Twenty-three

“Miss, you’ve been rubbing that finial a long time now,” said Lily.

“Finial?” Genevieve ceased her polishing.

“The carved piece you’re cleaning.” Lily Dutton pointed at the urn-shaped carving atop the stair’s bottom rail. “It’s called a finial.”

“Seems like a housekeeper’d know that.” Ruby smirked. “A proper one, leastways.” The maid slouched in the parlor doorway, the ash pail in hand. “Gossip in the village says you were born on the wrong side of the blanket. Daughter of an actress.”

“Ruby!” Lily gasped.

“You heard it too. It’s why that foreigner and his friend came north. Word is he wants his fancy girl back.” Her insolent gaze swept over Genevieve. “Some in the village is scratchin’ their heads on her runnin’ from the Beckworth cottage to here so quick-like.”

Genevieve’s spine straightened. She’d seen that sneer all her life on the faces of proper girls with proper parents. Time had thickened her skin and sharpened her tongue.

She stepped forward, and brazen Miss Dutton shrank against the doorframe.

“I hope they keep scratching till they find something in those heads of theirs. Until then, finish cleaning the hearths. All of them.” She pointed at the ash pail. “From this day forward, the chore is yours. If you want to keep your position.”

The maid’s lips pursed.

Genevieve smiled, cool and brittle. “Off with you now. Dump those ashes and fill the woodbins for the whole cottage.”

Ruby Dutton grabbed her cloak and left the cottage in a snit.

“Please don’t mind her, miss,” Lily said.

Genevieve went back to the finial and took her time dusting a pristine crevice. “Why take her venom out on me?”

“It’s the way his lordship watches you. She’s jealous, is all.”

“What do you mean?” Genevieve dropped her rag in the cleaning bucket.

“She’s got it bad for Lord Bowles.”

Lily took the bucket from her and went to the kitchen. Genevieve followed because there was no use cleaning. Her mind wasn’t in the work. Since Herr Wolf’s visit, she’d burned the noonday meal, knocked over a bucket of soapy water, and mistook a lump of beeswax for butter.

She touched a new taper to the kitchen fire, craving calm from the storm inside her. She usually liked this time of day, lighting the household and the peace that came from a full day’s labor. She couldn’t say what bothered her more. Herr Wolf? Or that her sins were unraveling for gossips to pick at? Perhaps she wasn’t so thick-skinned.

Charred flares marked the whitewashed wall above the kitchen’s plain iron sconce where she set the lit taper. She wiped the smoky haze for good measure, accepting the truth. The jig was up. The people of Cornhill-on-Tweed knew where she came from, or at least had a good idea.

The whitewashed wall was no more pristine than her. Charcoal smeared the limestone. Like her, the damage was done. She’d never truly erase what had made her who she was today. Behind her, Lily Dutton’s heels clicked across the flagstone. Water splashed in the scullery. His lordship’s bath. Evening was nearly upon them, the whole day a blur because another question went round and round in Genevieve’s head.

How many days before she had to leave Cornhill-on-Tweed?

She’d have to start fresh somewhere, but Pallinsburn and all the pretty horses had grown on her.

Or was it Pallinsburn’s master with his lazy smile and fast quips?

And his hands with their expert caresses?

Her hand brushed her hip, sliding into the folds of her skirt. She rubbed her thigh, same as he had last night. Heat prickled her hairline despite the chill emanating from the stone. She could seek him out and climb into his bed at midnight. To be with him in his chamber would be far safer than her tiny room with its garden window. And more desirable than being alone in her narrow bed.

Herr Wolf could sneak in during the dark of night.

“Miss, want me to take the pea soup off the fire? I think it’s done,” Lily called from the scullery.

“The soup. Yes, please.”

Genevieve pulled a chair from the table. She was tired of being afraid of what Herr Wolf might do. Wiping her apron’s hem across her face, she didn’t believe for a second the Wolf was gone. He’d given up too easily.

“Are you well?” Lily took the cooking pot off its hook over the fire and set it on the table.

Genevieve planted both elbows on the table, her palms cradling her cheeks.

“Miss Abbott?”

“Can you sit with me?”

Lily took the seat opposite her. The maid’s head dipped, her blue-gray eyes rounding beneath her patched mobcap. “What’s wrong, miss?”

Genevieve leaned in. “Can you keep a secret?”

The cottage door banged shut. Both women startled, their attention shooting to the kitchen doorway. Heels slammed the cottage floor before stomping up the stairs. Loud, dramatic huffs accompanied the upward march.

“Ruby.” Lily giggled and rolled her eyes. “Mind you, she’ll be back to her old self by tomorrow.”

“I’m glad. She’s a good worker most of the time.”

“Now what’s this about a secret?”

Beyond the kitchen’s small window, more crows gathered, cawing and flapping their wings. One landed on the windowsill, its beady-eyed stare taking in the kitchen. This running away and having to be nimble about her past and her deceptions had worn Genevieve down. She needed a friend, a woman she could trust.

“What people assume about me and my family is true. My mother was an actress at a bawdy house.”

