The Wrong Bride Read online

  CHAPTER NINE

  Handing the bun off to a pleased Jem, Winnie plopped into her seat. Shivering, she wrapped the loose blanket beside her around and settled back. Right before sunset, the weather was crisply cold. The bakery rolls tucked in their canvas sack against her chest, Winnie basked in their heat inside the cocoon of the blanket. The aroma of the yeast bread filled the enclosed space and Winnie put her head back on the squabs and closed her eyes with a sigh, pleased to be heading home.

  Suddenly the door opened, and Lance stepped into the carriage, his substantial frame tilting the carriage until he seated himself. “Ah, fresh bread,” he said, breathing deeply the scent. “Nothing like it in the world, is there, Winnie?”

  “No.” Her head turned away, eyes glancing through the window, she straightened, deciding to be civil and push away the idea she might be just a little jealous of seeing him in deep conversation with another woman. “Its smell fills the noses and makes the mouth water.” Lance rapped on the roof and the carriage took off with a jerk. “I am sorely tempted to sample the bread, in fact.”

  He chuckled. “I would join you if you don’t mind. I’m hungry, and it’s only a little temptation and won’t spoil our supper, will it?” With the carriage jolting every now and then, Winnie unwound the blanket and took out one of the rolls, holding it out. Lance reached for it, tore it in halves, one offered to Winnie. She bit off a part and stuffed it inside her mouth. The only thing to make it better would be butter melting the soft, grainy inside past the crisp crust.

  Winnie swallowed the small bite. “How I wish I could make bread this delicious.” She looked at Lance. “You’re in a good mood.”

  “I’ve had a brilliant day, Winnie. I’ve met townspeople I haven’t seen in years, and, in the public house were two of my fellows. Not from my regiment, but it was the first time since I’ve been home that I didn’t feel like the odd man out. We had a couple rounds of drinks and talked. It was invigorating.”

  “The first time since you’ve come home?”

  “Yes, the first time I felt not on the outside looking in.”

  “Have we, have I, made you feel excluded, then?”

  Lance considered it for a moment. “Believe it or not, Winnie, coming and finding you in a changed house in good hands, did make me feel a stranger. For an odd moment, I thought I might have come to the wrong place.”

  “Oh, I am sorry.”

  “It’s alright. ‘Tisn’t you. It’s I. Time passes you by, you feel as if you’re stuck in place. Nothing is the same. And,” he added, his voice serious, “you wonder if you will ever fit in.”

  “Then, I’m glad you found your friends.” She had been going to mention having seen him with someone near the public house, but the matter didn’t seem important anymore.

  “Well,” he said, breaking the stretching silence between them, “this is most pleasant, Winnie, as well as unexpected.” Her often sharp tongue was sheathed for the time being and he might as well enjoy the respite. He finished off his half roll while she hadn’t taken more than a bite. She sank her teeth into the roll again. “I wonder. We’re going to be visiting the Blackwaters soon. And after that, Christmas will be upon us. Would you mind if we had visitors at home? I believe the house might accommodate a dozen or so.”

  “That many?”

  Lance chuckled. “Yes. I would appreciate it if you could see your way…?” His hands splayed, he looked at her, waiting for an answer.

  They hadn’t much help, and with Frances in her condition? But Winnie remembered her promise to herself to be more accommodating. “It would be a stretch, but, yes, I think we might.”

  “Good! Hoping you might be willing, I’ve ordered some new things for the house…” He looked at her widened eyes in the dusk of the interior, like the growing dark outside. “Don’t worry. I won’t put us I the poorhouse, but the place needs to look more welcoming, don’t you think?”

  “How many times I’ve wanted to do it justice,” she answered wistfully, “but I’ve become habitually so tight-fisted.”

  “And it’s paid off, and I am grateful, Winnie. In truth, the place couldn’t have been left in better hands, Winnie, regardless of how we began. And I won’t touch your dowry. It may take a while for recompense to come, but I shall see to it.”

