Chapter Fourteen

Fourteen

Stella departed Sutton Park at daybreak the following morning. Lady Arundell and Anne drove her as far as the station, where they saw her safely onto the train.

Lady Arundell sent a manservant to accompany Stella on the journey. An unmarried young lady couldn’t travel alone, certainly not as great a distance as from Hampshire to Derbyshire, and not with having to change trains not once but twice. Anne had suggested that she and her mother go themselves, but Stella had declined the offer. It was miles out of their way, and she was tired of putting everyone to inconvenience on her behalf.

“A manservant is quite generous enough, thank you,” she’d said. “Besides, no one is likely to meddle with a gray-haired lady.”

“You must take care all the same,” Anne had replied, giving her one last hug and kiss goodbye. “You never know what desperate characters you might meet in a railway car.”

Desperate, indeed.

Stella’s sense of impending doom swelled greater as the train bore her ever closer to home. This, at last, was the end of her adventures. There would be no more seasons. No more chances for romance.

No more Teddy.

Her thoughts drifted to him with increasing frequency as the train rattled down the track, carrying her further and further away from their brief week’s idyll in Hampshire. It began to seem so much a dream.

Good heavens, but she’d kissed him!

Or rather, he’d kissed her.

The sweet, pulse-fluttering memory of it was sufficient to occupy her thoughts for the first hundred miles of her journey. She wondered whether it was better to have been kissed like that just once, or to have never been kissed at all. The latter, she decided morosely. At least then, she’d be ignorant of what she was missing.

But not now.

Now she would have to live on the memory of that kiss until she expired as a dried-up, dependent spinster, buried in Fostonbury churchyard, her headstone proclaiming her “Daughter of” and “Sister of,” but nothing much else at all.

It was wholly unacceptable.

She expended the next twenty miles composing alternative epitaphs for herself. “Daughter, Sister, Horsewoman, and Friend,” or “Horsewoman, Friend, and Beloved Wife of—”

Of someone.

The final miles home were spent calculating the expense of purchasing her own headstone, to have engraved in advance exactly as she chose. Was it morbid to invest in one so soon? Would she stir even more gossip among the villagers?

“I am the desperate character,” she murmured to herself as she stared out the window, lost in her own gloomy thoughts.

She arrived at Fairhook Station later that evening, cold and tired, as the sun was sinking beneath the snow-covered Derbyshire peaks. It was the nearest stop to Fostonbury. Stella’s village was too small and insignificant to have a platform halt of its own. Normally, on returning from town, she and her brother hired a cab to take them home. Tonight, however, on descending the platform, she found Squire Smalljoy’s carriage waiting for her.

Stella stared at it in the light of the gas lamps that flanked the station. Never before had the squire offered the courtesy of his conveyance—not to Stella or to her brother—as far as she was aware. The significance of the gesture was unmistakable.

As death knells for her future went, it was as resounding as the clang of steel in a locomotive collision.

“The squire sent us to collect you,” the footman said, taking Stella’s bags from Lady Arundell’s manservant. “With your brother’s permission.”

“I see,” Stella said.

Drat Daniel and his matchmaking!

Under other circumstances, she would have mustered the fortitude to refuse the offer. But it was freezing out, and the chance of finding a cart to drive her to Fostonbury seemed unlikely at this hour.

She looked to Lady Arundell’s manservant. Her ladyship had instructed him to see Stella all the way to her door. “If you’ll join us?” Stella said. “You may like something to eat at the vicarage, and perhaps a bed for the night, before you resume your journey.”

“I shan’t need a bed, miss,” he said. “But a cup of tea wouldn’t be amiss.”

“You can ride outside with me, sir,” Squire Smalljoy’s footman said as he carried Stella’s bags to the carriage.

Stella grudgingly followed. She permitted the footman to hand her up into the coach.

The coachman called out to the team of chestnuts, sending the coach surging forward with a shudder. Given the snowfall on the roads, it took a good half hour to arrive at the gates of the vicarage. A swirl of smoke coiled from the modest dwelling’s crooked stone chimney, alerting her to Daniel’s presence. He was doubtless awaiting her in his book room, armed with a stern lecture regarding the dangers of women indulging in pleasure jaunts instead of adhering to familial duty.

