The Spinster's Secret (9 page)

In the silence that followed, Miss Chapple offered shortbread and plum cake. Edward declined. Gareth took a piece of each.

“What brings you to Soddy Morton?” Strickland asked.

“Soddy Morton?” Gareth looked toward Edward. “No particular reason, sir. Just passing through.”

Strickland grunted. “Not a good time of year to be travelling.”

He embarked upon a complaining monologue about the washed out bridge. Edward sipped his tea and watched as Gareth bit into the shortbread.

Gareth chewed once, twice, and then glanced at Edward.

Edward smiled.
Told you so
.

Gareth began to chew again, doggedly.

“Might be another week before the bridge is fixed,” Strickland said, a sharp note of petulance in his voice. “A week! I don’t know what this parish is coming to . . .”

Gareth finally swallowed. He washed the mouthful down with a large gulp of tea and laid the rest of the shortbread on his plate.

“I’ve been saying for years that it needed to be replaced,” Strickland said testily. “But no one has paid the slightest attention to me! Why, it was plainly obvious . . .”

The entrance of Lady Marchbank and Mrs. Dunn into the library halted his complaint. The introductions were made again, more tea was poured, and Strickland continued his complaint about the state of the parish’s roads.

Edward idly watched the others. Lady Marchbank nodded in agreement to everything her brother said, her head going up and down like a marionette’s. Miss Chapple didn’t appear to be listening to her uncle. She was watching Gareth. A frown sat on her brow. He thought she was seeing the thinness of Gareth’s face, the lines of pain.

He caught Mrs. Dunn glancing at Gareth too. Her gaze wandered over him. She paused at the missing arm. She didn’t recoil or show revulsion. Her mouth tucked in at the corners. He wasn’t sure how to interpret that. Pity?

Edward grimaced. No man wished to be the object of pity.

“. . . you must stay at Creed Hall, Sir Gareth.”

Edward’s attention jerked back to his host.

“Here, you’ll know the sheets have been properly aired!”

But the bedchamber will be colder than a witch’s teat.
Edward caught Gareth’s eye and shook his head fractionally.

Gareth took the hint. “Thank you, but the inn is perfectly adequate for my needs.”

Strickland looked at Gareth’s left arm. “Hardly suitable for a man in your condition.”

Gareth’s mouth tightened. “I shall stay at the inn.”

A short silence fell.

“Looks like snow, don’t you think?” Edward said, at the same time that Miss Chapple and Mrs. Dunn also spoke.

The moment of awkwardness passed. The discussion turned to the weather. Five minutes later, Gareth stood to take his leave.

“You’ll dine with us tonight, of course,” Strickland said.

Edward caught his friend’s eye again. He shook his head minutely.

Gareth accepted the invitation.

Edward accompanied Gareth out to the stable yard.

“Extremely foolish,” he said, as they strolled between the puddles.

“What is?”

“Accepting an invitation to dine here.”

Gareth snorted. “I’ve eaten bad food before.”

“It’s not just the food,” Edward said. “It’s what comes afterwards.”

Gareth narrowed his eyes at him. “What?”

“You’ll see. A word of advice. Counting helps.”

Gareth’s expression became baffled. “What?”

Edward spied the groom. “Hoby! Sir Gareth would like his horse.”

The groom touched the brim of his battered cloth cap and disappeared into the gloom of the stables.

Gareth dug in his coat pocket.

“The confessions,” he said, handing Edward a packet. “All of them.”

“
All
of them?” Edward said, startled.

The first of Chérie’s confessions had been released, and immediately sold out, several months ago. “Where on earth did you find them?”

“Bought them off Roxborough. He had the whole collection. Cost me a small fortune.” Gareth fixed him with a piercing stare. “What the devil do you want them for?”

Edward turned the package over in his hand. “Chérie’s in the village.”

Gareth’s mouth fell open. “Here? In Soddy Morton?”

Edward nodded.

“Well,” Gareth said. “I never.”

“I’ve promised Strickland I’ll find her.” Edward’s fingers were itching to open the package.