“Ahhh, miss,” the charwoman said, her hand batting off the revelation. “You’re a decent, hardworking woman. Some will care. Some won’t. I wouldn’t pay them any mind.”

Genevieve’s thumbnail scratched a spot on the table’s wood grain. “As long as they don’t find out what else I did.”

Lily’s eyes rounded again. “Wh-what do you mean?”

“I ran away from my indenture…from Herr Wolf, the foreigner.”

“And he’s come to get you.”

“That’s not the worst of it.” Genevieve whispered, “Lord Bowles married me last night to save me.”

The maid gasped. “Married you?”

“Please. Keep this between you and me.”

“Oh, I will.”

Genevieve folded her arms on the table. “We’re keeping it quiet.”

“Then you went across the river to Coldstream?”

“Yes.”

The charwoman’s face scrunched. “It’ll be hard to keep that quiet with the villages so close. Right now, everyone’s talking about the foreigners. One of them is staying at the Red Swan.” She shivered visibly and hugged herself. “He stares at me sometimes…got strange dark eyes.”

Herr Avo Thade.

“Between the foreigners and the baron’s sister causing a stir, you might escape their notice.” She chuckled. “The baron’s sister is a corky one, very bright and lively…too lively for most if you know what I mean.”

“The baron’s sister?”

“She was married fifteen years. To a shipbuilder in Sunderland. Gossip says she was planning to divorce him but then he died.”

“Oh.”

“But that’s not the worst.”

“No?”

“It’s said her husband already had a wife in Ireland. A woman he’d married twenty years ago,” Lily said, hissing the news.

“How awful.”

Lily leaned in close. “You see? Even though it’s not her fault, her reputation’s so tainted you’ve nothing to worry about. Tongues’ll wag about her. They already are.”

London saw its share of bigamists and marriage deserters. Genevieve scratched a circle in the pine table. Desertion of marriage. If one person deserted another, left for seven years, the injured husband or wife could remarry. She could disappear, and Lord Bowles would eventually be free of her. It was one of the ideas tossed about last night.

She could run now.

“People say he was an awful man,” Lily said, warming to her tale. “Mrs. Grey, the baron’s sister, came in yesterday. Plans to stay.” She smiled. “She’s as brazen as they come, or so I’ve heard.”

“She sounds like a force of nature.”

“I’m sure you’ll meet her, miss…or should I call you ‘my lady’?” Lily winked, and they both laughed.

“No. We’ll carry on as usual.” Genevieve breathed easier because of the conversation. “Remember, it’s a secret.”

Outside the kitchen window, the Pallinsburn forest loomed beyond the garden. The skies darkened, heralding the day’s end. The cottage door opened. Boots brushed the boot wipe. From the stairs, Ruby called down a greeting to Alexander Beckworth.

Alexander’s broad shoulders filled the kitchen doorway. “Miss Dutton, your brother’s here to collect you.”

Water glistened at his hairline. He must’ve splashed his face and retied his queue, because not a single dark strand of hair was loose after the day’s labor. He stood, hat in hand, giving both women a close-lipped smile before slipping away.

Lily gawked at his retreating back. “Looks like I need to leave.”

“Perhaps I’m not the only one with secrets.”

Lily fussed with her neckerchief, her cheeks shading pink. “Alexander Beckworth is a fine man, but he’s not long for our village.” She pushed off the seat. “Seems all the good men have other places to go.”

* * *

Hot water rinsed his chest, cleansing him of the day’s trials. Several stones had crumbled on the eastern fence. Alexander and Adam had gotten into scuffles as brothers did, and an ancient mare with cracked hooves was close to foundering. The old dame patiently let him run his hands along her spine and check her hooves. Her trusting brown eyes soaked up his every move. He’d examined her hoof, but letting it drop to the ground, she knew. So did he. She wouldn’t be long for this world.

The crowning thorn of his day was the Prussian’s accusation.

“You play at being a virtuous man.”

He soaked the washcloth in the tub. Was it bad to want Genevieve Turner for himself? For however long she’d have him? To indulge in a dalliance with his housekeeper would be wrong.

But a man could have a tryst or two with his wife.

A dark-blue skirt sashayed past the scullery. The word wife tasted good in his mouth with Genevieve in the role. Wooing her to his bed was one thing. Keeping her there was another. That was what he wanted. Sitting tall in the bath, he craned his neck for a better view of her. Genevieve leaned over the table, checking a bread bowl, her skirts swaying. Low-heeled shoes peeked from the hem of a drooping cream-colored underskirt.

He wanted to tug it.

Black wool covered slender ankles. He’d yet to see her bare skin there. He’d seen her bottom, her breasts. Caressed them. Kissed them. Yet, despite last night’s intimacy, his new wife came and went as if he wasn’t there.

He picked up the sodden cloth and rolled the soap in it, following her quiet, ignoring-his-existence back. “How are we going to address each other?”

Genevieve turned around and planted her bottom on the table’s edge, bracing both hands beside her. She cocked her head to see him through the scullery doorway. “By our names. It’s what people usually do.”

