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She leant forwards and lowered her voice to a purr. ‘You must understand that our new doctor, the curate and the butcher need wives.’
‘You have forgotten the baker and the candlestick maker,’ Robert remarked drily.
‘No, the baker is happily mar—’ She stopped and her cheeks turned a deep rose before she gave a small curtsy. ‘I suppose you think the play on the rhyme amusing. And I tumbled straight into it.’
‘I rest my case. Matchmaking consumes you and, if you allow it, it will ruin you.’
She flicked her tongue over her mouth, turning her lips a cherry-ripe red. ‘Define matchmaking.’
‘Aiding, assisting or otherwise seeking the advancement of marriage,’ he said without hesitation.
‘I have other passions. It is merely a pleasant pastime, helping others out. They have a right to their chance of happiness. After all, I had mine, even though it was cut short.’ Lady Thorndike examined a bit of lace on her glove, hiding her face as she always did when she spoke about her late husband. ‘And if anyone objected, I’ve never insisted. You, for example, have made it perfectly clear that you wish to choose your own partner.’
‘If you ever tried to manipulate my private life, Lady Thorndike, it would be the end of our friendship.’
‘I know the limits.’
She stared at him defiantly, her pointed chin raised in the air and her glossy black hair quivering with indignation. Robert returned her gaze with a steady one of his own. Clearly she had chosen to forget the first ball he attended in the neighbourhood, when she had attempted to pair him off with the new Mrs Crozier.
‘All I can say is the late Sir Edmund Thorndike must have been a paragon of virtue and forbearance.’ He held up his hand, stopping her outraged squeak. Someone had to save her and everyone else from her capricious nature. One day her little schemes would ruin some innocent. ‘But we are not speaking about the past, Lady Thorndike, but the present. You are singularly unable to resist meddling in the matrimonial affairs of others. It is becoming worse by the day.’
‘I can stop any time I want,’ Henrietta replied, her face taking on a mutinous expression as she crossed her arms over her full bosom, highlighting rather than detracting from her curves.
‘Prove it.’
‘Are you seriously suggesting that the new Mrs Crozier would be better off if she remained a spinster, trimming hats and living on tea and snippets of hot buttered toast?’ Two bright spots appeared on Lady Thorndike’s cheeks and her eyes blazed sapphire. ‘She has a bright future with a husband who loves her and a more-than-respectable income.’
Robert made an irritated noise. The new Mrs Crozier’s figure proclaimed that she lived on far more than snippets of toast. ‘Anyone with a half a brain could have seen the way the wind blew when Crozier took to visiting Miss Brown on the pretext of picking up his great-aunt’s hats. You may have succeeded this time, but the next…You run the risk of destroying some innocent’s future.’
‘What are you suggesting, Mr Montemorcy?’ Her carefully arranged curls shook with anger. ‘I enjoy helping people. People need me. And this wedding breakfast will not run itself.’
At last. She’d walked straight into his trap—the reason he’d come to the wedding breakfast and engaged her in a battle of wills to begin with. ‘I am suggesting a wager to demonstrate that you are addicted to arranging others’ love lives and you have no sense of discipline in these matters.’ He watched her bridle at the words. He wondered if she knew how desirable she appeared when she was angry. Desirable but very much off limits, and Robert never mixed pleasures of the flesh with his social duty. It caused complications. ‘Unless you wish to admit defeat here and now?’
Her even white teeth worried her bottom lip. ‘You make it sound like I have no self-control.’
‘In recent months, you have lost whatever self-control you had in this matter.’ Robert leant forwards, wondering how far he dared push her. But Lady Thorndike had to agree to the wager. Without it, his entire scheme for protecting his ward would fall at the first hurdle.
‘What time frame do you suggest?’ She smoothed the deep mauve of her gown and Robert knew he had won. She’d been unable to resist the temptation and had taken the bait. ‘A wager is no good if it goes on indefinitely.’
‘Until Lady Winship’s ball in a month’s time,’ he replied.
‘A month? I don’t know whether to be flattered or amused that you do not think I can last a month. There are many other things in my life—visiting the sick, gardening and even doing needlework if I must.’
‘A month will be enough to prove my point.’
