Leslie LaFoy (23 page)

“You're looking thinner than I remember, Mr. Devon,” she said as he picked up the reins. “Haven't you bought a new cook yet?”

“Wyndom did,” he answered, setting the horse in motion. “An indentured woman. A month ago.”

“Oh, Lord. That boy can't be trusted to choose his own clothes and do it right.”

“Her name's Meg,” he supplied, grinning. “And she's learning. Rather quickly now that Claire's there to teach her.”

“That would be the new missus I've heard about.”

And knowing Hannah, he was going to hear something about it, too. “What exactly have you heard about my wife, Hannah?”

“That she arrived alone in Williamsburg one afternoon and by the very next she was married to you,” she replied crisply. “One story has it that she's with Mr. Wyndom's child and you took pity on her. Another has it that the babe is yours. Yet another is that her family wanted to be rid of her and was willing to cancel a debt Mr. Wyndom owed them if you would take her.”

“It's the latter.” He shrugged. “With the addition of a few details that don't really matter in the larger scheme of things.”

Hannah nodded and fastened her gaze on the road ahead. Devon waited, happy with the comfortable and familiar rhythm of conversation with her.

“Everyone says she's very pretty.”

“She is. A bit peculiar at times and decidedly headstrong, but definitely pretty.”

“Will she be a good mistress for Rosewind?”

“The food's been edible since she arrived,” he conceded. “And the silver serving pieces have been polished. The garden's being planted. Aunt Elsbeth loathes her and Mother blinks a lot.”

“Then she's doing fine,” Hannah pronounced, clearly pleased with Claire's list of accomplishments. “Will she make you a good wife?”

Devon shrugged again. “As soon as we have documents canceling Wyndom's debt, we're going to have the marriage annulled.”

“Hmmm.”

“Hmmm, what?” he pressed, knowing that he wasn't going to like whatever Hannah was thinking, but also knowing from experience that wisdom lay in getting the issue out in the clear sooner rather than later. Giving Hannah time to stew only made her words sting that much harder.

“I thought,” she said after an exceptionally long pause, “that you were done with that Lytton woman.”

That Lytton woman
. Devon smiled. He'd never known Hannah to so dislike anyone as much as she did Robert Lytton's young widow. But what did Darice have to do with whether or not he wanted Claire for a wife? He shook his head. “I told you at the time that Darice was a passing flirtation and nothing more. I meant it. Darice and I are done.”

Hannah snorted. “You had more than a flirtation with her, Mr. Devon, and all of Virginia knows it. There's no point in you trying to put another face on it.”

“All right,” he admitted, knowing there was no point in trying to claim good virtue. Hannah knew the truth. What she hadn't seen for herself, he'd told her. “There was more with Darice. But that doesn't alter the present reality. We no longer have a relationship beyond that of being neighbors. I haven't so much as laid eyes on her since the week before you went to Mrs. Vobe's.”

She gave him that look of hers—the one that, as a child, had always made him glance down to see if he had telltale cake or cookie crumbs on his shirtfront. “Honestly, Hannah. I haven't seen her.”

“So then why are you planning to have your marriage annulled?” she asked, looking straight ahead. “Is there someone other than that Widow Lytton woman?”

“There's no one else, Hannah,” he assured her.

“Then why are you willing to throw away a perfectly good wife? She can't be shrewish or she and Elsbeth would be the best of friends. Is she ancient?”

“No, she's only a few years younger than I am.”

“Is she a wanton?”

He remembered the look in Claire's eyes as he'd suckled her finger in the dark hall that night. She'd been surprised and, for a moment, frightened. But then… She would have been a wanton if he'd asked it of her. And there wasn't a doubt in his mind that, the next morning, she'd have been mortified by the willingness of her surrender.

“I've seen nothing in her behavior to suggest moral laxity,” Devon answered tightly.