  Yes, perhaps he would. Apparently, he was already looking to the future, flirting with the Blackwater woman and who knew who else. For her, the future was a shadowy place, fraught with uncertainty. After the first of the year, Lance would be done with her. Where should she go, what ought she to do, a divorced woman? Winnie had a few ideas, but the prospect of finding a place and starting a business was daunting. Why hadn’t she thought of reading the adverts in the paper? That would be a good place to start. Why didn’t she think of it when in town today? But there was time until spring to plan, and springtime was always full of promise. Perhaps he wouldn’t wait so long to shed himself of her. Though the thought of divorce had been hers in the beginning, he seemed to be coming around to the idea. Oh, but what of those encounters with him? Winnie sucked in her breath. She could be with child! No, surely not. It hadn’t happened when he’d first brought her to Greenwood.

  “What’s the matter, Winnie?”

  She turned her head to him. “What d’you mean?”

  “You gasped.”

  “Did I? Yes, I suppose I did. I don’t know,” she answered lamely. “Just woolgathering, that’s all.”

  “It appears you had fun, too, in town.”

  Winnie shook her head. “It wasn’t the same in church. I felt like a stranger all at once.” She looked at Lance. “So, in a small way perhaps, I understand your feelings.” Looking down at the clasped hands in her lap, she went on. “There’s already gossip about us, you know. I suspect Isabelle let her tongue loose when she went to visit family, and I am become a pariah.”

  “I doubt that. But I wasn’t referring to women picking over used clothes and idle chatter from church pigeons.” Now his happy frame of mind was gone, and he sounded cross. Winnie hoped he wouldn’t discipline Isabelle for a careless slip of the tongue. “Oh! I met Mister Winston Trueblood, if that’s what you’re referring to.” And now was the time to bring up that she’d seen him with the Blackwater woman. But, somehow, she couldn’t.

  “You looked quite stricken.”

  Winnie’s eyes widened. Had she looked so? “I’d never had a fellow flirt with me before, and, honestly, I quite liked it. He seemed most amiable and friendly.” Lance could take whatever meaning he liked from her statement. She hadn’t done anything wrong. And now, his face was back to its usual frowning state. He looked away first as their gazes warred with each other, his taking in the whole of her in an odd way. It made her shiver, and not from the cold. The carriage was silent the rest of the way home. Winnie had bread left that suddenly didn’t taste as it had at first, and she found it hard to finish.

  In the next few days, deliveries of home goods came to the house, and Lance blithely told Winnie she could put the new fixings wherever she liked, he would leave their disposition to her. He would try hunting with Barnaby and be gone most of the time anyway. The women struggled to hang curtains and draperies, shine the wood floors to make them fine enough for the rugs and carpets that were laid, put away the new dishes, and put up the new mirrors and pictures on the walls that had been wiped clean. Winnie hardly had time to draw breath before she was told he would be visiting the Blackwaters.

  “Oh,” she moaned, “so soon?”

  “Yes,” Lance answered crisply, “and I’ve no idea what the arrangements will be like, nor how many other guests there will be. We’ll have to feel our way, and I trust you’ll do your part to ensure there will be no clumsy moments.” They were seated in the dining room, with a thick, lovely blue and brown wool rug under the table that extended feet beyond it, new chairs that replaced the old, worn and chipped, half-broken ones, with the cabinet full of pretty dishes, the furniture all oiled and rubbed to shining attracti
veness. She stared at him, quickly realizing what he meant, a pretense of some sort to at least appear they were not at odds. It wouldn’t do, not when Lance was just learning his way back into polite society. What more might be expected of her she couldn’t imagine.

  The hunting went well, but afterward Lance seemed very tired and a little on edge after three days of it. Winnie wondered if he would suffer any of those sleepwalking episodes, but there had been none, and she sighed with relief when they started off early one October morning, their trunk filed with new clothes for the both of them, and Winnie’s valise with combs and pins and such. Barnaby was driving and Jem came along to do whatever might be required of him, all bathed, hair and nails trimmed, neat and clean. He smiled sheepishly when his appearance was praised by Winnie.

