ST. HEDWIG’S PLACE, YORK
Honoria, Lady Twisden, accepted the stack of late mail from her housekeeper and reached for the teapot. After hours spent planning menus, writing letters, and posting her accounts, she’d finally sat down for a midday cup of tea.
“Thank you, Mrs. Dunscombe.” She cleared her throat, wondering whether she ought to remark on the changing colors of the bruise the woman sported. The housekeeper had begged an afternoon off the week before to attend a meeting of like-minded reformers. The newssheets had filled columns reporting on the melee disrupting the gathering. Mrs. Dunscombe had fortunately not been taken up by the soldiers, nor, she claimed, had she participated in brawling. She’d merely run afoul of a forceful elbow in the terrible crush of the fleeing crowd.
Honoria had let the matter rest then, and she didn’t wish to bring it up now. She’d had a difficult enough time convincing the hard-working woman to take this post. No sense in chiding Mrs. Dunscombe about her off-duty excursion when she herself had approved the half-holiday.
“Ye might as well hear it from me, my lady. Cook is fit to be tied. Found two more in a fresh sack of flour. Had to throw out the lot.”
Honoria fought the urge to shudder. The mice of Twisden Manor had been her companions for fifteen years, but she would not share a home with their brethren in York.
“We need a cat. Find us a good mouser, Mrs. Dunscombe.”
Here, at least there were no useless hounds to bedevil the cats. Ignoring the housekeeper’s harrumph, Honoria picked up the stack of letters and studied them.
Perhaps stack was too lavish a term for this clutch of letters. There’d been more in the days before when her effort to embrace York society had paid off with a few invitations.
She shuffled through the current batch as she sipped her tea. Her mother-in-law’s fat letter would be bulging with gossip about Harrogate, along with complaints about the taste of the medicinal waters there and her continuing lumbago. The Twisden steward had written as well—she prayed that Wes was not plaguing the man again about changes for the home farm.
If so, she was determined to not interfere. As the new lord of the manor, Wes must find his own way. She’d raised him to manhood, and trained him to be sensible, and though he had all the rosy-eyed exuberance of youth, she knew he would not overtax the estate budget by restocking his late father’s kennels with a new, useless pack of hounds.
The third letter was addressed in a feminine hand she didn’t recognize. Perhaps it was another invitation, one she’d be grateful for. Upon her arrival in York, she’d discovered that her main acquaintance here, her cousin, Rose, had taken herself off to Egypt—the lucky woman. How she envied Rose her ability to travel at will.
Still, she was happy to begin this adventure. She’d been delighted to encounter her niece, Patience, two Sundays in a row attending services at York Minster, and those the two high holy days, Palm Sunday and Easter. Patience had recognized her old Aunt Honoria, even though their last meeting had been at Honoria’s wedding, when Patience was no more than a child. As it happened, Patience had moved into Rose’s vacant home for the season, along with her flock of stepdaughters.
Honoria took a long drink of tea and set down the cup. “Please have Meg clear my dish here before our wee friends come up from the kitchen for a repast of crumbs. I’ll read these in my study.”
The housekeeper grunted and picked up a tray. “I’ve set Meg to dusting upstairs, so I’ll take your plate and your tea things. As to the cat business, milady, they bring their own sort of mess, Cook says, and she’s not wrong. I’d liefer set out more traps.” With a small head bob, the housekeeper departed.
Honoria rubbed the spot between her eyebrows where a headache threatened. Having her own home didn’t mean she could have everything her own way, not if she wanted to have servants. Why on earth had Wes arranged such a large house for her? It was within her budget, but just barely. She needed enough help to keep dust and vermin at bay, and she couldn’t afford to pay the sort of wages servants would demand of an autocrat. She’d try it Mrs. Duscombe’s way.
After all, Honoria only had the lease until Midsummer, and then, fingers crossed, she and her maid, Olive Bixby, would leave England for more exploring.
She passed through into the drawing room and paused to survey her work, ready now for callers. The curtains had been shaken clean, the carpets beaten, and every scratched and faded surface of the Queen Anne pieces coated with beeswax. She’d labored alongside Mrs. Duncombe, and Meg, and Bixby, along with two young girls who came in as needed and went home at night to their families.
Lady of the manor she might have been, but she was no stranger to work. While Cook scoured the kitchen environs, Honoria and her crew had gone through the dining room and the two stately suites on the first floor, and the three smaller bedchambers on the second floor, and the small attic servants’ rooms. Not that she was especially egalitarian—she simply wanted the task done, and as quickly as possible so she could get on with the true purpose of this repairing lease.
The faintest of rustles stirred the curtains and made her pause.
No. That had been merely the cool breeze. They’d cleaned away all temptation and closed up all the holes. They’d not seen any active vermin in this room, but the open window might tempt some in. She drew down the sash and stepped back.