Stella wasn’t eager to hear it. Her heart was yearning for Locket. Disembarking from the carriage, she paused only long enough to direct Lady Arundell’s manservant to the vicarage before making her way to the stable.

It was a humble structure made of green-painted wood. Locket stood inside, safe within the confines of her loose-box, bedded down for the night on a thick layer of straw. The flighty mare shifted anxiously on her hooves, uttering a shrill whinny of greeting as Stella approached.

“There’s my wild girl,” Stella murmured. Stripping off her gloves, she caught the mare’s elegant head in her hands, holding it gently as she pressed a kiss to her velvety, dark gray nose. “Have you missed me dreadfully?”

Locket snuffled in reply, emitting warm, hay-sweet puffs of breath against Stella’s cheek.

Stella inhaled deeply. Her world tipped back into place, righting itself on its axis. Everything else fell away, leaving her calm and composed, and once again her familiar, capable self. Good heavens, had she really been composing her own epitaph earlier? This was what came of being separated from Locket for any length of time.

“I’ve missed you, too,” she said. “But I’m back now. I shan’t leave you again for a long while. Not if I can help it.”

Turvey emerged from the feed room with a bucket of mash. An unflappable older man with a shock of white hair, he’d been Locket’s groom since Stella had purchased her, and could be relied on to remain steady when the temperamental mare was at her worst.

“Welcome home, miss,” he said.

“I’m happy to be home, Turvey. How has she been keeping? Not giving you too much trouble, I hope.”

“She’s much herself.” Turvey let himself into the loosebox. He set down the bucket in the corner. Locket wasted no time in abandoning Stella in favor of the hot mash.

“She looks in fine trim.”

“Aye. She’s eating well enough, though there’s been less sugar in her diet with you away.”

Stella smiled. “I shall soon remedy that.”

Locket loved lumps of sugar. Stella kept them in the pocket of her habit so she could give them to the mare while she was on her back as a reward for good behavior. Locket was adept at bending her neck to retrieve them from Stella’s outstretched hand.

“She was off a hair on her left front Christmas morning,” Turvey said, exiting the loosebox.

“Was she?” Stella eyed her mare with concern. Locket sometimes strained her legs after indiscriminate running and jumping in her paddock. Stella was accustomed to treating such strains herself, massaging the mare’s legs and rubbing them down with liniment. “Did you—?”

“Aye,” Turvey said, answering the question before she’d asked it. “I rubbed her legs down morning and evening. She was well recovered by the next day.”

“I’ll rub them down again before I retire,” Stella said. “Just as a precaution.”

With one last fond glance at her mare, and a few final words with Turvey, Stella took her leave.

Their housekeeper, Mrs. Waltham, awaited her at the front door of the vicarage. “Your brother has been asking after you every five minutes. I told him you’d have gone to the stable first.”

Stella divested herself of her bonnet and cloak. She handed them to the housekeeper along with her gloves. “Is he in his book room?”

“Yes, miss.”

“And Lady Arundell’s manservant? I trust he found his way to the kitchen.”

“Cook has given him tea and biscuits, and the squire’s coachman has promised to run him back to Fairhook directly after he’s refreshed himself.” Mrs. Waltham followed Stella down the hall. “Shall I bring a pot of tea in for you, miss? And some bread and butter?”

“That would be lovely,” Stella said. She smoothed her wool traveling dress before going to her brother.

The book room was Daniel’s private domain. He spent hours inside alone, working on his treatise. Stella had often assisted him there, head bent over the small secretary desk in the corner, silently transcribing his dour words on the subject of original sin as he pontificated from in front of the fire.

He was there now, seated in his favorite armchair, in the half circle of dwindling firelight. A threadbare banyan worn over his plain shirt and trousers was his only concession to comfort.

Stella quietly entered, shutting the door softly behind her.

Daniel glanced up from his book with a perturbed frown. With his prematurely balding pate and his severe expression, he bore no resemblance to Stella, except for a slight similarity about the eyes. In every other respect, they differed. Where her hair was gray, Daniel’s was brown. Where her lips were soft, his were thin. And where her figure was robust from exercise, his was hollow from self-imposed deprivation.

