Henry had been sleeping for a change. Really sleeping. He rolled over. A warm waft of fresh air mixed with grass and roses and sheep blew over him like a welcome blanket from his open window. It was too soon to wake up. He hunkered down and tried to get back into his delicious Rachel-dream.
He knew her now, every blessed inch. A rainy Sunday would never, ever be the same for him.
Monday had been sunny and unremarkable and a chore to get through. There had been no Rachel, and Mrs. Grace had turned up full of apologies which Henry waved off. Thank God the woman had not been in the cottage, or else he and Rachel would not have been able to have their interlude.
Their apparently once-in-a-lifetime interlude. Henry would have something to say about that, if he could only think what.
He’d wanted to see her in the worst way yesterday. Send her red flowers or chocolates or a desperate letter. But he had to respect her wish for space, even if it galled him.
He put his mind to his myriad problems, but then he heard the sobbing. What could make Mrs. Grace lose her legendary sangfroid? And what time was it anyhow?
The sound was coming from the garden below. Henry poked his head out the window. There on his iron bench was a woman beneath an enormous hat, her shoulders convulsing with each wail.
It was very early in the day for such crying. Henry checked his watch. Not even six o’clock. Mrs. Grace was not due for at least an hour, and if she had ever owned such a fashionable hat his name wasn’t Henry Agamemnon Challoner.
“I say,” he said, trying not to shout and alarm her, “are you all right?”
The woman turned and looked up at him. She was a girl really. She couldn’t have been much over twenty years of age. She was very blond, blue-eyed, and ruffled. Ruffled everywhere in a misguided attempt to conceal a rather substantial figure. Her eyes and cheeks were pink from crying. Henry hoped she wasn’t drowning the koi with her salty tears.
“Oh! Who are you?”
“Henry Challoner.” He left out the captain and the lord part. The Agamemnon part, too. This poor thing didn’t need to be intimidated any more than she was. “May I offer you assistance?”
“I d-don’t see how anyone can,” she snuffled. “I am r-ruined.”
“Nonsense. Tomorrow is always another day. Hang on a moment. I’ll be right down.” Henry rejected the idea of just tossing on his dressing gown; he didn’t want to alarm her further. He’d never gotten dressed so fast in his life except when ambushed in his tent right before he was shot. Running down the stairs, he managed not to hit his head in the process. A morning miracle, that.
A little breathless when he arrived, he was pleased to see the girl still sitting there, balling up a very wet lace-edged handkerchief. He sat down next to her on the bench and waited while she sniffled and hiccupped.
He patted her ruffled arm. “Take a deep breath, my dear.”
“I hoped no one would be here. But the key is missing and I couldn’t get in.”
“Just as well. As you see, I’m the latest inmate, and I got quite annoyed with people coming in just because they felt like it.” He reached into his pocket and drew the flower pot key out. The original was still missing somewhere between New Street and the churchyard after his unconscious midnight ramble at the hands of the bloodthirsty Everetts.
“Why are you here?” she asked, her lashes tipped with tears.
“Oh, I was a bit lost. Did some stupid things. Drank too much and fu, uh, fornic—uh, formed an attachment to unsuitable women. I’m completely reformed. A lovely young lady such as yourself has nothing whatsoever to worry about.”
“Oh! Don’t be so kind to me! You can’t understand. I have left my husband.” She said it with a mix of horror and satisfaction.
“No doubt he deserved to be left. Did he hurt you?”
“N-not the way you think. But he mocked me. Made fun of me all the time. C-criticized my figure.”
“He sounds like an absolute cur. What is wrong with your figure?”
“I am f-fat.”
“Nonsense. You’re a very pretty girl. You’re not increasing, are you?”
That made her wail all the more. “See? Merwyn is right. I am as big as a house. He will not even t-touch me, not that I want him to. Ever. He is loathsome.” She threw a hand to her pretty pink lips. “Oh! I’m useless. I always say and do the wrong things to perfect strangers.”
“I am not perfect,” Henry admitted. “Why are you here in my garden?”
“It was once my garden. I came back to Puddling hoping something could be done about the mess I’m in. And to see…never mind.”
Henry remembered. Greta something. An heiress who was imprisoned here so she could fit into her wedding gown. Instead of the pub being shut down, it had been the bake shop then.
“How did you get here?”
“I took the milk train to Stroud. And then a kindly farmer gave me a lift for most of the way.”
Henry glanced down. The girl’s feet looked swollen in her boots, and the hem of her dress was dusty. “You walked?”
“I need the exercise. I walked every day the three months I was here. It was p-part of my plan.”
“I walk too. Clears the head, doesn’t it?”
“Not particularly. It just hurts my feet and I can’t catch my breath.”
Henry spoke carefully. “I think the more one walks, the healthier one becomes.”
“That’s all very well for you to say!” She glared at him with red-rimmed eyes. “You are fit.”
“Well, I was in the army for six years. It toughens you up a bit.”
“Women can’t join the army to lose weight. And I shouldn’t be trusted with a gun. I might shoot Merwyn.”
“Merwyn! He sounds as if he deserves to be shot. How long have you been married?”
“Just two months. And he hasn’t once…oh, God.” Fresh tears filled her eyes.
Henry put an arm around her. “If he hasn’t, as you say, he’s an idiot.”
