A Spinster by the Sea Read online

  “You lost that much to him?”

  “Between Mrs. Northrup and myself, by the end of the house party, the lieutenant won’t be sailing so close to the wind.”

  Augustus rested his arm along the back of the bench. “I can help too.”

  “By sending a note to the admiralty? An excellent suggestion, Your Grace. Mention that you’d like your inquiries into Mr. Thurlow’s prospects kept quiet, and his prizes will be awarded to him within a month.”

  “Because,” Augustus said slowly, “the admiralty will think I am interested in Miss Thurlow’s prospects.”

  Anne gathered her shawl more closely about her, a shawl Augustus had seen draped around Lily Northrup’s shoulders for most of the evening.

  “Who cares what the admiralty board thinks, Your Grace? They owe Mr. Thurlow money, and his sister has no prospects at all without coin.”

  “You are angry.” Anne was also even more shrewd than Augustus had thought, and perhaps more bitter.

  She glanced at him, and despite the shadows, he could see the battle light in her eyes. “They look at you as if some peacock has got loose amid the biddy hens. They don’t know whether to capture you and turn you into a pie, marvel at your plumage, or try to steal your tail feathers for their own adornment.”

  “You are angry on my behalf?” As a solicitor, Augustus knew what it was to take up a client’s cause. He’d done that for Lily Northrup, who had been shamefully treated by her husband’s family. He did not know what it was to be somebody else’s cause. “I am angry, too, now that you take the gloves off.”

  “And well you should be,” Anne retorted. “Lady Deschamps needs a stern talking-to. Roberta Daley nearly sat in your lap, and her sister could not have been more closely draped about you if your valet had secreted her in your waistcoat.”

  “If I were to lecture Lady Deschamps on any topic, it would be her tendency to toss impecunious bachelors and widowers at you, or seat you at tables populated by the worst gossips.” Augustus would deliver that lecture, and before noon tomorrow.

  “Mrs. Northrup isn’t a gossip,” Anne said, sinking lower against the bench. “She knew my mother and had stories of Mama I’d never heard. You cannot know what that means to me, Tindale, especially now.”

  Augustus rested his arm around Anne’s shoulders. “Tell me.”

  “I lost my parents too young, but in a sense, Mama was never really mine. She was besotted with my father and he with her, but Papa had more of a knack of talking with me. I was the only child, both son and daughter, and he made the effort to understand me. It’s as if he knew I’d be orphaned, while my mother had no fear of the future. She once told me that every day she woke up beside my father, she was as joyous as a new bride.”

  “My parents were like that, but in a different way,” Augustus said. “Mama was Papa’s editor and copyist. She improved on his work, and he consulted her on every case and client. She knew the precedents better than the barristers did, and she often attended court to watch the trials.”

  “Did you become a solicitor solely to join that charmed circle, Tindale? I cannot imagine that a Society card party has anything to offer compared to a rousing debate about the legal status of women.”

  “Mama would have loved you.” Between one wave crashing against the distant shore and the next, Augustus realized that he might very well love Anne Baxter. She was fierce and just and kind, and entirely her own woman.

  She was also damnably pretty, particularly compared to the powdered and prissy Mayfair belles Lady Deschamps had assembled for her house party. They wielded their settlements and fortunes like lures dragged to train the hounds.

  Anne used hers to keep another woman from ruin.

  “I wanted what my parents had,” she said. “I wanted a real marriage, one that brings joy, not slight smiles. One that makes both the future and the present moments more precious. I would never have had that with Lord Corbett Hobbs. I know that now, and perhaps he knew it too.”

  Augustus did not give a flying flambeau what Corbett Hobbs knew. “You want what our parents had,” he said, “but you are an heiress. Polite society cannot see you because a great pile of money obscures you from view. They cannot see me because a title robs them of the plain sight of the man.”

  Anne nodded once. “I vowed I would hold out, but I’ve held out for years, and I find myself thinking, ‘I could manage that one, and he is a ducal spare.’ Another would be off to sea for years at a time—not a bad quality in a husband impressed with his own brilliance. A third at least has a sense of humor…”

  “And soon,” Augustus said, gathering her closer to his side, “your dreams and needs are pitched into the sea, and you’ve a Daley sister affixed to your person like a Brighton barnacle.”