He looked far older than his thirty years. Stella blamed herself. He’d had the charge of her from too young an age. It was a burden he hadn’t wanted. One that had served to alter both his appearance and his disposition.

“I expected you this afternoon,” he said, rising.

“I sent you a wire.” She crossed the room to press a swift kiss to his cheek in greeting. “You must have received it, else Squire Smalljoy’s carriage wouldn’t have been waiting for me at the station.”

“The squire was generous enough to offer it.”

“You shouldn’t have accepted. I don’t wish to be under an obligation to the man.”

“Why shouldn’t I accept? Squire Smalljoy is a decent, God-fearing gentleman. If he professes an interest in you, I won’t discourage him.”

“Rather the opposite, it seems.” Stella’s words held an unmistakable note of reproach.

The squire’s estate, Castaway Green, was fewer than five miles from the vicarage. He’d lived there for as long as Stella could remember, both while married to his late wife and during his subsequent years as a widower. But it had been only recently that Daniel had begun inviting the man to dine with them—an occurrence that had directly coincided with Stella’s return from her first failed season in London. It promised to be worse now that she had another failed season to her name. She was dreading the prospect.

“May I remind you that the man is nearly sixty?” she said. “He has three grown daughters older than me.”

Daniel’s lips flattened with displeasure. “You’ve no business being so particular. After all the time and money that’s been wasted these two years in your efforts to obtain a husband, the least you can do is show a pleasing face to the one remaining man who’ll have you.”

Stella’s chest tightened with anger and—she loathed to admit to herself—no little hurt. She wasn’t an antidote, for goodness’ sake. Teddy had called her beautiful. A shining star. And Stella had the sketch that proved the truth of his words. She wouldn’t allow her brother, or anyone, to diminish her.

“That’s unfair,” she said. “As well as being unkind.”

“Is it unkind to encourage you to face your future? The sooner you—”

“I’m exhausted, Daniel. Let’s not quarrel.” She sank down in the worn chintz chair across from his. “All I desire is a cup of tea and my bed.”

Daniel resumed his seat. “Of course, all this tiresomeness could have been avoided if you’d only had the sense to remain in London with me for Christmas. Instead, you must traverse the country, putting coachmen and servants to as great an inconvenience as you put myself and Miss Trent.”

At last, Stella thought. The estimable Miss Trent. The true reason for her brother’s uncommon irritation.

“If you’d had the generosity of spirit to remain in town, Miss Trent and her mother might have stayed with us,” he said. “We could have shared all our meals together, and spent companionable hours discussing my treatise.”

In short, they would have spent all their time together—morning, noon, and evening. It would have been a sure recipe for romance between Daniel and Miss Trent.

Stella didn’t regret her role in preventing such intimacy. Better that Miss Trent and her mother had returned to Exeter for Christmas than that they’d remained in town to engineer an engagement.

“A great pity, yes,” Stella said. “But I promised Lady Anne I would attend Lord March’s house party. And thank heaven I was there. Lady Anne and Mr. Hartford became engaged on the first night. It was a great cause for celebration.”

Daniel’s brows elevated with evident skepticism. He didn’t approve of Stella’s friends. “Lady Anne is engaged to be married?”

“She and Mr. Hartford plan to wed at St. George’s in the spring. I’ve said I’ll attend.”

“You were foolish to tell her so. We’ve only just returned from town. I’ll not be traveling back again for any reason.”

“But the circumstances are exceptional, you must agree. I’m to be a bridesmaid.”

He shook his head. “Impossible. I’ve already overburdened my curate once too often. He’s a capable fellow, but he didn’t come to Fostonbury to take over the entirety of my parish duties. He’s depending on me to resume my work with no more interruptions. I can’t be escorting you to town at your every whim.”

“I shall go alone, then,” Stella said. “I shall take the train.”

It was a bluff. She’d never traveled alone in her life.

Daniel snorted. “And make yourself infamous in the process? You’ll do nothing of the sort. Miss Trent has already remarked unfavorably on your propensity for flitting about the country with your questionable female friends. I’ll not have her sensibilities outraged any further. You bring both your name and mine into disrepute.”