‘I will be delighted to prove you wrong.’ Henrietta tapped her fan against his arm. ‘And when I do, you will have to allow me to host a picnic at the excavations. And for added sweetness, the merest of trifles—you will dance a polka with me at the ball.’
Robert pressed his lips together—how had this happened? Despite all his precautions, Lady Thorndike had defined unacceptable terms. ‘I don’t dance.’
‘I know. Everyone in the Tyne Valley knows.’ She raised up on her toes and her eyes became the colour of a Northumbrian summer’s morning. ‘You avoided the dancing classes I set up for the village, pleading pressures of work. We were several men short. Even old Mr Everley came despite his aches and pains. The entire village’s standard of dancing has been improved. All except yours.’
‘It is good to know fewer bruised toes will happen at the ball thanks to your valiant efforts.’
‘Your dancing will be a public declaration that I’m correct and you utterly misjudged the situation.’ Her eyes took on a wicked glint. ‘You are lucky that I am not insisting on you joining the next class.’
‘And don’t you want to know your forfeit, the consequences of failure?’
She gave a little deprecating laugh and he knew he had trapped her. Henrietta Thorndike’s overweening confidence would be her undoing. He’d give her two days, a week at most, before she succumbed to temptation. But with the forfeit he had in mind, either way, his ward’s reputation would be safe. ‘I’m going to win, but what do you want, Mr Montemorcy, if I display a woeful lack of self-control?’
Robert forced his voice to be restrained, soothing. ‘If you fail to do this, for the next six months you will have to announce whenever you arrive at a social gathering that you are a habitual matchmaker. You will also give up organising any social event for the period.’
The colour drained from her face. ‘And what will I be doing with myself? I like to keep busy!’
‘You can read my research and learn how the scientific method works and why it is appropriate for the excavation site.’
Lady Thorndike opened and closed her mouth several times. A flash of hurt crossed her features. Robert hardened his heart. Lady Thorndike needed to learn this lesson before she did serious damage to someone’s reputation.
‘Would you like me to wear a sign about my neck as well?’ she asked, arching a brow. ‘Just so that everyone knows? Matchmaking is something that is done with a subtle hand, Mr Montemorcy. If I declare my intention, all my schemes will be ruined.’
‘That is rather the point, Lady Thorndike. You need to allow people to fall in love naturally and to attend social gatherings in the village without fear. Other people should have the opportunity to organise the events. How hard can it be?’
Henri raised her brows again, this time in amused disbelief—clearly Robert Montemorcy had no idea how hard organising social events could be! Suddenly she started to feel much more positive about the outcome of their wager. ‘Would you like me to set this wager to paper, Mr Montemorcy?’
‘If you wish. I’m quite happy to wager my dancing shoes against your declaration.’
‘Make sure you attend the ball with your dancing slippers on.’ Her eyes gleamed with mischief; she clapped her hands. ‘And I shall invite you to my first picnic at the excavation. It will be a treasure hunt to end all treasure hunts.’
‘You will lose, Lady Thorndike. I know you. The first time you see an opportunity you will have to grab it.’
Her deep blue eyes searched his face. ‘Is there any particular reason why you have made this wager?’
Robert caught his upper lip between his teeth and briefly contemplated confiding in Lady Thorndike about his ward and her disastrous experience at the Queen Charlotte’s ball, but decided that Lady Thorndike would be unable to resist offering unhelpful advice or spreading the news in an attempt to be helpful. Sophie had gone through enough without having to face that. No, until her enthusiasm for matchmaking was curbed, Lady Thorndike was positively dangerous and had to be held at arm’s length.
‘Your behaviour recently makes it necessary,’ he said finally.
‘I will not bother to answer that.’ Lady Thorndike lifted her chin in the air, not quite disguising another flash of hurt in her eyes. ‘Melanie has started to cut the cake and if she keeps sawing at it like that, the cake will crumble and nobody will get anything. I promised the vicar’s daughters that they would each have a piece to put under their pillows so that they may dream of their future bridegrooms. Melanie agreed with me that it was a splendid notion.’
‘Do you wish to end the wager already? No shame on either side.’
‘Hah, you think too little of me.’ Her dark blue eyes flashed defiantly. ‘Remember, Mr Montemorcy. Practise your polka. I require a certain standard in my dancing partners.’