Hannah cast him a quick glance and then went back to watching their progress through the countryside. After another long lull in the conversation she mused aloud, “You said she was pretty, and she can't be
empty-headed if she's ably managing the household and teaching this Meg woman how to cook. What's wrong with her?”

Claire was plainspoken, highly opinionated, and didn't give a damn about conventions and social expectations. She was, he realized with a start, just like Hannah.

“There's nothing wrong with Claire,” he admitted quietly.

Hannah nodded and continued to study the road ahead. Devon waited in the conversational silence, his chest oddly tight and his stomach churning. It was akin to the feeling he had when he considered the account ledgers: a sense of being overwhelmed and dreading the gray unknowns of the future. But it was different, too. Beneath this feeling there was a vague sense of hope, of there being a tiny ray of sunshine he might see if he could just claw his way through the dismal clouds surrounding him.

“Then the problem has to be with you,” Hannah said, intruding on his thoughts. “What's wrong? Did that Widow Lytton give you a disease?”

“No!” He looked over at her, appalled that she'd even think of the possibility. “For God's sake, Hannah. I know enough to protect myself from the likes of Darice Lytton. I'm not stupid.”

She met his gaze unflinchingly and snorted again. “You are if you're not willing to take a good woman to wife when one comes along.”

“Hannah,” he countered, putting his attention back on his driving, “what do I have to offer any woman other than the likelihood of bankruptcy and public disgrace? Besides,” he added, shrugging a shoulder, “a wife is nothing more than another mouth to feed, another body to clothe, and another set of expectations that I can fail to meet.”

A nod. Another quick glance at him. “She's been spoiled like your mother and Elsbeth then.”

“No,” he allowed, shaking his head, remembering what she'd told his family of her childhood, what he knew of her life since being given into her uncle's custody. “Claire's practical and sensible. She knows how to work and is quite willing to do so. And she's yet to ask me for a single thing in the way of material comforts. In some respects, she's a very simple, uncomplicated woman.”

“Are you listening to yourself?” Hannah asked, turning on the seat to skewer him with a gaze bright with vexation. He was still drawing a bracing breath when she let loose. “I've known you since you were a little bitty baby, Mr. Devon. I gave you your first bath and I know you and how you think. Marrying this woman wasn't your own idea and it ruffled your feathers something powerful, didn't it? And before you could think things through, you balled up your fist and swore before God and everyone else that you wouldn't tolerate being tethered one more day than you had to be, didn't you?”

“More or less,” he muttered, wondering if Hannah had been watching the whole damn thing through Edmund Cantrell's window.

“It was more,” Hannah countered with fiery certainty. “And having done that, you can't act on your common good sense without having to make a meal out of a great big crow. You and your pride, Mr. Devon.”

“Pride maketh a man blind,” he grumbled, not at all happy with the turn the conversation had taken. And he'd been a blind fool to think Hannah would understand about sending Claire on her way when the time came. Hannah had been badgering him to marry for years. As long as the wife wasn't Darice Lytton, Hannah would approve of any woman, sight unseen.

“Just because you can quote me back to myself,”

Hannah countered regally, “doesn't mean that you've learned the lesson in it.”

A way out glimmered in his awareness and, desperate, he seized it. “It's not a matter of my pride at all. Claire has a home in England. She wants to go back there.”

There was the usual pause as Hannah mulled his words, and in the comfortable familiarity of it, Devon began to relax.

“Does she have a man waiting for her at home?”

The idea was startling. And somehow a little bit troubling, too. “I have no idea. She hasn't mentioned one and I haven't thought to ask.”

“If she hasn't told you that her heart belongs to another, then it's free to claim,” Hannah declared. She turned to look at him as she added, “And in case no one's ever told you so, no bit of dirt is more important to a woman than the man who stands on it. If you were to swallow your pride, she'd be willing to stay at Rosewind.”

It was his turn to snort. “You don't know Claire.”

“Answer me this question, Mr. Devon,” Hannah replied. “Did she tell you that she wanted to go to this home in England before or after you swore to be rid of her as soon as you could?”