Resolutely, he thrust it in his pocket. “I’m hoping the confessions will give me a clue to her identity.”

“Well, I never,” Gareth repeated.

…

Gareth returned to Creed Hall just before six. He had shaved and changed his clothes. Edward waited impatiently for the clock to strike the hour. He was eager for the evening to begin, eager to see Gareth’s reactions to the treats in store for him.

First came the pronouncement that dinner would be a silent meal.

“For the sake of our digestion,” Strickland said solemnly.

“Er…of course,” Gareth said.

Edward hid a grin.

Second was the food itself. Boiled veal, boiled cod, boiled cabbage. Even the mushrooms appeared to have been boiled.

Gareth ate deftly with one hand, choosing those dishes that were easily managed with just a fork. Edward watched as his friend speared a boiled kidney on the fork tines, as he chewed, hesitated, and then resolutely chewed again. Finally he swallowed and reached for his glass of wine.

The wine was thin and watered-down.

Gareth almost choked. He placed the glass back down, his lips moving in a barely suppressed grimace. He glanced across the table at Edward.

Edward smiled blandly.
I warned you
. He returned his attention to his food, chuckling inside.

But when he next looked up from his plate, his amusement was quenched. Gareth was gazing at Mrs. Dunn.

Edward watched as Gareth catalogued Mrs. Dunn’s features, apparently liking what he saw. His heart sank. Gareth had always had a liking for petite blondes, and Mrs. Dunn was a particularly fine specimen. But a lightskirt was what Gary needed in the wake of Miss Swinthorp’s desertion, not a penniless widow who would leap at the chance of a wealthy husband.

He speared a piece of boiled cod and frowned at the oblivious Mrs. Dunn.
Don’t you dare take advantage of him
.

After dinner, came the port. Gareth manfully drank the oversweet wine. Catching Edward’s eye, he grimaced expressively. Edward smirked,
I told you so,
but his heart wasn’t in it. He observed carefully as they entered the drawing room. Gareth’s gaze went straight to Mrs. Dunn.

Mrs. Dunn looked up. She too seemed to be searching for one face in particular. Gareth’s. When their eyes met, she colored faintly and dropped her gaze to her needlework.

Hell and damnation
.

“My niece reads to us each evening,” Strickland told Gareth.

“How delightful,” Gareth said, wrenching his gaze from Mrs. Dunn.

They sat, accepted cups of tea, and settled back to listen.

“The reading is from Fordyce,” Miss Chapple told Gareth.

She looked down at the open page. “Sermon Five. On Female Virtue, Friendship, and Conversation.”

Edward intercepted an appalled glance from Gareth. He sipped his tea.
I did warn you
.

This evening he didn’t try to count words. He let his thoughts drift. Miss Chapple’s voice was melodious. It was like listening to music—the cadence of the words, the rise and fall of her voice, the mellow tone.

His thoughts looped slowly, from the dank woods and the grey lake, to gingerbread, to Gareth’s unexpected arrival, to the full set of Chérie’s confessions Gareth had brought.

He’d read the first two confessions before dinner, trying to ignore Tigh’s tuneless whistling as the bâtman had laid out his evening clothes. The confessions had been less explicit than the later ones but still quite candid. The paragraphs had brought vivid memories to life. The warm softness of a female body in his bed, teasing fingers trailing over his skin, the urgency of escalating arousal, the exquisite moment of physical release.

Thinking about it made a tendril of desire unfurl inside him. Heat shivered over Edward’s skin. He jerked his thoughts away from the confessions. It was a relief that his body was capable of arousal again, but now was not the time or place. He focused his attention on Miss Chapple, but her voice was warm and smooth and silken. It made his thoughts slide sideways again, to Chérie’s confessions, to the heat and pleasure of sex.

Edward frowned. He shook himself mentally.
For heaven’s sake, Ned
.
Control yourself!
For the rest of the reading, he concentrated on counting the
the
s.

…

Edward fell asleep in his frigid bedchamber and awoke lying on the battlefield at Waterloo. For a moment he blinked, dizzy, while the sky swung around above his head and the roar of cannons filled his ears.

