In the Spinster's Bed (9 page)

She took his silence as a “no” and shrugged. “I was as much to blame in the matter as you were.”

“No, you weren’t.”

“Yes, I was.” She sighed. “Oh, William, it doesn’t matter. It happened so long ago. But do you understand why I didn’t say anything this time? Since I l-lost that baby, I was certain I’d lose this one, too.” She closed her eyes. “I might still lose it. I’m thirty-seven. I’m too old to be a mother.”

Good God, he was still a selfish idiot. Why was he talking about the past? Belle was carrying his child
now
.

“I believe your body is telling you otherwise, Belle.” He cupped her face in his hands. “I’m so sorry about what happened when we were young. You’re right; I don’t know how I would have reacted then. But I do know how I’m reacting now. You are not alone. We’ll get married at once.”

Belle jerked out of his hold and backed up several steps. “No. I wouldn’t trap you twenty years ago and I won’t trap you today.”

Frustration spoke before he could silence it. “Good God, Belle, if there is any trapping being done, I did it to myself. I’m thirty-eight. I’m quite aware of how babies are made.”

Poppy hissed again and caught William’s bare shin with a claw.

The cat was quite correct. This was not a conversational path he should tread.

“You thought I was too old to conceive.”

And he was not taking that detour either.

He glanced down at Poppy. If the animal could speak, she would tell him to get to the point before another tear was shed.

“Belle, let’s not argue. I’m sorry if you don’t want the baby—”

“Not want the baby?!” Her brows snapped down. “How can you say that? You can’t imagine how much I’ve ached—how much I still ache—for our first child. Of course I want the baby, only—” She covered her face with her hands. “Only what am I going to do?”

“You are going to marry me.” He stepped close to her, laying his hands gently on her shoulders again. “You will marry me and come to Benton and be my wife and mother to this child and perhaps others, if we are so blessed.”

Belle kept her face covered. “You don’t want to marry me.”

He gathered her up against him. “Oh, but I do. Very much. If you’ll look inside my coat pocket over there, you’ll see there’s a special license I am quite anxious to use.”

She stared at his coat as if it was going to suddenly jump up and start dancing around the room.

“I love you, Belle. I’ve always loved you, even though I haven’t always been smart enough to know it. And I need you by my side. I missed you dreadfully these last two weeks. I don’t think I can bear being the Duke of Benton if you won’t be my duchess.”

She shook her head. “But I’m too old.” She didn’t sound as certain this time. “You’ll need a younger woman to give you an heir.”

He rested his hand on her stomach. “You may have already taken care of that.”

“Oh.” She gave a watery little giggle.

He tilted her chin up so he could look directly into her eyes. “My sisters-in-law cornered me just before I came here and presented me with a list of women I might marry. It was horrible. Most of them are young enough to be my daughter—our daughter.”

She wrinkled her nose. “I can see that would be very . . . odd.”

“Odd? It feels—oh, I don’t know—incestuous, I suppose.” He had to make her understand. “I know they mean well, and I also know they won’t give up until I’m wed. I don’t care that much about the succession, but Albert and Oliver did, so their wives do, too.”

“There must be some woman you could marry who isn’t just out of the schoolroom.”

“Yes. You.” He hugged her close. God, she felt so good. “I’ve already suffered one loveless marriage, Belle. Don’t condemn me to another. Please say you’ll have me. I promise you, I love you quite desperately.”

His cock was certainly trying to show her how desperate he was. Being naked, there was no way to hide his enthusiasm.

“Oh! Oh, William.” She finally smiled at him. “Oh, I love you, too. So much. Yes, I’ll marry you.”

Of course he had to kiss her. And then one thing led to another, which led to another.

Belle was
very
late opening the lending library.

 

 

Belle stood in the Spinster House sitting room for the last time, stroking Poppy and watching William converse with Mr. Hutting, Mr. Morton, and Mr. Wilkinson.

She was married. She was William’s wife.