It was as pleasant as a house could be for the five single women living there, four servants and their widowed mistress, all living without benefit of a Male presence to give them the sort of countenance her late husband would have mandated. The thought made her smile, savoring her independence, and she passed through to the hall.
Wes hadn’t known about it, but the house had one room that called to her daily, the second-floor bedchamber that looked out on York Minster. She called it her study; it was really her studio. And her easel and paints beckoned her right now. Tomorrow was soon enough to begin seeing the sights of York.
As she crossed the battered black and white tiles of the hall, the knocker resounded.
Her blood spiked with a mix of apprehension and anticipation, and just a tad of annoyance. She had callers. Her painting must wait—and thank heavens they’d made the house presentable.
Meg was upstairs dusting. Mrs. Dunscombe was below stairs. Honoria smoothed her hair, ran her hands down the sides of her old day gown, and heaved the heavy door open.
“Mother?”
Wes was here, on her doorstep. Unexpected.
“Good heavens.” She mustered a welcoming tone. “What a surprise.”
“A pleasant one, I hope.” A grin split his handsome face.
He had his father’s blue eyes and dark blond hair, and none of his corpulence. She shoved the uncharitable thought aside and extended her hands.
He reached her first and lifted her, planting a kiss on her forehead, with all the exuberance of the six-year-old she’d taken into her heart.
Laughing, she told him to put her down.
“Why ever are you answering your own door?”
Here comes the scold. Having reached his majority and taken over the responsibility of the estate, the dear lad had begun trying to manage her. That was but one of the reasons she’d left Twisden Manor.
“Where is the footman? We need him to fetch in our trunks.”
We?
Looking past the broad shoulder she saw another figure approaching and…
Good God. Heat swamped her and flamed in her cheeks. Dark eyes shot darts at her over a grimly set, thin-lipped mouth. The palpable sternness of Wes’s companion sent a shiver of awareness through her. It was a familiar shiver, one she’d indulged during her tedious days at Twisden Manor when she’d found herself fighting off mad imaginings.
Wes’s laughter shook her tongue loose. “My goodness, sir,” she said. “You bear an uncanny resemblance to—”
“Old Ebenezer Twisden,” Wes said. “Yes, it is as if the old Warden has come back to life, Mother. As soon as I laid eyes on him in Brampton, I knew he must be a relation. And do you know who he is, Mother?” He laughed again. “I’ve written to Granny to tell her. She’ll be in alt when she reads the news.”
A man of perhaps forty, he was about the same age as Wes’s ancestor, the Warden in the painting at Twisden Hall who’d been in the King’s service for many years when that portrait was done. This new incarnation of Ebenezer wasn’t a particularly tall man, not as tall as Wes, but he still towered over her.
Old Ebenezer cleared his throat.
“But of course,” Wes said. “Where are my manners? Mother, may I present my cousin, Major Augustus Kellborn. Gus, this is my dear stepmother, Lady Twisden.”
While she curtsied, managing not to wobble, he dipped his head, never taking his gaze away.
Good holy heavens.
“We had a good meal at the last inn stop,” Wes said, “but a cup of tea and a few biscuits wouldn’t go amiss while the servants ready our rooms.”
“Your rooms.” She blinked. Wes expected her to take in him and this handsome cousin who made her skin tingle but... There is no way. This was her home. It was true that Wes had stepped in and helped her with the estate agent when he fussed about leasing the house to a widow living alone, but she’d made it clear to Wes that she paid the rent. He knew, too, that she wanted…needed some time away. She’d explained all that when she concocted this plan to spend the season in York.
Sighing, she led them into the drawing room. “I fear I have no spirits to offer you, but I can bring up some of my elderberry wine, or if you have a flask, you must feel free to imbibe. Make yourself comfortable and I shall return directly.”
Fleeing the parlor, she paused on the backstairs, pressing a hand to her pounding heart. Augustus Kellborn was the stuff of every naughty dream she’d entertained about Ebenezer Twisden. Attired in his flowing dark wig, long coat, breeches and high boots, Ebenezer Twisden had pinned his gaze on her through countless dinners with Sir Melton and his endless stream of tiresome, rowdy guests. Long ago, Ebenezer had served one of the Border Wardens, rounding up rievers and imposing the Crown’s law. Family legend said he was a fierce and brutal warrior. One could see it in his eyes.
She had, at first, been intimidated by Ebenezer’s image, and then intrigued, and then she’d begun imagining the virile fighter stepping out of the painting and shoving his sword into Jeremiah Ripton’s belly. Repeatedly.
One could see a similar strength of will in Major Kellborn, and she knew of his heroism from tales told by her mother-in-law.
What a ninny she’d been, and what a ninny she was being now. She’d give the men tea and the names of the best inns in York. Cousin to her late husband though he may be, Major Ebenezer could not give her household of women countenance, and she’d rather he took his skin-tingling, heart-hammering, cheek-heating virile male presence elsewhere. It would be harder to turn Wes away, but she must at least try.