  This was not why Augustus had asked Anne to join the house party. He’d honestly wanted to make a display of his regard for her, to keep the tiara hunters at bay. Also to give Anne the pleasure of rejecting a duke. He still meant for that to happen.

  He owed her that.

  “We should be going in,” Anne said, though, if anything, she snuggled closer. “You have shown me enough marked favor for one night, Your Grace, and the hour grows late.”

  The hour wasn’t that late. What Anne meant was that duty called to them both.

  To hell with duty for once. “Your fortune is real and not going way,” Augustus said, “and God knows I can’t simply set aside a title as if it’s a hat of the wrong color, but right now is real too, Anne. This moment, the glorious sight of the ocean beneath the moon, the pleasure of closeness to and honest conversation with a woman I esteem. That’s all real and well worth treasuring.”

  She turned her face to his shoulder, then shifted to kiss him. Not on the cheek—Augustus had turned to face her too—but on the mouth.

  Then she drew back, as if surprised at her own boldness.

  A night of tedium and posturing washed away in a moment, and Augustus’s whole being rejoiced.

  “More,” he said, grazing his nose along her cheek. “Please, Anne.” He bussed the corner of her mouth and drew back. “Please.”

  The initiative had to be hers. Corbett, Billingsley, and even that long-ago ailing youth had all expected her to simply accommodate their whims. Augustus waited, lingering as near as he dared, but determined that the decision should remain hers.

  Anne’s next kiss was hesitant, the lack of confidence a surprise coming from a woman of decided opinions and keen understanding.

  Augustus took her in his arms lest she remain unsure of her welcome, and the kiss became an adventure. Anne had the knack of nestling against him, fitting into his embrace in a manner as exciting and pleasurable as the soft press of mouth upon mouth.

  She explored in gentle, thorough degrees, and Augustus followed her lead. Desire waxed increasingly insistent, until Anne was sitting across Augustus’s lap, and he was contemplating far more than kisses.

  “We must stop,” she said, curling against his chest. “We must stop, or I won’t be able to stop.”

  Augustus closed his eyes and inhaled a whiff of roses and the sea. “Well put. Do I need to apologize, Anne?”

  “Whatever for?” She eased off his lap, and he let her go.

  “For presuming on your person?”

  “I rather presumed on yours first. It won’t happen again.”

  He had begged her to presume. “Whyever not?”

  That earned him a small smile, brittle around the edges. Exactly the kind of smile he deplored and she herself had spoken of disparagingly.

  “We like each other, Your Grace, and we are allied for the nonce. I was simply… at low ebb. Now I am back on my mettle, and you will please see me to the coach. Helen will think I’ve subjected you to my theories regarding women and banking, and her lectures will never cease.”

  Anne sought a retreat from this lovely, stolen kiss, which was a backhanded form of encouragement. A lady did not need to retreat from meaningless encounters, did she?

  Augustus rose and offered Anne his hand. She appeared physically none the worse for their mutual presuming—hair still tidy, no makeup to smudge, clothing quite in order—but he hoped that was not the case with her emotions.

  He hoped, as false and tiresome as the entire evening had been, that their kiss had been real, for both of them.

  Chapter Four

  “You mustn’t think anything of it,” Helen said, stripping off her gloves as the coach pulled smoothly away from Lady Deschamps’s steps. “Mr. Thurlow and the Daley girls are involved in some sort of game where each attempts to make the other jealous. You have the greater fortune, Tindale has a ducal title. Foolishness results.”

  “I don’t think anything of it,” Anne said, settling against the soft leather. In her mind’s eye, she saw Tindale, his lean features illuminated by only the light of a distant torch. He was a careful kisser at first, until by subtle degrees, his caution turned to passion and then to…

  Whatever jubilation of body and mind came after passion. Anne had been carried away in his arms, destitute of sense, awash in wonder. A kiss ought not to be able to do that. The whole stupid evening, with contrived losses to Mr. Thurlow, the contrived civility of Lady Deschamps, and Helen’s incessant whispered orders…

  It all fell into the sea, while Tindale’s kiss warmed Anne’s heart and a few other parts as well.

