, rough path in the grass led upward. “The view is pretty from the top.” An ideal place to make her feel beautiful with a carefully placed compliment.
The sun trying to peek out from behind the clouds, making the day in turn warm and cool.
“No, thank you.” She adjusted her taupe-colored floaty shawl around her shoulders.
The lake again then, though they hadn’t managed yet to get all the way around on one of their walks. Their feet crunched on the gravel path. Some of the trees had grown quickly since he’d been away and required trimming. He would talk to the gardeners about pruning them back. Even Grace’s narrower walking dress was encroached on in places by the foliage. He didn’t want to allow her any more excuses to avoid his company. He’d learned that talking about her family invariably resulted in her finding a reason to cut short their walk. Any personal questions, really.
What would entice her? The rose garden perhaps, or a proposal to remodel the library. Could he engage her with the church or the parish poor? Did she ride? Aside from their walks, she seemed to spend her days reading and writing letters to her friends. He supposed he could arrange for—
“What did you do before you were earl? You were in the army, is that right?”
He almost stopped in surprise. “I was Lieutenant Colonel Hetherington.” She’d asked about him of all things, apropos of nothing. Almost as if she was finally permitting herself inquisitiveness.
“You must have had a commission.” When she turned her head to look at him, she was like the sun that the clouds covered. She was unbearably bright. “Was it not enough to cover your expenses?”
“I did.” Another of his blunders. “My father purchased me a coronet commission in the cavalry troop when I was seventeen.” He’d been promoted through merit subsequently, and the commission had been worth six thousand or so. Not enough to have solved the current crisis, though enough to help. “You might have heard about the Crimean war. It was—”
“Yes, I’ve heard of the Crimean war. ‘Half a league, half a league,’” she quoted Tennyson’s The Charge of the Light Brigade.
“Good.” Well, that was something. She wasn’t entirely ignorant. But then, there probably wasn’t a person in England who couldn’t quote that infamous poem. Thankfully, he and his men hadn’t been at the Battle of Balaclava, but not all of them had gone home. “You may not know, however, that the practice of purchasing commissions in the army came under fire, during and after that war.”
“I know that, too,” she snipped.
“There’s to be an inquiry about it.” There was understandably a lot of concern that the practice of buying one’s way into a job that had hundreds of people’s lives at stake, rather than promoting those who were qualified for the job, was not a sensible practice.
“The newspapers managed to report that as well.” Her eyes were wide with faux surprise.
He nodded. Grace read the newspaper and was sharp. He’d completely misunderstood her. She wasn’t the emotionless doll she had pretended to be over the last few days or the frivolous one he’d assumed she was before. He liked the bellicose, clever woman of last night and he intended to find out about her.
Though the pressing issue was what to tell Grace about his time in the army. He’d gained two promotions during Crimea and he could talk about that war without panic rising in his chest now. He’d remained a major, and content with his situation, until two years ago. He’d been offered the commission of the retiring lieutenant colonel. He was one of five majors who would be offered and had any other of the four been willing, able, and competent, he wouldn’t have purchased it. But one of the majors was a particularly nasty, ambitious, and callous man. Everett’s conscience wouldn’t allow the man to lead either himself or his men. Thus, he’d spent the last of his savings and the remaining allowance from when his father had been the earl on purchasing a commission he neither wanted nor enjoyed. Another duty executed because it was the antithesis of what his father would have done. None of that mattered now.
“When I got the letter about Peter’s death, I—” He’d been as dazed as a man staggering around after battle, ears ringing with the sound of cannon fire. But he’d known he couldn’t allow his commission to fall into the hands of an idle man who would treat the lives of his men lightly. “This was before the rinderpest outbreak.”
It was before he’d known about Peter’s debts or that his father had reduced the estate to near breaking point, but for the entailed parts. “I had no reason to think I’d need the money, and so I did what I thought any earl ought to do. I gave my lieutenant colonel commission to a major under my command who had talent and dedication, but not the money to purchase it.”
“You gave away your commission out of an idealistic sense that the army ought to be meritocracy.” Her tone was inscrutable, her head tilted up to look at the canopy of leaves above their heads. The sun had broken through the clouds temporarily and the light was dappled and golden green. He had no idea whether she thought what he’d done was a good thing or not.
“No.” Idealism wasn’t part of it. “If I’d sold my commission, it would have been bought by a man not competent at his job. He wouldn’t have taken care of the men or made good decisions.” Despite that, some of the men had decided to come with him, including Thompson, who’d been a captain under Everett’s command. “I’ve seen the devastation poor command can do. You can recite the poem as well as I.”