  In the carriage, resting back on the cushions, Winnie stilled when Lance pulled a small box from his pocket and shoved it toward her. “Open it. I thought it might look odd, your not wearing the proper attire.” She prised the box open, and on the black velvet was a thick silver ring with coiled edges and scrolling in the middle. It was quite beautiful. Afraid to look at Lance, unsure of her feelings, she tried it on. It fit perfectly.

  Winnie’s mouth was suddenly dry. “It’s as if it was made for me, it fits so well,” she said softly. “How did you know my size?”

  “It was a lucky guess,” he muttered, looking out the window as if disinterested. Quick tears pricked behind Winnie’s eyes, and she batted them away. If he could regard the event so carelessly, so could she. But never had she been given such a beautiful gift. Cold on her finger, like Lance’s attitude, the metal warmed at the touch of her skin. Would she be allowed to keep it in the end, she wondered.

  “It’s a gift, isn’t it?” she asked tenuously.

  His answer was brusque. “Don’t worry, I won’t ask for it back.”

  “Thank you. It’s quite the nicest thing I’ve ever had, and the workmanship is simple but classic. I do so thank you.” She shut her mouth, afraid of gushing. Winnie wanted to put her hand over it to protect it, yet look at it to marvel, but Lance’s chilly air forbade it.

  A house maid was assigned to Winnie since she hadn’t brought her own maid along. The girl was not particularly quick, though she seemed affable enough. Winnie was given a small room at the back of the corridor of the floor where most of the sleeping rooms were. The girl, Cherry, hadn’t been in the household long, though Winnie had hope of gently prying information from the girl to help her navigate the Blackwater household. The men were to be sleeping in two of the largest rooms, and some of the women were bedding together as well, since several of them were of long acquaintance. The house was much larger than Lance’s estate house, and thus confusing at first. Winnie discovered from Cherry the reason she had been given a room to herself, and felt the far reach of gossip even here, many miles from her home. She allowed Cherry to prattle on, even encouraged her to do so. It slipped that Cherry had heard some of the wives and husbands didn’t ordinarily sleep together anyway, though she didn’t know which, and since the men usually retired later than the women, it worked out for everyone.

  After putting away Winnie’s clothes and other items, Cherry didn’t seem to know what she ought to do next. She loved to work with hair, though, and when Winnie dressed to go down for the first meal, a late dinner, she was glad she’d been assigned the girl. Cherry twisted lengths of Winnie’s brown hair every which way, until they were intertwined coils of a handsome high chignon, with tiny curls falling forward off Winnie’s forehead. Cherry applied the makeup Winnie had bought along, a suggestion of Mistress Goodwill, and Winnie wore the somewhat plain brown velvet dress, its high collar sprinkled with sequins, the sleeves slim all the way to the wrist. Winnie thanked the girl and went outside her room, wandering along the corridor to the curving stairway. Doors of several of the women’s room were open, and Winnie heard chatter and occasional bursts of laughter from lady guests dressing for dinner, felt the quieting and curious looks, but no one asked her in or made comment to her when only a simple greeting would have made her feel welcome. Doors were open on the men’s rooms, too, but those were quietly closed after a smile or two.

  At table, Lance nodded his approval across the way, though there was no accompanying smile to warm her. With no fire in the chilly dining room, Winnie was glad for the bit of heat generated between her skin and the velvet. After the bland meal, men wandered away to the smoking room, and the women gathered in a cavernous sitting room where a tepid fire struggled to provide heat. On the edges of the half-dozen woman, one of them Lady Caroline, with no one trying to engage Winnie in conversation, she wandered to the far end of the room where a piano announced itself lonely like herself. She smiled weakly remembering the lengthy sessions of practice and memorizing little tunes to play for guests. After years of study, Winnie could play reasonably well and even enjoyed the challenge of learning pieces that someone must have been inspired of God to put on paper, because they were so beautiful, touching her soul in some indefinable way, sometimes almost bringing her to tears.