  “I found the entire display between you, Thurlow, and the Daleys amusing,” Helen said, “and that is progress, Anne. To be the butt of amusement rather than pity or malice is a step forward for you. The Daley girls have airs above their station, mark me on that. Tindale won’t offer for either sister. I cannot fault his manners, but I suppose even a solicitor learns how to comport himself around his betters.”

  “Don’t do that,” Anne said, making no effort to keep her voice down. “Don’t cast aspersions on a man who never sought the title and is doing his best to make a go of it. Did you know that Lady Deschamps doesn’t even own that villa, but rather, is dependent on her niece’s generosity for the use of it?”

  Helen unclipped an earbob. “What are you going on about? Lady Deschamps is one of the premier hostesses of the spring Season.”

  “Mrs. Lily Northrup owns the venue where Lady Deschamps just entertained us. When Tindale was a solicitor, he saw the property settled on Mrs. Northrup by her late husband’s family. Lady Deschamps married up, but she did not marry well.”

  Helen paused, one earbob still swinging from her earlobe to the rhythm of the swaying coach. “How on earth did you come by that information?”

  “Mrs. Northrup told me when His Grace went to fetch us punch.”

  “Interesting. His Grace partnered you at whist, too, didn’t he?”

  “He opposed us for one round.” A lively game.

  “He smiled at you,” Helen said, unclipping the second earbob. “I do recall that. Were you attempting to be witty, Anne?”

  Anne had been attempting to lose money to Charles Thurlow, the fourth at the table. “Perish the thought that I’m capable of wit. I am relieved to have shown my face at a polite entertainment and very pleased to have made Mrs. Northrup’s acquaintance.”

  “You will have another opportunity to show your face at a polite entertainment.”

  I’m not ready. Anne needed more time to hug the memory of Tindale’s kiss close before she set it aside, a treasure to be admired again on some distant, less unsettled day.

  “What have you done, Helen?”

  “I have accepted Lady Deschamps’s invitation for us to join her picnic outing the day after tomorrow. The tide will be low in the late morning, and the party can hunt for pretty shells on her beach, then enjoy a luncheon on the grounds. Lord Bertram told me he is looking particularly forward to searching the sand with me.”

  “He is pockets to let, Helen. Cannot dower his own daughter, cannot pay the trades. He’s hoping his son’s admiralty prizes bring the family right, but admiralty courts are fickle and ponderously slow.”

  These people are not who they seem to be. Anne wanted to shout that truth at her cousin, but the evidence ought to speak for itself. Helen had been presented at court, she was a mother twice over, a widow, and still, she believed the appearances over the substance.

  Perhaps that was the trick of managing in polite society. Stop seeing the evidence, stop reasoning from facts. Play inane games at the punch bowl and lark off to Scotland with your mistress.

  Though the evening had been a success from Anne’s perspective. The punch-bowl games, the gossip, the sly looks, and Lady Deschamps’s attempts to matchmake had all slid off Anne like surf draining away from a sheer rock face.

  “I truly am relieved that Lord Corbett left me at the altar.”

  Helen unfastened a spray of dyed feathers from her hair. “You are daft. A ducal spare was a coup, Anne. With Billingsley, one could always hint that his contribution to the settlements wasn’t adequate, but with Lord Corbett Hobbs… He rejected you, not only your settlements.”

  Blunt, even for Helen. “Corbett wasn’t right for me. He had no conversation beyond bon mots and on-dits. His kisses were all fish-mouthed and fumbling, and he had no idea how to…” Anne waved a hand.

  “Anne? You didn’t really…?” Helen waved her hand too.

  “We came close, but he was so inept, so bumbling, I was hard put not to laugh, and I certainly wasn’t about to encourage him. Billingsley wasn’t any better.” Though in Billingsley’s defense, he’d been trying to manufacture desire in the absence of genuine passion. Not an easy feat for a basically honorable man.