“Get up, Ned!” someone shouted.

Edward tried to focus his eyes.

He saw Toby’s face above him, urgent. “Get up!”

Edward squeezed his eyes shut.
Wake up!
He told himself.
Wake the hell up!

Shells whistled overhead, a horse screamed—and then abruptly he was awake.

Edward lay beneath the covers, gasping. His heart thumped against his ribs, trying to batter its way out of his chest. After a moment he pushed up on one elbow and rubbed his face, feeling the prickle of stubble beneath his hand and the raised lines of the scars.

He blew out a breath. It was getting easier to tear free from that particular dream. He’d managed not to witness the moment of Toby’s death, had managed not to feel Toby’s blood spray across his face.

He could taste the memory of blood on his tongue, though. Could smell it. And Toby’s voice still rang in his ears.
Get up, Ned!

Edward pushed aside the bedclothes and climbed out of bed. The room was dark but for a tiny glow from the coals in the fireplace. The floor was icily cold.

Fumbling, he found a candle and lit it. The room sprang into view. The solid reality of the faded curtains and dying fire pushed the dream even further away. The taste and scent of blood faded.

His heartbeat slowed, his breathing steadied, but he knew that a return to sleep was out of the question.

Edward fished the first volume of
Pride and Prejudice
out from under his mattress and climbed back into bed. He flicked to the tenth chapter and settled down to read, but the words failed to hold his attention. The book was well-written and amusing, but his thoughts kept straying to the other tales hidden beneath the mattress.

After re-reading the same page three times, Edward gave up. He hid
Pride and Prejudice
again and took out Chérie’s confessions. He put aside the two he’d read that afternoon and settled down to read the next in the sequence. It was dated September, 1815.

In response to your request, dear reader, for another confession from my pen, here is a tale from when I was but new in this most ancient of professions. I had recently come under the protection of a most worthy lady, Mrs. B., who kept an elegant and discreet house in L. Street.

Upon this particular occasion, Mrs B. introduced me to a bashful young gentleman who was far more of a novice than I. Indeed, dear reader, it was to be my task to initiate him into that most pleasurable and tender of mysteries! In short, I was to be the recipient of his virginity.

Edward read the tale with amusement. The confession was more explicit in its detail than the first two, but as far as he could tell, it held no clues as to Chérie’s true identity. Just to be certain, he read it twice.

Next, he read the fourth confession, the tale of a brawny sailor whose
noble
proportions
once he’d removed his clothes had made Chérie’s eyes almost start from her head. Edward snorted at this description. He read on.
Indeed, dear reader, I was so alarmed by his dimensions that I shrank back and declared myself unable to accommodate his needs.

The sailor, however, was undeterred. After a page of coaxing, he succeeded in removing Chérie’s clothes, and the tale proceeded to its predictable conclusion, where the sailor’s
excessive vigor
took Chérie to such heights of pleasure that she swooned.

Edward snorted again. He laid the confession aside and sat thinking for several minutes, while the candle flickered in the draught. It seemed to him that each of the first four confessions had been more explicit than the one before, as if Chérie had been gaining confidence in her writing.

Was it fact or fiction? The physical descriptions rang true, the heat and the urgency, but the characters were mere ciphers, the bashful young gentleman, the brawny sailor.

For the life of him, he couldn’t tell whether Chérie was a man pretending to be a woman, like the author of
Fanny Hill
, or a woman. He wished that he had a copy of
Fanny Hill
to compare with the confessions. It might give him a clue as to Chérie’s true gender.

Edward yawned. He hid the confessions under the mattress, blew out the candle, and climbed back into bed. Waterloo was utterly gone from his mind. The only subject on his thoughts as he drifted to sleep again was how soon he could return to London and acquire a
chère-amie
of his own.

Chapter Seven

Sunday was notable for two reasons. Firstly, it rained all day, a cold, driving rain that was almost sleet. Secondly, the members of the household attended three bible readings in the small, dark chapel attached to Creed Hall. Edward went to the first one and listened to Arthur Strickland read from the Corinthians for an hour in a thin, dry voice and then lead the household in prayers.