Stella stifled a caustic reply. Would the specter of Miss Trent never cease plaguing her? “Even if that was true, I don’t see what it has to do with Miss Trent. She isn’t any relation of mine. She is nothing to me.”

Daniel’s face darkened. “She is the most estimable young lady of my acquaintance! You will show her the respect she deserves.”

A sinking suspicion took root in Stella’s heart. “Did you see her in London while I was gone?”

“I did.”

“I thought she and her mother were returning home?”

“They had planned it so, but when it came to the point, Mrs. Trent found herself unequal to the journey. She took rooms for herself and her daughter at the Bell and Crown. Less convivial surroundings at Christmas cannot be imagined.”

Stella began to anticipate the worst. “You called on them there?”

“Daily,” he said. “And dined with them. Indeed, we were blessed to share Christmas dinner in one of the inn’s private parlors. It was there I made the discovery that your absence wasn’t as much a detriment as I’d anticipated. On the contrary, according to Miss Trent, your presence has so far constrained her.”

Stella stared at her brother with a mixture of incredulity and indignation. She’d never once said anything to quell the sanctimonious Miss Trent’s unending stream of humble boasts and helpful advice. Stella doubted she could have silenced the woman if she’d tried. “Whatever is that meant to mean?”

“Miss Trent spoke more warmly, and more freely, than she had during our previous meetings,” Daniel said. “It was owing to your absence. She told me so herself.”

Did she, by heaven. The sly creature!

Stella understood at once that she’d made a grievous error in judgment. In all her scheming to thwart her brother’s matrimonial plans, she’d never considered that Miss Trent might use Stella’s absence to her advantage.

“I confess, the minds of women are a mystery to me,” Daniel went on. “One would think she would be at greater liberty with you present to assure her virtue. But I’m in no position to complain.” His mouth curved in a complacent smile. “Taking into account Miss Trent’s encouragement, and my own feelings on the state of matrimony, not to mention that of the villagers and my congregation, I felt the moment ripe to make Miss Trent an offer of marriage.”

Given the turn of the conversation, Stella had half expected the news. She still felt a chill in her veins to hear it confirmed.

“You proposed to her,” she said flatly. “I assume she said yes?”

Daniel’s chest puffed with pride. “She did me the very great honor of accepting me, yes.”

The hourglass of Stella’s fate turned over with a resounding thump.

So much for thwarting his matrimonial plans. It seemed that, for all her efforts, all she’d done was accelerate her brother’s speed to the altar.

She began to wish that, on returning from the stable, she’d gone straight to bed. She would require a good night’s sleep, and a good gallop on Locket, before she’d be in any frame of mind to sort out what she was going to do next. For she’d have to do something. That much was clear.

The door to the book room creaked open. Mrs. Waltham entered with a small tray bearing Stella’s tea and toast. “Here you are, miss.” She placed the tray on the low table between Stella and Daniel. “I’ve had Polly turn down your bed, and put a hot water bottle in. It will be nice and warm for you when you retire.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Waltham,” Stella said. “You’re too good.”

“Will you be requiring anything else, miss?” Mrs. Waltham looked to Daniel. “Sir?”

“That will be all, Mrs. Waltham,” Daniel said.

The housekeeper withdrew, closing the door behind her.

“We will have many things to address in the coming months,” Daniel said as Stella poured her tea. “There’s the calling of the banns, and the question of what’s to be done about our living arrangements.”

“Miss Trent aspires to somewhere grander than the vicarage?”

“Don’t be flippant. We will live here, naturally. Miss Trent assures me that a small village is exactly to her taste. She does, however, desire to gain some familiarity with Fostonbury—and with the running of the household—before the ceremony. She suggested a visit.”

“Did she.” Stella took a sip of tea. It was plain, sturdy English tea. Nothing to compare with the Darjeeling she and Teddy had shared in Hampshire.

She wondered if he’d reached Devon already. If he was there now, firmly ensconced in Captain Thornhill’s cliffside estate, sitting at the window and sketching the sea, all thoughts of painting Stella forgotten.

The prospect left a sour taste in her mouth.