  “Hell hath no passion like a young gentleman who has secured a fiancée,” Helen muttered. “At least you don’t have that regret with Corbett, but I tell you this with your best interests at heart, Anne. If Corbett Hobbs should see the light of reason and come crawling back to you with hat in hand, you will accept him. You will put up with his fishy kisses and fumbling and be grateful.”

  “Because polite society assumes we did anticipate our vows?”

  “Precisely. Used goods. Nobody said those words tonight, but they thought them. We must decide what you will wear to the picnic. Thank heavens it’s informal, else we’d have to send to London for some dresses. We ought to send to London, in fact, and I think the blue sarcenet walking dress would do wonderfully.”

  Helen prattled on, about dresses and pelisses and heaven knew what, while Anne watched the vista of the moonlit sea beyond the coach’s window.

  Used goods. Anne was used goods—she’d anticipated vows with that young man who’d long since expired on a Greek island—but nobody referred to the presuming bridegroom as used goods. He might be a fashionable rake, a good catch, a man-about-Town.

  While the lady was fast, ruined, soiled. Lord Corbett Hobbs had known exactly what Anne would face when he’d gone off to Scotland. He’d known her history with Billingsley, known how few friends and relatives she had to rehabilitate her reputation.

  And to think she’d nearly married him.

  Tindale’s kiss might have been a passing indulgence on both of their parts, but for Anne, it had also been more than that. He’d shown her, with one kiss, how far wrong she’d nearly gone, accepting proposals from Billingsley and Hobbs. Anne wished them well, but she would never argue with them.

  Never cuddle into their warmth and find a pleasure that hovered between comfort and daring.

  Never long for more of their kisses.

  If Lord Corbett Hobbs did come waltzing back to her, she’d refuse him out of hand, no matter what Helen said, no matter who was whispering slander on Anne’s name behind a peacock-feather fan.

  “I’m thinking of returning to Town,” Augustus said, pacing the bounds of Lily Northrup’s parlor. He hoped that a generous reading of his motives would be that he was taking time to reflect on his feelings for Anne Baxter.

  An honest reading would not be half so flattering. He longed for more of her kisses, while she had said there need be no further lapses. She had also said she liked him—he more than liked her—and that she would have been unable to stop had they continued last night’s intimacies.

  Whatever was he to make of those conflicting messages?

  He conferred with Lily behind a closed door, and bedamned to anybody who remarked his need for privacy. Her parlor was not a gilt and blue jewel box, but rather, a comfortable sitting room with a lovely view of the sea. No carpets, the better to accommodate Lily’s Bath chair, though today she occupied a sofa, her chair at the ready next to her.

  “You’d abandon the games just as they grow interesting?” she asked, knitting needles clicking away on soft blue yarn.

  “I thought the Daleys were bad. Miss Honoraria Beecham came into my room last night after the card party. She pretended to be tipsy and lost.”

  “The tipsiness might well have been genuine. You intimidate these young women with your silences, Tindale, your sly humor, your size. The ladies here are like those big-game hunters who realize the tiger could be stalking them.”

  “I am not a wild animal, much less a predator, and besides, the tiger doesn’t have a gun, so it’s hardly a fair contest. The young ladies, by contrast, are definitely on the hunt.” Unlike Anne, who sought only to be left in peace.

  No, that wasn’t accurate. Anne sought a loving marriage and a family of her own—or she had.

  “Don’t judge these women too harshly, Tindale. They all fear to end up as I nearly did—a poor relation dependent on the charity of others. That life is lonely and difficult for a woman raised to expect she’ll someday rule over her own household.”

  “And Lady Deschamps isn’t lonely? Her life is one of contentment and good works?”

  Lily shifted the mass of knitting in her lap and started on a new row. “Stop being a lawyer.”

  “I studied long and hard to become a lawyer. I do not aspire to be some ambitious twit’s prize duke. Miss Beecham was dressed for her slumbers when she stumbled into my room, and her ensemble left nothing—not one thing—to the imagination. It’s a wonder she doesn’t suffer a permanent lung fever, attired like that for bed.”