“I understand.” She nodded and when she looked at him, there was a ferociousness in her eyes that made them vivid. “You did the right thing.”
A bullet of pride and relief careered through him.
“You couldn’t leave them with someone like Lo—” She stopped herself.
“Who?” Her rage was intriguing.
Her lids dropped and when she returned her gaze to him, it was carefully neutral. “Like Lord Lucan.”
One of the men blamed for the slaughter of the Light Brigade. But her family were grocers, not military, so the Crimea couldn’t mean so much to her. Not enough to make her as angry as she’d just been. “You weren’t thinking of someone else?”
“Are you trying to imply you know what I’m thinking better than I do?” she snapped back.
“No.” He meant to suggest that she was lying. But perhaps this conversation had taken a turn that wasn’t to his credit or benefit. He looked away, across the lake and there was the perfect distraction. “Look.”
He stopped and touched her arm to stop her, too, pointing to the water about twelve feet away. On an ash tree branch low to the water, a spot of iridescent teal-and-orange feathers sat, stationary and patient. A brightly colored kingfisher, flanked with hanging ash keys.
Grace’s frown slowly developed into a smile.
They watched as it dove off the branch and splashed into the green water, emerging a second later with a fish in its beak.
“Beautiful.” Her voice was low, as though she was making the comment to herself, her eyes fixed on the little bird. It sat on the branch and swallowed the fish whole.
“Yes.” His heart skipped when he looked back to Grace. She was just as stunning as the kingfisher, in her own way. Her brown hair as neat, her orange dress as showy as the bird’s plumage, but hers was still an understated beauty. The walking dress clung to her breasts and her chest was rising and lowering just a little bit fast from their walk. It would be contrary to his aims to give in to the temptation to compliment her. He didn’t think she’d take it well. But the impulse to stroke across the soft hair behind her ear or kiss her neck was there all the same. “We’ve shared a special event today. Kingfishers don’t often visit the lake here.”
His admiration must have seeped out somewhere, as her back stiffened.
“We share a dowry.” She looked away. “That’s all.”
“But we could share many other things.” He took a breath and gambled. “A kiss for instance.”
“Pssh.” She dismissed his proposition with a wave of her hand. “You don’t want to kiss me.”
She clearly only intended pragmatism in her tone, not uncertainty. But Everett heard it anyway, seeping in at the edges like rain through an old thatched roof.
“I want to kiss you.” He wanted to see more of the flashes beneath her restraint. “Anytime you ask, I’ll be here, just waiting to provide a kiss that will show how lovely and desirable you are to me.” She was both, her cheeks glowing even as she seemed to have no inkling of how enticing her unleashed self would be.
“That’s not part of our deal.” She clasped her hands together behind her back.
“It could be. If you wanted.” It was just a hook and bait that he set out for her. He had five weeks to consider. She wouldn’t take the lure now, but in time she would.
“I don’t.” She didn’t sound as definite as she had before. The razor edge to her voice, that he was growing to suspect was fear, was absent. “We ought to get back to the house. Better not to disturb the kingfisher with its meal.”
And yet again, she was walking away from him. But her retreating from a battle was better than her refusing to fight.
…
Church was sweet agony. Everett had a rich baritone voice that trembled through her as they sang, “There’s a wideness in God’s mercy.” She had that odd sensation of being part of something bigger, the sound of her voice indistinguishable from the harmony of their voices together, which was just audible amid the sound of the whole congregation. His elbow brushed hers as he turned the page of the hymn book. Her heart jumped, and she fought the urge to feel her arm, as if that miniscule touch would have left an indelible mark.
Grace refused to fidget while Father Norton gave a long sermon on the value of honesty. This was somewhat because her green silk dress, hastily bought in London and altered by Letty, was partly held by loose tacking stitches that would come undone if she wriggled. An upright position was correct for the Sabbath, anyway. It was a good reminder that she mustn’t be loose.
Everett was not so disciplined and crossed and recrossed his arms throughout the whole section on how lying to your family was the same as lying to God. In her head, she shouted at him to stop. She screamed that if he didn’t stop looking so guilty, everyone would know they were a pair of liars, deceiving everyone with their sham marriage. But at the same time, it was his restless activity that made him rather different from the indolent aristocrat she had envisaged. He was larger, sitting close to her on the pew, than he seemed elsewhere, like his presence was bigger than his physical form and was drawing her in. Her skin hummed with awareness of him.
The story he’d told her about his time in the army suggested he wasn’t avaricious for power and even freely gave it away when it would better serve the people he cared about. It was a little knowledge about him that she’d taken out and turned over too often recently. Like a smooth pebble, his actions then didn’t seem to have any edge of selfishness to them. She kept thinking she’d find a fracture in his story that would turn into a shard that would cut her, but his camaraderie with Thompson and his quick attention to matters in the estate provided no cracks. She couldn’t help but admire his evident dedication to the estate and all who lived in it.