“Usually we attend services in the village,” Miss Chapple told him afterwards. “But the weather, the broken bridge . . .”

She shivered and pulled her shawl more tightly about her.

Edward didn’t attend the next two bible readings. He agreed with Tigh. “I ain’t a godless man,” the bâtman said. “But thrice? Nobody needs that much preachin’.”

Edward stayed in his room, dragging the armchair as close to the fire as he could, and read
Pride and Prejudice
. He was aware of Chérie’s confessions lying hidden beneath his mattress. Resolutely, he ignored the temptation to read them instead, bending his concentration to Elizabeth Bennett and her family. It was Sunday, and Chérie’s confessions could remain where they were for the day.

…

The footman, Durce, collected the mail each morning from Soddy Morton and placed it on the refectory table in the entrance hall. On Monday morning, one of the letters was addressed to Mattie. The handwriting was familiar. Her friend Anne Brocklesby in London.

Mattie’s pulse quickened. At the top the postmaster had scrawled
1/4
, which meant there were two sheets of paper inside. Anne’s letter and one from her publisher?

“Matilda!”

Mattie’s heart lurched in her chest. She turned swiftly, clutching the letter.

Her uncle stood in the doorway of his study, leaning on his cane. “A word with you, please, Matilda.”

“Yes, uncle.”

Mattie followed him into his study. The letter seemed to burn in her hand.

“Sit, sit!” her uncle said testily, waving at a chair.

Mattie did, laying the letter on her lap as if it was nothing important. She endured her uncle’s frowning stare, trying not to shift nervously. Was guilt stamped on her face?
Please, don’t ever let him find out
. She owed Uncle Arthur for the clothes on her back, for the roof over her head, for every meal she’d eaten in the past ten years. Repaying him by causing him distress would be unforgivable.

“I have been giving serious thought to your future,” her uncle said.

“With Tobias dead…” He cleared his throat and continued. “As you know, I’ve decided to gift my entire estate to the Missionary Society. Creed Hall is to become a school.”

“Yes, uncle.”

Uncle Arthur had announced his intention shortly after news of Toby’s death had reached them. The Tobias Strickland School for Missionaries’ Children. A memorial to his son.

“You may, of course, assist at the school in some capacity but when we last spoke about this, I had the impression that the prospect didn’t appeal to you.” His thin lips pursed in disapproval, and worse, disappointment.

Mattie flushed and lowered her eyes. It wasn’t the thought of teaching she disliked. It was the thought of spending the rest of her life at Creed Hall.

“If you have no wish to assist with the school, then the only other solution I see for your future is marriage.”

Mattie’s head jerked up.

For a moment she stared at him, speechless, and then she found her voice. “I’m to have a Season, uncle?”

Her uncle frowned. “At your age? Of course not!”

Mattie bit her lip and looked down at the letter on her lap.

“I have been in correspondence with an acquaintance of mine. A most worthy gentleman. He is seeking a wife. I have suggested to him that you might be suitable. Fortunately, he is prepared to overlook your age and lack of fortune and appearance on account of…er.”

Mattie looked up. “On account of what, uncle?”

Uncle Arthur cleared his throat. “Mr. Quartley has lost two wives in childbirth. He has only daughters. He wants an heir.”

Mattie blinked. “And he thinks I can provide him with one?”

Her uncle’s pallid cheeks colored faintly. His gaze slid away from hers.

“You have childbearing hips,” he muttered.

Mattie opened her mouth and then closed it again. Childbearing hips. Uncle Arthur had written to Mr. Quartley about her
hips
.

Uncle Arthur continued briskly. “I have just received a letter from Mr. Quartley.”

He tapped a piece of paper lying on his desk. “He is arriving tomorrow and will stay for several days.”

“Tomorrow?” Mattie said, startled.

“I expect you to do everything in your power to make him look favorably upon you.” Her uncle’s expression was stern.

“How…how old is Mr. Quartley?”

“That is irrelevant,” her uncle said, shuffling paper on his desk.

Not to me
. “How old is he, uncle?”

“He is sixty.”