He thought back, remembering the conversations they'd had that first day. Had it only been a week ago? It seemed like a lifetime. “After.”

“Then your wife has a bit of pride of her own. And no small amount of backbone and gumption, too.” Hannah smiled at the road. “Good for her.”

He turned the carriage off the main road and up the drive of Rosewind. “I don't see what pride has to do with her returning to England.”

Hannah tilted her face toward the sky in the way she always did when she was asking God to let her borrow the patience of a saint. After a moment, she sighed and
asked, “What choice did she have when you were railing on as only you can, Mr. Devon? Was she supposed to fall at your feet and beg you not to be unkind to her?”

Beg? At his feet? He chuckled. “Not Claire.”

“No woman worth her salt would. No, her only choice was to hold her head up and say that she'd make her own way and do just fine without you. Whether or not she believes it's possible doesn't matter. It's better to starve to death than throw yourself on the mercy of a man who doesn't want you.”

“How do you know all this?”

“These eyes have seen a lot in their sixty years,” she answered softly. “These ears have heard many a tale, and these hands have dried a river of tears. I may be old, Mr. Devon, but I'm a woman. It's like I've always said: It doesn't matter what color your skin is—”

“We're all the same underneath,” he finished for her.

She smiled and nodded. “And that's how I know what I know. If you backed down a bit, so would she, and the two of you could be happy together.”

Rosewind loomed closer and closer and with its nearness came a flood of memories. “My mother and father were strangers when they wed,” he said softly, driving the phaeton around to the back of the house. “They didn't choose each other; others chose for them. The circumstances are much the same for Claire and me. I don't want a marriage like the one my parents had.” He reined in the horse, stopping in front of the kitchen.

“Well, since you're nothing like your daddy and this Claire sounds nothing like your mama,” Hannah observed cheerfully as she waited for him to round the carriage, “I don't think that's anything you need to be all too concerned about. Have you thought about taking up again with that Widow Lytton woman since you've been married?”

He froze, looking up at her, absolutely mystified by
the direction her questioning had suddenly taken. “What does Darice have to do with—”

“Just answer the question, Mr. Devon. Have you thought about riding over there?”

He reined in his frustration and extended his hand to help her down. “Not seriously.”

“But it has crossed your mind.”

He sighed. “Yes.”

“That's good,” she declared, grinning up at him, her eyes bright and laughing. “Very good.”

“Hannah!” he grumbled, no less confused by her response than he had been by her question.

Poking a fingertip into the center of his chest, she replied, “When it's the smells of your own kitchen that makes your stomach growl, going somewhere else for a meal won't satisfy your hunger. Just you remember that.”

Turning and heading toward the kitchen, she added, “I'm looking forward to meeting your Claire. I'll set about the regular cooking, but wait until she and I can talk before I plan anything special for the company meals.”

He didn't fully understand what it was she was saying about being hungry, but then he seldom grasped the whole lesson at its presentation. It had always been that way. Hannah would plant the seed; he'd mull over it and eventually realize what she meant and how wise she was.

“Hannah?” he called after her, smiling. He waited until she stopped and looked back at him. “It's good to have you home.”

Her eyes were soft and warm and full of love. Just like always. “You haven't had anyone to pin your ears back since I've been gone, have you?”

He thought of Claire. “Well,” he began, chuckling. The hard look that came to Hannah's face instantly snuffed his amusement. He followed the line of her
sight, turning to see Elsbeth coming down the back stairs, her skirts fisted in her hands and held high above her ankles, her jaw set and her eyes blazing.

“Devon!” she snapped, storming toward him. “I will have a word with you right this instant! This is an outrageous affront to decency, and your mother and I
demand
that you do something about it!”

Devon looked over his shoulder and gave Hannah a weak smile. “Usually by someone without a dram of brains and always about the trivial. I'll bring Claire to meet you as soon as I can.”