Chapter Two
Her wager with Robert Montemorcy was child’s play, Henri reflected, slightly swinging the empty basket as she walked towards the circulating library several days after the wedding. All she had had to do was to become occupied with other things: visiting the various invalids in the parish with jars of calf’s-foot jelly that was made to her mother’s exacting receipt, making lists of things that needed to be accomplished before the ball, as well as events that would have to be held after the ball, deadheading the daffodils in the garden…She hadn’t even had to resort to the dreaded needlework.
Robert Montemorcy was entirely wrong about her. She did have other passions in her life. It was simply that matchmaking was the most interesting. It brought the chance of happiness to so many people.
‘Lady Thorndike, Lady Thorndike!’ Miss Armstrong gave a wave from outside the haberdasher’s. ‘Have you heard?’
Henri composed her features and carefully avoided stepping on a crack in the pavement. ‘Heard what?’
‘Robert Montemorcy is going to be married! We’d all considered him to be your property, so it must come as a great blow.’ Miss Armstrong adopted a falsely contrite face as the silk flowers inside the rim of her poke bonnet trembled with suppressed excitement. ‘I know I shouldn’t be spreading gossip but…I wanted to offer my condolences.’
Henri’s stomach plummeted and she tightened her grip on her basket. ‘Mr Montemorcy has never shown me any special favour, Miss Armstrong.’ Hortense Armstrong was notorious for getting gossip ever so slightly wrong. Robert Montemorcy wouldn’t do that without. without letting her know. Besides, he was far from being her property. They simply enjoyed pleasant conversations. ‘How did you come by this intelligence?’
‘Miss Nevin had it from her maid of all work who is best friends with the doctor’s cook who steps out with the footman at the New Lodge.’
Henri breathed easier. Servants. There would be some truth to the rumour, but it would have been twisted and contorted even before it reached Miss Armstrong. And Montemorcy’s admonition rang in her head. He wanted her to keep out of his private life. Was this the reason? An unknown visitor? An unknown visitor that did enjoy his special favour?
‘Speculation never did anyone any good,’ she choked out.
‘The entire household is in an uproar. The lady in question, a Miss Sophie Ravel, arrived from London with her stepmother yesterday. You never saw the boxes and trunks. Even a pagoda-shaped birdcage with a canary. Like a…well…a pagoda—you know, one of those Chinese, foreign things. Two carts from the station, or so I heard. Miss Ravel was supposed to be the Diamond of the Season, but she has forsaken all for love.’ Miss Armstrong gave a fluttering sigh and Henri found herself wanting to strangle her with a fierceness that was alarming.
‘Two carts do not a marriage make.’
A frown developed between Miss Armstrong’s brows. ‘I’ve never heard that saying before.’
‘Haven’t you?’ Henri smiled, and gave her basket a little swing. ‘I think it is a good one. It is one of my own.’
‘I imagine there will be a huge wedding. It will make the Croziers’ wedding look quite countrified and provincial.’
‘It is intriguing what servants hear…or don’t hear.’
Miss Armstrong’s face became positively unctuous, oozing with rumour and innuendo. ‘Of course, the new Mrs Montemorcy will be expected to take her part in leading society. You will not have it all your own way any more, Lady Thorndike. The new Mrs Montemorcy might even agree with me about the necessity of having garlands at Lady Winship’s ball.’
Henri gave Miss Armstrong a stern look. The conversation was fast becoming insupportable and beyond the bounds of propriety. She refused to think about any sort of wife that Montemorcy might take. She forced her breathing to be calm, even as a great hole opened up inside her. Robert Montemorcy couldn’t marry. It would change everything.
Miss Armstrong’s rosy cheeks became a slightly brighter hue. ‘That is to say, Lady Thorndike, I hope the rumours are wrong. I merely sought to inform you so that you could make a reasoned judgement and not faint at any gathering.’
‘Such considerations have never troubled me, Miss Armstrong. I never faint.’ Henri put a hand to her chest and adopted her ‘woman of sorrow’ expression. It had held her in good stead for ten years whenever the prickly subject of remarriage was brought up. ‘After all, a woman can only ask for one chance of happiness. And my dear sweet Edmund was gentle perfection. He never said a cross word or argued with me. He was quite simply irreplaceable.’
‘You have always struck me as someone who enjoyed a good argument, Lady Thorndike. I fear I was mistaken.’