Sixty!

Mattie tried not to let her uncle see how appalled she was. “Er…how old are his daughters?”

“I believe that the youngest are still in the nursery,” her uncle said evasively.

“And the eldest?”

“His eldest daughter was born the same year as Tobias.”

Her mouth opened in a gasp.
Mr. Quartley has daughters who are older than I?

Her uncle’s eyebrows drew sharply together. “Must I remind you again, Matilda, that you are in no position to be particular?”

“No, uncle,” Mattie said hurriedly, standing. “I know.”

She tried to smile. “Thank you. I am most grateful.”

It was a lie. It wasn’t gratitude she felt, but horror.
Sixty! More than twice my age!

Uncle Arthur looked at the unopened letter in her hands. “And please ask your friend to confine her letters to one page in the future. One pound and four shillings that cost me!”

Mattie bowed her head. “Yes, uncle. I apologize.”

Her uncle sniffed. “You may go now.”

Mattie hurried upstairs. In the privacy of her bedchamber, she tore open Anne’s letter. Just as she’d thought, a letter from her publisher was tucked inside. Mattie closed her eyes for a moment, holding the letter to her breast.
Please let him want the book!
Then she broke the seal with trembling fingers.

She read swiftly and with growing hope. Mr. Brunton liked the book. He wished to publish it. He named a sum that made the breath catch in her throat.
Two hundred pounds!
It was a fortune. Enough to buy a small boarding house.

Mattie felt light-headed. No more charity. She could be independent.

She re-read that marvelous sentence: Two hundred pounds.

Of course, two hundred pounds wouldn’t last forever. If she wished to keep food on her plate, she’d need to pen more confessions and perhaps even write another book. But the boarding house would be hers.

Mattie blew out a breath. She resumed reading.
My partner and I are of the opinion, however, that the book requires an additional chapter before it can be published. At present, it traces Chérie’s journey from young widow to courtesan to wife. One important milestone is lacking. The most important milestone, perhaps! We strongly feel that your loyal readers would wish to experience the very beginning of Chérie’s journey, namely the surrender of her virgin flower to her ill-fated husband.

Upon receipt of this chapter, payment will be deposited in your name, and the book will be most expeditiously published.

I remain, yours,

Samuel Brunton, Esq.

Mattie stared at the letter. One more chapter. “I can do that,” she said.

Casting the letter aside, she scrambled off the bed and crossed to the hidden cupboard.

The Countess’s diary began several months after her wedding night. Her growing intimacy with her lover, the groom, was described in its pages—from their first kiss to when they had run away together. Mattie turned to the entry detailing their first sexual encounter. She read, frowning. The Countess dwelt mainly on the gentleness and tenderness of her lover and her astonishment at the physical sensations she experienced.
Nothing could have been more different from that dreadful night when my husband wrested my virginity from me! I had not dreamed that such wondrous pleasure was possible.

Mattie sighed. There was nothing helpful in those passages.

“The surrender of her virgin flower,” she muttered as she thumbed through the copy of
Fanny Hill
.

She found the passage detailing Fanny’s loss of virginity and skimmed it quickly.
Extreme pain…reek of virgin blood
. Mattie pulled a face. How true to life was that?

She flicked ahead further, to where the young whores swapped accounts of the loss of their maidenheads.
I lay utterly passive,
the first one said,
till the piercing pain rous’d and made me cry out. But the pleasure rising as the pain subsided, I was soon reconciled to fresh trials, and before morning, nothing on earth could be dearer to me than this rifler of my virgin deserts.

Mattie snorted. She turned ahead to the next description and read quickly.
A sense of pain that pierced me to my vitals…streams of blood
.

“Streams of blood!” she said aloud. “Streams!”

Mattie closed the book with a snap and resisted the urge to throw it at the wall.

“Claptrap!” How could anyone
believe
such nonsense?

It had been written by a man, she reminded herself. For men. Which would account for its absurdity.

Well
she
wouldn’t write something so patently ridiculous! Chérie’s virginity scene would be tender, titillating, and realistic.