It had all happened so quickly—in less than twelve hours. With his brothers’ deaths so fresh in his mind, William had insisted they marry before leaving Loves Bridge so there was no chance their child would be born a bastard. Even more to the point, he was adamant that her father not officiate at their wedding. He said he could not promise to be polite to the man, and she had to agree she’d be happier not having to recite her vows before him.

They’d thought very briefly of marrying in the Loves Bridge church but decided it would be far too . . . complicated to explain to the villagers that Mr. Wattles, the music teacher, was actually the new Duke of Benton, and that boring, staid Miss Franklin, the Spinster House spinster, had been living under an assumed name for twenty years.

“I must tell you, my dear wife will be most displeased with me,” the vicar was saying as the men came over to join her. “Not only will she be unhappy that I’ve kept this all a secret from her, she was expecting you to play the pianoforte for our daughter Mary’s wedding, Your Grace.”

William grinned. He’d been grinning ever since she’d agreed to marry him. “I am sorry about that. Please extend my apologies.”

“I’m sure she’ll come around when I tell her how happy you and your duchess are.” The vicar smiled at Belle.

She smiled back. She
was
happy, happier than she’d ever been. Oh, it was very odd to be called “duchess,” but she supposed she’d get used to that. More importantly, she was William’s wife, and, in a few months, God willing, she would give him a child, perhaps an heir—though that was one detail they’d not shared with anyone else.

“It’s time for us to go, Belle,” William said. “The coach is ready.”

The vicar frowned. “You’re certain you don’t wish to stay the night? Traveling is so much easier during the day.”

“The moon is full, and the inn where we’re headed isn’t far.” William laughed. “And I must confess I don’t wish to spend my wedding night in a place known as the Spinster House.”

Not that he’d be doing anything at the inn that he hadn’t already done here, but Belle wasn’t going to say that either. She looked down at Poppy.

“Then I guess it’s time for me to say good-bye.” She scratched Poppy’s ears and gave her one last, long stroke. Funny. She’d never wanted a cat, but now she was sorry to leave this one.

“Merrow.” Poppy butted her head against Belle’s hand.

“You’re not taking your pet with you?” Mr. Morton asked.

“Oh, Poppy’s not mine, are you, Poppy?”

Poppy blinked at her, twitched her tail, and ran off.

The vicar laughed. “I guess that answers the question, doesn’t it? I do hope the new spinster likes cats.”

“Ah, that’s right,” Mr. Wilkinson said. “I’ll have to write the Duke of Hart at once to let him know he needs to fill the Spinster House opening.”

The vicar nodded, and then grew thoughtful. “Odd having a wedding here. I wonder if that will break the curse.”

Belle looked around the old, worn room. “I hope so. I hope every woman who lives here can be as happy as I am now.”

“Said like the perfect bride you are.” William kissed her hand and then laid it on his arm as the other men chuckled. “But now, gentlemen, we really must be off.”

“Safe travels, Your Grace,” Mr. Wilkinson said as William hurried Belle out the door and into the coach standing ready in the shadows.

“I’ll keep you both in my prayers.” That was Mr. Hutting.

“And I’ll follow along in the morning,” Mr. Morton said, as he closed the coach door for them.

Belle waved at the men as the carriage lurched into motion. Then she turned her gaze to the Spinster House itself. She’d spent twenty long years there. She hadn’t been unhappy, but she hadn’t been happy either. She—

What was that?

“Do you see something moving in the tree, William?”

“What tree?”

“The one by the Spinster House.” She craned her neck to get a better view, but the shadows were too dark to see clearly. “Is that Poppy on a limb near the window?”

“I don’t know.”

She elbowed him. “You aren’t even looking.”

His teeth gleamed white in the moonlight. “Very true. Poppy could be dancing a jig on the roof for all I care.” His clever fingers slid under her skirts as his mouth skimmed her cheek. “I’m far, far more interested in seeing what delightful things we can do in this coach in the time it takes us to reach the inn.”

His fingers made their way slowly up her leg. Higher and higher . . .

“Would you like to help me explore the possibilities?”

Not surprisingly, Belle lost interest in Poppy.

Keep reading for an excerpt from

 

 

the first full-length novel
in
The Spinster House Series.
Available in September 2015
from
Sally MacKenzie
and
Zebra Books.