‘Obviously.’ Maintaining all the poise she could muster, Henri swept away from the infuriating woman.
As she entered the coolness of the circulating library, Henri stood for a moment and allowed the scent of leatherbound books and dust to fill her nostrils. There was something wonderfully calming about a library. Visiting one always restored her mood. And right now she needed to piece together the various bits of news and discover the truth. Robert Montemorcy had an unmarried female visitor—that much was clear from Miss Armstrong’s testimony. But the precise nature and reason for the visit was shrouded in mystery. And she hated mysteries of this nature.
She hated the small spiral of jealousy that encircled her insides. Hated to think about him verbally sparring with this unknown woman. Would they wager as well? She clenched her fists and counted to ten.
Suddenly, down one of the aisles she spied a pair of broad shoulders encased in a form-fitting frock-coat: Robert Montemorcy. Who should have been at his desk in Newcastle, pontificating about the scientific method to his managers, or attending to his new guest, rather than causing innocent people’s pulse to race and lose all power in their legs. Henri turned on her heel and started to tiptoe down the next aisle. Blindly she picked up a book and pretended to be reading.
She struggled to breathe and wished her corset was a smidgeon looser. It hurt far more than she thought that Robert Montemorcy had not bothered to confide in her, and the reason for the wager was now transparent. He was going to marry this unknown, and did not want anyone else encouraged to take an interest. But why the subterfuge—why hadn’t he just told her? It was not as if she held any claim on him. She had thought they were friends. She could keep a secret and she wouldn’t have interfered…beyond introducing the woman to society. She knew what it was like to be new and friendless.
‘Lady Thorndike? Is something wrong?’ Robert Montemorcy asked with a concerned note in his voice. ‘You failed to acknowledge my wave. It is most unlike you. Preoccupied, yes, but never rude.’
‘Go away. I’m reading.’ Henri buried her nose deeper in the book and tried to ignore the way he towered over her. She wasn’t attracted to him in the way Miss Armstrong suggested. Attraction was a gentle comfortable thing such as she had felt for Edmund. Robert Montemorcy always made her feel unsettled and determined.
‘You will find it more edifying if you attempt to read right-side up, Lady Thorndike.’ Strong fingers took the book from her unresisting ones. ‘Allow me to assist.’
Henri’s cheeks burnt and fury swamped her senses. How many people had thought him…her property? And was he truly going to marry this Diamond of the Season? A girl in her teens would be wrong for him. There was no way on God’s green earth she could actually ask him. She had to banish all thoughts of such a thing or else…it would come out at precisely the wrong time. She squared her shoulders, forcing her mind away from Mr Montemorcy’s matrimonial prospects.
‘I wanted to look a point of information up,’ she said quickly before she blurted out her real intention of regaining her composure after The Shocking News.
‘Lady Thorndike, since when did you need to know about The Good Husbandry of Cattle on the Yorkshire Moors? Are you truly a secret bluestocking? Or is this in aid of some match that you intend to facilitate at some later date?’
‘That is not what the book is about,’ Henri said, putting a hand on her hip, trying to ignore the way his sandalwood scent enveloped her. ‘You are merely seeking to discomfort me.’
He held out the spine. Henri read the title with a sinking heart. Of all the books she could have randomly chosen, it would have to be one that she had not the slightest interest in. She hurriedly replaced the book on the shelf. ‘It simply proves why I couldn’t find what I was looking for.’
‘And here I thought you were trying to avoid me.’ The richness of his voice rolled over her in delicious waves.
‘Why would I want to do that?’
He gave a maddening shrug of his shoulders, emphasising their breadth. Henri forced her gaze upwards to his sardonic face. ‘You know better than I. A guilty conscience? How are your attempts at keeping the wager going? Finding it difficult to stop playing Cupid? I hear the curate took the vicar’s youngest daughter for a stroll after church last Sunday. Did you have a part in that?’
‘I’ve kept to the letter of our agreement, which is more than I can say for you.’ Henri gave him a stern look. How dare he insinuate that she was attempting to hide something! She had played the hand strictly according to Hoyle, not deviating at all, not even when Doctor Lumley had asked about the vicar’s eldest daughter and whether she could sew a fine seam. He, on the other hand, had cheated. Manipulated her for mysterious reasons of his own and, what was worse, she had fallen for it. ‘You attempted to deceive me. You procured our wager on an entirely false premise. It is only because I never go back on a promise that I’m even contemplating keeping it.’