“But I’m glad, I assure you!” she shuddered. “He just wanted my money for his amusements. He—he consorts with wicked women. Actresses. And w-worse. And wh-what he makes them do! I have heard things—he told me himself!”
“Sometimes men are very foolish,” Henry said. Lord knows, he had been. This girl was an innocent, and not apt to understand men’s darker impulses. He’d had some himself when he’d been desperate. Trying to jolt himself with recklessness to feel alive, even if he’d felt very little hope.
But then he’d come to Puddling and seen Rachel in a shaft of sunlight.
“He never cared for me at all. Not like—” She shut her mouth.
Ah. So there had been another swain who lost out in the grand marriage plot. Poor fellow. Greta was a very comfortable armful, and Henry realized, would be quite beautiful when her nose wasn’t dripping. If she was a little plusher than was usual, what was the harm, really? Some men would appreciate her with or without her fortune.
“I think you need someone to talk to. I take it your parents are unhelpful?”
“It is only Mama. My father would have known Merwyn for what he was and forbidden the match. He is…he is a fiend. I can’t even…” Her voice trailed away.
Greta appeared more shaken than would be normal over the average disappointing husband. Was Merwyn some kind of depraved pervert? Henry had never heard of any fiendish Mervyn, but then he hadn’t been home very long.
“Let me take you inside and make you a cup of tea.”
She blew her nose into the soggy handkerchief. “Thank you. That would be nice. And perhaps some dry toast if that wouldn’t be too much trouble.”
Dry toast indeed. He’d feed her up better than that if he could find out where his housekeeper hid the jam. Henry led his uninvited guest into the little parlor. He still didn’t know her name, but Mrs. Grace would know what to do when she came.
Henry busied himself at the stove. Years of army life had taught him how to hold body and soul together, and in a relatively short time, he had a pot of tea and four perfectly-toasted pieces of bread with lashings of butter and plum jam. The jar had been stuck in the coal scuttle, saved there for old Vincent’s tea vigils, no doubt, by his devious housekeeper. No jam or fun was on Henry’s plan.
Greta was standing in front of the narrow bookcase, her gloved fingers caressing the spines of the books Henry thought much too boring to read. Her eyes lit when she saw the tray, but then dropped. She was ashamed of her appetite, and for a second Henry wanted to roar at her mother and her wretched husband.
“I’m starving,” Henry said brightly. “Please join me.”
“I shouldn’t.”
“You can walk it off with me later. I assume you thought you could stay in this cottage?” He snapped into his toast. The jam was pretty damned good.
“I—I didn’t really think. I didn’t even bring an overnight bag. But I do have money. Just a little. Merwyn and Mama saw to it I have practically nothing a quarter for pin money,” she said with bitterness. She took a delicate bite.
“Well, there are two bedrooms, and I certainly won’t charge you, if you can stand the company. You can stay until you figure out what you want to do and see whoever you wanted to see.” He’d make sure Mrs. Grace was mollified, no matter how much dosh it took to paper over the impropriety. Greta wouldn’t be here forever.
At least Henry thought it was all right if she stayed a little while—she’d come all this way, the poor thing. The cottage was his for the month, wasn’t it? The pater was paying top dollar for Henry to be rehabilitated, and helping Greta was one way to prove he was as gallant as the next fellow.
There would, of course, be no funny business, since Sir Bertram and the pater would cut up stiff if they knew the girl was here. Greta was a married woman, and Henry wanted to be a married man. They’d need a chaperone. Ha! Maybe Rachel could be persuaded to come and share Greta’s room.
“Have you spoken to a solicitor?”
“I…no. The family lawyer helped to arrange my marriage. He and Mama are thick as thieves.”
“Then you’ll need someone else.” Henry didn’t know anyone in the legal profession, but his father had a fleet of solicitors and barristers on retainer. Could Henry ask his father to help? Doubtful. He’d mistake the whole situation, and Henry would wind up in a straitjacket somewhere, even if it ruined the Challoner reputation.
It was damned hard to be helpful.
But if this Merwyn was such a rotter, the pater’s finer feelings could be counted on. Henry didn’t know anyone who considered himself nobler, more honorable, more right than his father. Merwyn would not want to tangle with the morally perfect Marquess of Harland.
They munched in silence. Greta ate three of the pieces of toast and Henry didn’t begrudge her one bite.
He looked at the little clock on the mantel. “Mrs. Grace will be coming soon. Can you talk to her about your troubles?”
Greta wiped a crumb from her lip. “She h-hates me.”
“Oh, she hates everyone. Shall I go see if our good vicar is awake yet? He counseled you, didn’t he?”
Greta turned bright red and nodded. “He—he—oh! He will be so angry with me! I was supposed to forget him and do my duty to my family, but I cannot! I l-l-love him!”
Oh, dear. So that was the way the land lay. Things would be much thornier than Henry imagined. This was the girl Vincent Walker had gotten drunk over, the girl he’d loved and lost to an arranged marriage. “May I go upstairs and freshen up?” she asked in a small voice.
“Of course. You know where everything is. Don’t hit your head.”
Henry would just have to walk round to roust old Vincent out of bed and tell him his long-lost love had come back to Puddling.
He grinned. Now this was going to be a scandal. And it couldn’t come at a better time.