Miss Isabelle Catherine Hutting—Cat to everyone in the little village of Loves Bridge—wedged herself into one of the children’s desks in the vicarage’s schoolroom. Prudence, her ten-year-old sister, was curled up in the only comfortable chair, reading. Sybil, age six, sat by the window with her watercolors, and the four-year-old twins sprawled on the floor, building a fort for their tin soldiers.

A rare moment of peace.

She looked down at the blank sheet of paper before her. She’d been trying to begin this book for months. The characters whispered to her when she was helping Sybil with her numbers or looking at ribbon in the village shop or falling asleep in the bed she shared with her eighteen-year-old sister, Mary, but the instant she had a quiet moment and some paper, they went silent.

Well, she would force them to speak. She dipped her pen into the inkwell.

No, that wasn’t quite right. She scratched out the words and started over.

Oh, fiddle, that sounded stupid. Who would wish to read a novel that began with a beautiful ninny grinning at an arrogant, persnickety duke? She should—

No, she should not. How many times had Miss Franklin told her that she needed to write the story before she started to pick it apart? She—

Sybil screeched and Cat’s hand jerked, spattering ink all over her paper
and
her bodice. Damnation.

“What is it, Sybil?”

Not that she needed to ask. She could see what it was—or, rather, who it was. Thomas and Michael had lost interest in their fort and come over to torture their sister. They’d managed to spill water all over Sybil’s painting.

“Look what they’ve done,” Sybil wailed, picking up her soaking masterpiece and flourishing it for Cat’s inspection just as Cat reached her.

The wet paint joined the ink on her bodice. It was a good thing this wasn’t one of her favorite dresses.

She peeled the picture off her front and inspected it. It was impossible to discern its original subject. Something blue and green and white and black, judging from the paint smears.

“We just wanted to see the sheep,” Thomas said, his eyes wide with innocence—until you looked more closely and noted the mischievous gleam. He was only four, but he was going to grow up to be a complete terror, worse even than fifteen-year-old Henry or thirteen-year-old Walter.

How Papa, a vicar, had managed to beget so many wild boys was one of God’s many mysteries.

“Sheep?” Sybil screamed. “Those were clouds, you noddy.”

Thomas put his hands on his hips and rolled his eyes in an especially annoying way—a trick he’d learned from Pru. “Paint clouds? That’s m-muttonheaded.” He grinned, clearly pleased with the new word he’d learned, likely from his brothers.

She should be happy he hadn’t learned any worse words . . . or at least hadn’t used them yet.

Sybbie’s brows snapped down and her jaw jutted out. Oh, blast. She was going to have one of her explosions, which was exactly what Thomas was trying for.

“Clouds are an excellent thing to paint,” Cat said quickly, laying a supportive—and restraining—hand on Sybbie’s shoulder. “Many famous artists include clouds in their work.”

Michael pulled on Cat’s skirt. “We just wanted Sybbie to play wif us.”

Sybbie saw the perfect counterattack. She raised her nose in the air and sniffed. “I don’t play with babies.”

God give her strength! Cat lunged for Thomas and caught him before he could reach Sybbie.

“We’re
not
babies.” Thomas, his little fists clenched, struggled to free himself from Cat’s grasp. “And you’ve made Mikey cry.”

Michael was the sensitive twin. Cat wrapped her free arm around him while keeping a strong hold on Thomas. Thomas was still determined to hit Sybil, and Sybbie, of course, wasn’t helping matters. She crossed her arms and curled her lip into a six-year-old’s approximation of a sneer.

Cat looked over at Prudence for help.

Prudence turned another page in her book. She didn’t even glance Cat’s way.

Cat had a sudden, almost uncontrollable urge to scream as loudly as Sybbie had. She didn’t want to play with the boys either. She wanted to be left alone in blessed, wonderful, heavenly quiet to write. She wanted, desperately, to have a book she’d written sitting on the lending library shelves. Miss Franklin thought she had the talent. All she needed was time. Some quiet. A few moments to herself.

