Rachel let herself into the cottage. The walk home had been…peculiar. It was as if her legs had not made the journey before. Her knees felt liquid and there was an ache in the region of her heart.
She was so slow, Rufus had darted ahead. No doubt he was annoyed to have gotten no scraps after actually staying put under the bush, and was hoping for better luck when he got home.
He had been oddly obedient, barking just the once. Could he sense what transpired?
And what was not going to transpire again.
She had done the right thing discouraging Henry. She’d also done the right thing sleeping with him. Technically no sleep had been involved, but she wouldn’t take that hour back under any circumstances.
She had no regrets. She might be an idiot for doing what she had, but she’d have been an idiot not to.
Rachel wasn’t apt to meet another Henry Challoner in her life, even if she grew into an ancient crone in Puddling. None of the Guests would ever have his allure. It wasn’t because he was a viscount and heir to a marquess. It wasn’t even because of his disheveled golden curls and sky-blue eyes. His broad brown shoulders and his absolutely magnificent c—
She shivered. Best not to even think about that particular appendage. She would not be seeing it again.
Henry was an odd mix of braggadocio and vulnerability. It was the soft side that interested her, the ruefulness. The loneliness. The emptiness. He’d been in an awful hurry to fill it up before he came here.
Rachel couldn’t complete him. Fix him. One sensual encounter was not going to set him on the path of righteousness. If anything, it might hurt him even more.
But Rachel had not really been thinking of Henry’s well-being this afternoon. She had been selfishly thinking of herself.
She was not a good person.
But she was wise enough to know she’d make a terrible viscount’s wife. He’d be better off with one of his actresses. An actress would know how to wear pretty clothes and address members the peerage. One could imagine one was on a stage every day of the week, only the butlers and housemaids would be real. Rachel couldn’t imagine asking anyone to lace her up or dust her knickknacks.
“Rachel, is that you?”
She’d have to face him. Would he somehow know? Rachel didn’t want to be a disappointment to her father—he was much too dear to her. He hadn’t liked Henry much in the beginning, but had warmed to him since.
But no father would like the young man who deflowered his innocent daughter.
No, be honest. Not innocent. Not innocent at all. Henry had not forced himself upon her. As she recollected, she’d told him to shut up and get on with it.
And oh my, get on with it he did.
She shook her head in an attempt to get Henry and his hands and mouth and…the rest of him out of it. “Yes, Dad. Can I bring you anything from the kitchen?”
It was tidy, as promised. All traces of their roast chicken lunch were packed away and the pine table had been scrubbed.
“Just you. I’m still full.”
Rachel brushed her damp skirts down and checked to see if her hairpins were still doing their job. She had washed the best she could and sprinkled on talc in Henry’s bathroom before she had gotten dressed. A hot bath would be heavenly to wash away the traces of her insanity, even though she’d had one just last night.
Her father was sitting in a sagging ancient chair in a corner of the front parlor. A precarious stack of books was tipping on a table near his elbow, and Rufus was asleep on one of his slippered feet. The dog thumped his tail once, his eyes still closed. Rachel tried not to take his lack of enthusiasm personally.
“You need more light than this, Dad,” Rachel scolded, lighting a lamp.
“Still filthy out there, is it? I didn’t even go out in the garden for a sniff today. How do the peonies look? Blown are they, with all this rain?” His peonies were favorites, lush and fragrant, even if they housed a thousand useful ants who didn’t decamp once they’d performed their service.
“I didn’t really look, but it’s not so bad outside now.” It was still light out, but gloomy. The rain was but a shadow of its earlier self, and the puddles had been easily skippable.
“How’s your patient?”
Rachel’s cheeks warmed. “He’s not so bad, either.”
“Did he enjoy the meal?”
“He—he was sleeping when I got there, and I didn’t want to disturb him. I did a little straightening up and then I read a magazine waiting for him to wake up. When he did, I told him there was dinner in the kitchen for him and left.”
“Poor girl. Cleaning after two men today.”
Rachel kissed him on the cheek. “You don’t make much work for me, Dad.”