When he eventually settled for crossed arms and ankles and a gaze that alternated between the priest and the Westbury family commemorative panel next to the pulpit, tension in every line of his body, despite herself she felt a pang. Since their marriage, he’d been busy with his own life and had adhered to the letter of their bargain.
She continued to stare straight ahead, even as Father Norton moved to a prayer for the preservation of the livestock from the curse of rinderpest and then a blessing on the marriage of their esteemed Lord of Westbury. The combination of topics was slightly opaque, but could certainly be interpreted. She surmised that Father Norton felt slighted they hadn’t married at the local church. She would just have to placate him by— But no. It wasn’t her job. Everett would do that once she’d left.
Eventually, it was over, and Grace took Everett’s arm, the light cotton of his coat barely any barrier against the warmth of him, and he led the way out into the cloudy August morning and the rest of the congregation filed behind them. She started to walk quickly back to the carriage, but Everett’s pace was leisurely. Before they were more than ten steps away from the church door, a call to Lady Westbury brought him to a stop. It took a heartbeat for Grace to connect the name with herself.
“Lady Westbury, I beg your pardon, m’lady.” A tall, neat woman with dark blond hair streaked with gray approached her. “I’m Mrs. Cooper, and I was wondering if you might be so kind as to come to our little meeting about promoting women’s work outside the home.”
“There’s a group?” Grace’s interest was piqued. “What a good idea. I’ll attend, though I don’t know what help I would be.” As soon as she said the words, she knew she had revealed her lack in understanding aristocratic convention. A graceless thing to say. Not what a countess said.
But Mrs. Cooper lit with her success. “Just a few womenfolk hereabouts would like to make sure that women who want to work can do so in safe places, with good pay. I heard that you were involved with Alnott Stores, and I thought you could talk to us about shop work. I know it isn’t common to have women serving in shops, but it would be a good job for any woman. If you would support our cause it would be a very fine thing, Lady Westbury.”
Unlike most businesses, Alnott Stores had a few shopgirls. They were the most vulnerable to Lord Rayner and whatever changes he might see fit to enact. The girls were just some of many employees of Alnott Stores Grace wanted to protect.
“Lady Westbury.” A tinkling laugh came from behind her. “You will be embroiled in Mrs. Cooper’s schemes if you are not careful.”
Mrs. Cooper’s face shuttered, but she remained upright, not sinking down as many women would have done. It dawned on Grace that Mrs. Cooper was an upstart. Like herself, a chancer.
“Please send me word about the time and place of the meeting. I shall be pleased to attend and do all I can,” she said quietly, but audibly. Then she turned to the lady with the tinkly laugh. Lady Enford, a baroness and arbiter of social standing in the community, she quickly discovered.
“Well,” said Lady Enford, after niceties had been exchanged. “Since you will be attending the meeting about women’s place outside the home, I do hope that you will defend women who stay at home, too, and attend the military orphans and widow’s charity auction next month. It’s a worthy cause. Women who stay behind when men go off to fight for the empire require greater provision. I’m sure it would be close to your heart, given Lord Westbury’s previous vocation.”
Grace glanced up at Everett. His face was impassive. She couldn’t tell if he found this admirable, or worthy, or if he was self-satisfied with her being caught into an endless social round. He didn’t look happy, but she thought she could see a tiny bit of a smirk. He found this amusing. Perhaps to him it was. She had put herself into a bind—she could not say no without snubbing Lady Enford, after having said yes with such alacrity to Mrs. Cooper.
“That sounds lovely. We will both be there.” She was gratified to feel the solid muscles in Everett’s arm tighten under her hand.
By showing Mrs. Cooper favor, she had opened the door. Emboldened by her achievement, other women requested her presence. By the time Everett handed her into the carriage, Grace had accepted five invitations to tea, agreed to attend the summer fete and judge the flower displays, and even conceded it would be most appropriate if they donated something for the harvest festival church decorations from the kitchen garden.
What was even more surprising was that they welcomed and seemed to like her. It was outside of her understanding. Even as the daughter of Alnott Stores’ owner, Grace hadn’t experienced anything like this.
It was a position of responsibility. She hadn’t realized what respect and admiration the Countess of Westbury would have. How the local people would consider her their countess and how she would be looked to for key symbolic events. Westbury was not just a sign of influence, but one of leadership in this community. It wasn’t a job that she was born for, and it wasn’t what she wanted, she told herself firmly. Yet, there was an appeal.