She might as well ask for the moon and the stars. When she’d mentioned writing a novel to Papa, thinking he might let her spend an hour or two in his study every day, he’d laughed. Neither he nor Mama saw the point in telling stories that had never happened about people who didn’t exist.

“No, you’re not babies, Thomas.” She forced herself to smile. She must remember that while they weren’t babies, they were still very little. They needed her. “Leave Sybbie alone. I’ll play with you.”

Michael’s face lit up. “Oh, good! I’d rather play wif you than Sybbie, Cat. Sybbie fusses.”

“I don’t fuss.”

“Sybbie.” Cat gave her a warning look. There was no need for more brangling. “Why don’t you get back to your painting?”

“But there’s water everywhere.”

Cat made herself smile again. Smiling made it difficult to shout. “Pru will help you clean things up, won’t you, Pru?”

Prudence kept reading.

Cat took a deep breath and smiled harder. “Prudence, please help Sybbie clean up.”

Silence.

“Pru!”
All right, sometimes shouting was necessary.

Prudence finally looked over at them. “Why? I didn’t make the mess.”

Another deep breath. “No, but there’s rather a lot of water and Sybbie can’t reach the rags.” Plus Sybbie would probably leave a puddle on the floor that someone—likely Cat—would slip in. “And I’m busy with the twins.”

Pru rolled her eyes, heaved a dramatic sigh, and marked her place in her book before closing it. You would have thought Cat had asked her to lap the water up with her tongue. “If I have to.”

Cat kept smiling. She must set a good example. Anger was a waste of energy. Telling Pru exactly what she was thinking would only give Pru an invitation to start an argument, and arguing with Pru wouldn’t get the water mopped up.

“Cat.” Michael tugged on her skirt again. “You said you’d play wif us.”

And pulling caps with Pru would upset Michael and get Thomas stirred up again.

She swallowed her spleen. “Thank you, Pru.”

Pru grumbled, but she got the rags.

Cat allowed herself one longing look at the uncomfortable school desk and then sat down on the floor with the boys.

“You can have these,” Mikey said, pushing a few soldiers—the ones with faded or chipped paint—toward her.

She lined them up. She’d played this game before. It didn’t take any thought. She could spend the time planning her book. She—

“Make them attack,” Mikey said.

Thomas nodded. “They have to attack so we can capture and kill them.”

Boys could be so bloodthirsty.

She marched a soldier forward to meet his fate.

“Look, men, a bloody Frog!”

Thomas kept his eyes on his toys. “Soldiers don’t mind their language, Cat.”

“Perhaps not, but you will. What would Papa say?” Well, Papa might not care very much. “What would Mama say?”

Thomas made a face and then in a very high voice said, “Oh, dear, it’s a French soldier.”

Thomas was going to be even more of a handful than Henry or Walter.

But he was going to be
Mama’s
handful. Not Cat’s. She was twenty-four years old. If she didn’t find some way of getting free of her family, she would never write a paragraph, let alone an entire book. But what could she do?

If only she’d been born male. Life was so much easier for men. They could go where they pleased and do what they wanted. Just look at Henry and Walter. Mama never asked them to mind their younger siblings, but when Cat had been their ages—

Oh, all right. If Mama ever left either of those two in charge, the twins would be sure to free all the chickens in the coop and then race Farmer Linden’s pigs down the village green.

Mikey erupted into shooting noises. Thomas yelled and made the sound of horse hooves charging over the ground. Cat’s soldier was knocked down and dragged off to the dungeon.

“Cat.”

Cat looked over her shoulder. Mama had poked her head into the schoolroom. “Yes, Mama?”

“I need you to take a basket over to Mrs. Barker. Papa said he heard her gout is bothering her.” Mama smiled as her eyes drifted to a point just over Cat’s head. “I thought she could do with some treats.”

Right. Nasty old Mrs. Barker, whose son just happened to be a prosperous, churchgoing,
unmarried
farmer.

“Can’t Henry or Walter take it?”

“Of course not,” Pru said, giggling. She’d finished helping Sybbie with the water and was back to her book. “
They
can’t marry Mr. Barker.”