Daniel helped himself to Stella’s toast. He bit into it with a dry crunch, scattering a spray of crumbs over his banyan. “Rather than her and her mother lodging somewhere in the village, I thought it prudent to invite them to join us as honored guests at the vicarage.”

Stella’s teacup froze halfway to her mouth. Surely, she’d misheard. “Miss Trent and her mother are to stay here ?”

Daniel withdrew his handkerchief from his pocket and used it to dust the crumbs from his chest. “There’s nothing objectionable in it. They might be guests of yours for all anyone knows. Friends you’ve invited to stay the month.”

“ A month! ” Stella was aghast.

“I expect her and her mother to arrive in a fortnight, with plans to stay through Valentine’s Day at the very least.”

“That’s more than a month, Daniel.”

“The length of her visit isn’t at issue. If we can contrive it, I expect Miss Trent and I will marry during her stay, and then she will remain here permanently.”

Stella’s already plummeting spirits sunk still further. The situation was rapidly spinning out of her control. She sensed there was precious little she could do to stop it. “She can’t marry you while staying in the same house,” she pointed out in a last feeble attempt at preventing this debacle. “Think of the talk it would generate.”

“If necessary, I will take a room in the village while the banns are called.” Daniel brushed the remaining crumbs from his hands. “By the by, Mrs. Waltham’s words about the hot water bottle have reminded me. Perhaps you might give Miss Trent and her mother your room while they’re here? It’s less prone to dampness at this time of year.”

“The very reason I chose it,” Stella said tightly.

“Quite,” he agreed. “And you have the better view of the church. Miss Trent will appreciate it more than you do.”

With an effort, Stella resumed drinking her tea. “Where am I to sleep while she’s here? The airing cupboard?”

“You can have the box room,” he said.

The box room was no bedroom at all. More of a storage closet, its narrow bed with its sagging mattress was presently covered in old linens, dusty clothing, and other donated items waiting to be sorted for distribution to the poor. It was a room that baked hot as Hades in the summer and froze as cold as an arctic glacier in the winter. A place in which it was impossible to be comfortable for more than ten minutes at a time.

But Stella knew better than to argue. The house was Daniel’s. It was he who had the living. He who employed the servants and paid for the food, the coal, and the candles. She could never afford any of those things herself, not with Locket to provide for and Turvey’s wages to pay.

“Very well,” she said. “Far be it from me to be thought ungracious.”

It was only for six weeks. After that, Miss Trent would be Mrs. Hobhouse and could safely remove herself to Daniel’s bedchamber. Unless, of course, she was one of those married ladies who demanded a separate room from her husband. In which case, Stella presumed she would be relegated to the box room indefinitely.

Daniel tucked his handkerchief back into his pocket. “We must take care to present the vicarage in a favorable light,” he said. “We shall have a formal dinner to welcome her and her mother. You must arrange it. And you must invite Squire Smalljoy.”

The devil she would.

“Is it wise to offer him so much encouragement?” Stella asked. “We both know I’ve no desire to wed the man.”

“He’s not proposed to you yet.”

“No, thank goodness. But you’ve planted the ridiculous notion in his head, and now he seems to think himself as good as my suitor. Never mind that he’s already a grandfather ten times over.”

Daniel’s face settled into its familiar lines of priggish superiority. “The age disparity between the two of you has much to recommend it. To be sure, an older gentleman will suit your impetuous nature better than a young one. You require someone to take you in hand. I’ve often said so.”

“I’ve often heard you.” Setting aside her cup with a clatter, Stella rose from her chair. She had no more stomach for tea, or for her brother’s conversation. “Forgive me, I’m tired.”

Daniel stood, following her to the door of the book room. “I’m aware you don’t find the squire a romantic enough figure for your tastes, but I ask you to give the man a fair hearing. You may yet discover that being his wife is preferable to remaining as you are.”

A burden, he meant. An unruly charge on her friends and relations.

Was marriage to an old, overbearing squire preferable to that? Despite her misgivings about her future, Stella didn’t think so.

“I shall be civil to him,” she said.

But nothing more than civil , she added privately.

Her brother may be disposed to encourage the squire’s attention, but when the man next came to dine, Stella had every intention of doing the opposite.