His wife caught her bottom lip between her teeth. The motion excited his nether regions.

“I meant by what names.”

“Same as before, milord. I’m still Miss Turner.”

“Haven’t I earned the boon of addressing you by your Christian name?” He set his elbows on the side of the tub and sat up taller. “Winter can be a very long, cold season.”

Laughing softly, she sauntered to the scullery. “As it always has been.”

She pressed against the lintel, half her body in sight, the other half hidden. Genevieve’s dark-blue gown sported a higher bodice. The most modest one his housekeeper-cum-wife owned. Her braid was coming loose, and strands of hair fell around her face.

“You’ve done me a great kindness,” she said, removing her apron. “Letting you call me by my Christian name is a small thing.”

“I am allowed to call you Genevieve, then?”

“You may.” She balled up the apron in her hands. “In private.”

The steamy bath, the cozy scullery, running off the Wolf, had twined another level of intimacy between them. No doubt the game had changed. Marcus tugged his earlobe, the Prussian’s words coming to mind again. Was he all about his own entertainment? Marcus swiped the soapy cloth down his chest.

Genevieve’s gaze followed the soapy line. “Do you have plans tonight? Anything away from the cottage?”

“And miss the exciting conclusion of Ben Franklin’s discourse on electricity?”

Her chin dipped, and the warmest smile spread across her face. “We’ve already read it through twice, milord.”

“Good reason to make sure it ends the same.” He smiled and wrung out the washcloth.

“I wasn’t sure with Baron Atal’s house party.”

“Festivities begin tomorrow and run for the next week.”

“Then I shall enjoy your companionship for as long as I can,” she murmured.

Her knowing smile singed him while he tried to get comfortable in the old wooden tub. He dunked the linen underwater and rinsed his chest.

“I’m already soaking in hot water, yet your presence turns up the heat.”

She grazed his forearm, her fingernails lightly scraping his skin. “Do you need some assistance?”

His skin pebbled from her bold touch. Glorious brown eyes took their fill of him through the steamy curtain floating between them.

“Forgive me if I assume too much, but are you propositioning me, Wife?”

His nipples pinched to two brown points as his lungs worked harder for air. To be watched by a beautiful woman was potent like the first swallow of port wine. A corner of his muddled brain cried foul after her declaration last eve. Yet Genevieve stood in the middle of the scullery, smiling a genuine, heartrending, warm-him-to-the-soles-of-his-feet smile.

“You make me happy, milord.”

This was a new development. He wet the washcloth again and slapped it on his arm. “High praise, indeed.”

She nibbled her bottom lip again. “What if I told you I’ve been rethinking my position with you?”

“As housekeeper?”

She blushed and dragged the stool close for a seat. “No, I mean us…together. In the biblical sense.”

His elbows pressed the tub’s wooden rim. “I’d say ‘Don’t look in the water.’ Parts of me have already mutinied in your favor.”

Genevieve peered into the tub, her winged brows nudging higher. He chuckled at her nature getting the better of her. For once, he had the upper hand. This new twist needed a deft hand, and that meant letting her take the lead. Keeping her lashes low, she tried hard not to stare at his erection. She tucked hair behind her ears twice, all while fidgeting on the stool. They should be past flights of nervousness, yet the woman who’d propositioned him last night, this experienced girl from the Golden Goose was just that. Nervous.

He touched her chin, stroking the stubborn point. “You’ve more to say. Out with it.”

“What do you think about the idea that for as long as I’m here, we enjoy each other as often as we want?” she whispered. “For sex.”

A lump caught in his throat. Genevieve didn’t need to add the last part, but he was glad she did. She was the most unusual mixture of youth and knowing, as complex yet straightforward as the mechanisms that fascinated her. He searched her face…the freckles on the bridge of her nose, the certainty of her jaw, and the softness of her cheeks.

What had caused her to change her mind? He almost asked, but didn’t. They were on tenuous ground, and the offer of her body tugged at his heart.

“You honor me, Wife.”

A spark lit her eyes. He wanted Genevieve to hear him say Wife, to feel reassured. Protected. The simple title carried a wealth of promises. This arrangement between them had been growing into something bigger. Air and light moved differently when they were in the same room. Need and want blended with words and touches, sweet and hot.

He liked touching her chin. He liked pleasing her with simple gifts of pamphlets and reading with her. He liked trailing behind her skirts, listening to her talk of gardens and answering her questions about horses.

Oh, he had it bad. The irony was laughable. Stroking Genevieve’s chin, he could hear the titters of past women: That wastrel Lord Bowles fell hard for a woman who wants him for bed sport only.

His secret wish for true love sat before him in a workwoman’s blue gown, yet was still so far away. The ache ran deep, and he had no idea how to reach her. He was protection and pleasure for her in a harsh world, a safe place to land for a time.

Genevieve’s mouth was close to his, but her heart was safely hidden away.

The pad of his thumb brushed her lower lip. “For once, I find I want to talk with a woman more than I want to kiss her.”

“And I wish you’d stop talking and get on with kissing me.”