Mama laughed uneasily. “Now, Pru, don’t be silly. The boys are with Papa, studying their Latin.”

And they would leap at the chance to get free of their lessons. Neither was an enthusiastic scholar.

“And Mary?” Cat asked. But Mary would be busy, too, of course.

“Mrs. Greeley will be here shortly to finish fitting her for her wedding dress.”

Mama would love it if Mrs. Greeley could start in on Cat’s dress the moment she finished Mary’s.

Tory and Ruth, the two sisters right under Cat, were already wed and procreating. Mary was going to step into parson’s mousetrap in just a few weeks, and then there would be no more daughters but Cat to marry off for seven or eight years, until Pru was old enough.

If things were bad now, they were about to get infinitely worse.

Perhaps she
should
consider Mr. Barker. He was certainly willing. He popped the question every few months and then laughed and patted her arm when she declined, promising he’d try again—and again—until she said yes.

Which only made her want to kick him in his patronizing shins.

However, marrying Mr. Barker
would
get her away from the vicarage—

And into his house, with his cross-tempered, managing mother.

Oh, no, she was not doing that. Of course not! Even if Mrs. Barker were a saint—which she most certainly was not—her son had squinty little eyes and a beaklike nose and crooked teeth. He wore the distinct, pungent scent of manure the way other men wore eau de cologne.

And he would expect children. She’d have to—

Her stomach knotted.

She wasn’t that desperate to get free of the vicarage.

“Mama, surely someone else can take the basket.”

“I’m afraid there really is no one else.” Mama’s face was set, her eyes steely.

Cat sighed and played one last, desperate card. “All right. I’ll bring Michael and Thomas with me.” Neither Mr. Barker nor his mother liked the twins, so their presence should keep the visit short.

“I don’t want to go,” Thomas said. “Mrs. Barker’s mean. She has a wart on her nose just like a witch. And her cook makes nasty biscuits.”

Mikey nodded. “And Mr. Barker’s horse tried to bite me when I petted him.”

Mama frowned at the twins but refrained from lecturing them for criticizing their elders. “It is much too far for you boys to walk.” She smiled at Cat. “You go by yourself, dear. Take your time and have a nice visit with Mrs. Barker.”

“There are no nice visits with Mrs. Barker,” Sybbie said.

Mama glared at Sybbie before turning back to Cat. “And then perhaps Mr. Barker will be free to give you a ride home in his gig.”

Now there was a treat. Mr. Barker’s sullen, plodding horse could make a fifteen-minute ride last thirty, and the man’s excruciatingly boring conversation made those thirty minutes feel like an eternity. The last book he’d read—perhaps the
only
book he’d read—was
Jeremiah Johnson’s Thoughts on the Methods of Raising Sheep, Including a Discourse on Breeding and Shearing
.

“That will give him ample opportunity to propose.” Pru sounded as if she was going to choke on her laughter. “It’s almost time for him to ask again, isn’t it?”

“Pru!” Mama said sharply, her patience clearly at an end. “It is unbecoming to be so pert.”

“Yes, Mama.” Pru sounded contrite, but the look she sent Cat rivaled Thomas’s for evil glee.

Cat narrowed her eyes . . .

No, she was twenty-four. She should not stoop to a ten-year-old’s level.

Michael’s small fingers crept into hers. “You won’t really marry Mr. Barker, will you, Cat?”

“Now, Michael, Mr. Barker is a fine man,” Mama said. “I’m sure you’ll come to like him once you know him better.”

“I will?”

“Well, I won’t.” Thomas thrust his chin forward and crossed his arms over his little chest. “I’ll never like him.”

Cat gave Mikey’s hand a reassuring squeeze and hurried to speak before Mama could snap at Thomas. “I know Mr. Barker quite well, Mama, and I am convinced we shall not suit.”

Mama frowned. “But eligible men don’t grow on trees, Cat, and you are twenty-four, after all. Try to see the man’s good qualities.” She raised her brows, giving Cat her “significant” look. “None of us is perfect, you know. At least keep an open mind.”