The only problem was, she didn’t know what realistic was. Exactly how much blood and pain did the loss of one’s virginity entail?

Frowning, Mattie replaced the diary and two volumes of
Fanny Hill
in their hiding place. How could she find out?

She shut the hidden cupboard and went in search of Cecy.

Cecy wasn’t in Lady Marchbank’s parlor, or the downstairs parlor, or the library, but in the doorway of the latter room Mattie met Edward Kane.

“Miss Chapple,” he said cheerfully, bending his head slightly to avoid touching the lintel. “Good morning.”

Absurdly, her pulse fluttered at the sight of him. It was his height and his solidness, the smile in his eyes.

“I’ve been looking for you,” he said.

Mattie blinked. “For me?”

Sudden fear struck her, tightening her throat.
He knows!

Mr. Kane nodded. “I’m riding into Soddy Morton to attend to…er, that business of your uncle’s. I wondered if there were any commissions I might perform for you while I’m there?”

Mattie found herself able to breathe again.

“Thank you,” she said. “But there’s nothing I require.”

“Nothing from the baker’s?” Mr. Kane asked. His tone was teasing.

He loomed in the doorway, huge, scarred, draped in shadows. He should have been frightening. Instead, he was dangerously attractive. That smile hovering on his mouth, that silent laughter in his eyes. . .

Mattie felt herself blush. She felt flustered, as if she was seventeen, instead of twenty-seven.

“No, thank you,” she said hurriedly.

“As you wish,” Mr. Kane said.

He dipped his head to her and turned away. She heard his footsteps echo in the corridor.

Foolish girl!
Mattie scolded herself.
To be overset by a smile!
Mr. Kane’s kindness toward her didn’t mean anything. Unlike Mr. Quartley, he wasn’t looking for a wife.

She found Cecy in the morning room, which should have been flooded with sunlight but was shrouded in gloom on this grey wintry day. “My aunt is napping?”

“Yes.” Cecy glanced up from her embroidery. “Have you been out walking? I couldn’t find you.”

“No, I was in my uncle’s study.” Mattie sat alongside her friend. “Cecy…”

How to broach the subject of losing one’s virginity? Not for the first time she wished she could tell Cecy the truth.
Not yet
, she told herself.
Not until I have the money
.

“Er…my uncle is encouraging me to marry.”

“Marry!” Interest lit Cecy”s face. “Who?”

“An acquaintance of his.”

“Oh? That’s good.”

Mattie grimaced.

Cecy’s eyebrows rose. “It’s not good?”

“He’s sixty.”

“Oh.”

“I was wondering…” Mattie cleared her throat. “The first time one performs one’s marital duty…how painful is it?”

Cecy’s mouth opened and then closed.

After a moment she said, “It is rather painful.”

“Did you faint?”

Cecy blinked. “Faint? Of course not!”

She laid down her embroidery. “It’s not
that
painful. It’s like…like stubbing one’s toe.”

“Oh,” Mattie said, thinking of
Fanny Hill
’s fainting heroines. “Er…is there any blood?”

Cecy’s brow creased. “I can’t remember. A little bit, perhaps.”

“Not streams of blood?”

Cecy laughed. “No! Of course not! Whoever told you that?”

“I…er, can’t recall.”

Cecy leaned forward. “Don’t worry about it,” she said earnestly. “The first time is painful and…and awkward and a shock in its newness, but after that . . .it’s uncomfortable and messy, but one gets used to it. It never takes very long. A few minutes at most.”

“Oh.”

Cecy picked up her embroidery again. She set a stitch.

“If this man should offer for you,” she said diffidently. “Will you marry him?”

“I haven’t even met him!”

“Yes, but . . .” Cecy looked up. “A husband, Mattie. Children. It’s what every woman wants.”

Mattie looked down at her lap. She smoothed the grey fabric of her gown over her knees.
Then I must be an unnatural woman
.

“All I want is a home of my own. Which I hope to have shortly.” She looked up. “And I hope that you will join me. Just think, Cecy! In Scarborough or Brighton you would meet many eligible bachelors. You wouldn’t have to settle for Mr. Humphries.”