“Aye, your mother trained me well. What are you going to do about him?”
Rachel sat down and picked up her sewing basket. “About who?” The threads were in a hopeless tangle, and since they were damp, she suspected Rufus had been at it again.
“Don’t play the fool with me, miss. You’re smarter than your mother and me combined. The young lordling, that’s who.”
“It’s not for me to do anything about him, Dad. A—a friendship wouldn’t suit. I’d only get into trouble with the governors.”
“To hell with the governors. They don’t always know best, you know. They’re not infallible. I think we’ve had a few Guests who never should have been here. Challoner’s one of them.”
Rachel was inclined to agree. What Henry had done was not so very awful considering the horrors of war that he’d lived through. He’d just been larking about in the wrong place.
“It’s the money, I expect. The village depends upon it,” she said. Families anxious to place their wayward relatives here thought nothing of throwing exorbitant sums at Puddling to solve their problems.
“What’s the good of having it if there’s nothing to spend it on?”
Rachel chuckled. “Dad, do you want to go shopping? I’ll take you to Stroud next weekend for the farmers’ market. I’m sure we could get Ham to take us up in his wagon.”
“Bah. It’s not vegetables I’m after. We could go to London.”
“London!” Her surprise was so great she startled the dog, who got up, turned around, and lay back down in his same warm spot once he was sure the house wasn’t on fire.
“Why not? School’s out for a few weeks soon. The end of the week, right? We could stay in a hotel. See the sights.”
“Dad, you don’t even like London. You’ve always said it’s dirty and filled with degenerates.”
“Maybe it’s changed. I haven’t been in years. Not since before I married your mother. She’s the one who didn’t like it.”
That was not how Rachel remembered things, but she wasn’t going to argue with her father.
“Do you truly feel up to such an undertaking?” she asked doubtfully. Her father was fit for his age, but slowing down considerably.
“It’s not as though we’d be walking. We’ll take the train.”
“Let me think about it.” Rachel had never been to London. She’d never been anywhere. The prospect was both exciting and frightening.
“We could go to museums. I hear there are dinosaur bones somewhere.”
Rachel smiled. “You don’t have to sweeten the pot any further. I admit, I’m intrigued. What made you think of such a thing?”
“You’re buried in the country. It’s time you saw a bit of the world. Got some polish.”
Rachel threaded her needle. “What do I need polish for, Dad?”
“You never know.”
Oh, Rachel knew, and knew what her father was trying to do. A week in London would not make her a fit wife for a viscount. Nothing would come of it, though he meant well.
A trip like that might be a once-in-a-lifetime experience, even if the end result meant she was back in her classroom talking about dinosaurs.
But Rachel was ever practical. “Can we afford it, Dad?”
“Don’t you worry about expenses. I have quite a bit put by, you know. Puddling’s been good to us, and we’ve always lived below our means.”
What if Puddling stopped being good, and they were drummed out for fraternizing with a Guest? In Rachel’s case, it was a good deal more than that. She was a scandal waiting to be revealed, especially after this afternoon.
Her father opened his book, and Rachel began to smock a baby’s nightgown for the church guild’s charity box. Some poor mite would wear this tiny garment for a few months. She felt a pang, thinking about a warm, soft, powdery baby, then brought herself to reality. Urine-soaked diapers, that odd patch of smelly stuff on the baby’s scalp, the inevitable screaming in umbrage as a pin poked or the porridge was too hot.
Best to think of babies in their most unpleasant states.
“What’s that sigh for?”
“Nothing. Just thinking. I might need to make a new dress if we’re going to London.”
“You can buy clothes when you get there.”
“Dad!” Rachel had never worn anything either she or her mother had not made, sitting right here in this parlor.
“Why not? You only live once. You can go to one of those new-fangled department stores and buy something off the rack.”
Good heavens. He was serious about this Cinderella-plan for her.
“Have you been talking to Lord Challoner about this?”
Her father’s bushy eyebrows rose. “Why, should I have? What’s wrong with a father wanting a treat for his only daughter?”
Nothing. But something was fishy nonetheless.