He stilled and his cheeks flushed the slightest tinge of pink. ‘What gossip have you heard, Lady Thorndike?’
‘I’ve heard all about Miss Ravel’s arrival. The village buzzes with the news.’ And the impending nuptials, she thought with a pang. But she wasn’t about to stoop that low and mention them! Robert Montemorcy had to reveal the news and then she’d make some withering retort, the perfect sort of response for when one with whom one’s name has been inadvertently linked becomes engaged to another. Henri touched her little brooch that Edmund had given her for luck.
‘News travels fast. Miss Ravel and her stepmother only arrived last night. I am attempting to choose some reading material for Miss Ravel as she has a preference for popular fiction, rather than the scientific tomes that populate my library. Do you think Ivanhoe will strike the right tone? Or would she prefer the latest Fenimore Cooper?’
He was searching the stacks for reading material for the unknown Miss Ravel. Henri hated how the knowledge hurt. ‘If she likes such books, the young woman in question will have probably read Ivanhoe. And I believe Mr Crozier has the latest James Fenimore Cooper out. He might not be going to America, but he has developed a taste for adventure.’
‘You are quite right. I will have to find another selection.’ He stood there, looking at her, waiting.
‘Why didn’t you tell me that someone from London was arriving? With two carts full of trunks and bags. And a birdcage, general rumour has it.’ Henri tapped her boot against the wooden floor as the words rushed out of her.
He gave her a level look with his dark brown eyes. ‘Was it any of your business, Lady Thorndike? You would have given me a long list of things that needed to be done, people that she needed to meet and committees she needed to be on without ever having encountered Miss Ravel.’
Henri ground her teeth. Being new in a village like Corbridge was difficult. When she’d arrived, she had longed for someone to take her under their wing and provide some guidance. No one, not even her aunt, had, and she’d resolved never to allow that fate to happen to anyone else. She had organised the Corbridge Society for Hospitality, making Miss Armstrong her deputy, in part because of Miss Armstrong’s ability to learn of new arrivals first, but also to keep Miss Armstrong fully occupied. ‘Was Miss Ravel one of the reasons why you enticed me into this ridiculous wager?’
He was silent for a long heartbeat. Anger coursed through Henri. He was playing games with her. Nobody did such a thing. And it hurt all the worse that it was someone she liked and respected. She had thought he understood that she only wanted the best for people, and the fact he so offensively misunderstood her motives was deeply upsetting.
‘I won’t lie,’ he said gravely. ‘Miss Ravel’s situation did have some bearing on my request.’
‘Mr Montemorcy, you have treated me with contempt,’ Henri ground out. Her insides ached. Robert Montemorcy hadn’t trusted her enough to confide that his guests were expected up from London. He thought her so callous that she’d spread gossip or worse. And even now he kept the true reason for Miss Ravel being here hidden from her. ‘I deserved better than that.’
‘I had my reasons.’
‘And they are.?’ Henri asked in a low tone. ‘Is there anything I should know? I have no wish to make any more mistakes.’
‘That is Miss Ravel’s business and not mine to tell.’ A muscle jumped in his jaw and his face appeared more remote than ever. ‘I will not have her become the subject of common gossip. I made her late father a promise and I intend to keep it.’
Henri took a step backwards and felt the books dig into her back. Her throat became dry. He had given Miss Ravel’s father a deathbed promise. She’d rather thought her life was going to go on an even keel, but suddenly it was all change. She’d mistaken everything. Her blood fizzled. ‘And you don’t trust me with the truth. What are you afraid of, Montemorcy? What did you think I’d do? Shout the news from the top of the church steeple that you were about to be betrothed?’
‘Miss Ravel is the daughter of an old and dear friend, Lady Thorndike, and my ward.’ Robert attempted to contain his anger. How dare she stand there wearing a fierce expression and the ribbons of her bonnet trembling! His private life was private. And he certainly was not serving it up for her delectation, fetching bonnet or not. If he ever became betrothed, he certainly would not be informing Henrietta Thorndike first. Asking for her advice? The thought was unconscionable. ‘Please choose your words with care.’