  The poor instrument was lightly dusty, and Winnie dirtied her gloves by running them over the keys and wood covering before sitting down to play. No one seemed to notice Winnie was gone, and she decided to try not to care, removing her gloves and beginning, starting with elementary pieces so as not to embarrass herself, though no one seemed to be listening. It had been years since she’d touched the piano. The rust of disuse of that part of her brain and experience was flung away after the first two pieces and her fingers nimbly found the notes afterward as if all those years of not playing hadn’t intervened. Deeply involved in the playing and lost in the music, she looked up to find an older woman watching. Winnie stopped abruptly.

  “Oh, do go on. It’s so seldom we here in the hinterlands hear good music. Mozart and Beethoven, if I remember right.” She moved around the piano, extended her hand and introduced herself. Suddenly the frigid air became warm and Winnie started again, seeing from the corner of her eye the Lady Evelyn Windermere seat herself. After another half hour of playing, she glanced up again to see another two women seated and the rest of the group, including Lady Caroline, standing close by to watch and listen. Winnie played a couple of her favorite ballads before begging off after another long period of playing. “I must stop, I think, and allow someone else their time on the instrument. I don’t wish to keep it all to myself.” She demurred when there was a light murmur of protest, for politeness’ sake, Winnie thought. The party broke up when Lady Caroline suggested they all have tea. Winnie’s throat was dry as dust and she was glad the offer was made.

  Slowly, the other women, following Lady Windermere’s lead, paid more attention to Winnie. But it was short-lived, and no one noticed when after four o’clock tea, Winnie made her way to her room. Most of the other women drifted off little by little in the same way when gossip ran dry, though after Winnie left if picked up enough to become spirited for a time, like a weak fire that had been stirred to life, burning hotter a brief spell before dying in the end.

  Supper was at eight o’clock sharp, that meal as unremarkable as the last, but Winnie felt her way a bit more surely having memorized all the women’s names and able to spit them out when required by the movement of conversation. She knew she looked beautiful; that mark had been in a couple of the men’s eyes, but she knew it was because her dress was rather remarkable. The brown sleeves were gone, and over the simple top of her dress, the collar gone, was a short cape of descending frothy, small rows of sheer, gathered white material which was repeated along the bottom of the skirt. Cherry had lifted the abundant, vibrant hair to the top of Winnie’s head and allowed the curls to fall past the long, graceful neck. Her slender arms reached in and out of the cape to accommodate the act of eating, and even Lance seemed struck dumb in the first few minutes of dining. It was remarkable how his eyes lingered on her face, then her dress, then back to her face, the automatic, social smile for the benefit of the company fading
slowly away as her eyes held his in defiance.

  After the meal, the other women rested, played cards, or strung out the last few vestiges of idle chatter about people Winnie didn’t know. She hated gossip, knowing there was a surfeit of it about everywhere invariably leaving some sort of nasty damage in its wake. She had become a recent victim of such, hints of it in the wary eyes of the women at church, and now here, too, in Cherry’s rather innocent babbling.

  The entire party decided to end the day by going to bed early, which was to say sometime around one o’clock in the morning, fatigue being the reason pleaded.

  The next day went on in the same way, until the time for supper. Lord Blackwater began it. “Sir Brevard,” he addressed Lance, sitting back to allow his good-sized girth to settle from the considerable meal he’d taken, “our company wouldn’t mind hearing of some of your exploits, ourselves having only read newspaper accounts of the fighting.” He looked pleased with himself, and in glancing around found general approval for the idea in the expectant faces of his guests.

  Lance’s face reddened, and he found sympathy only in the dismay of Winnie’s expression. “I’m truly sorry to have to disappoint you, Lord Blackwater...”