Page 33 of The Lady's Companion
“But I am a liar, eh, Susan?” he murmured.
She returned his steady gaze, and thought, unaccountably, of her father. “I wonder if anyone really ever tells the truth, sir,” she said, matching his calmness.
“I am sure I would not dare,” he said enigmatically. He stood up, then reached across the table suddenly to touch her cheek. “Come with me this afternoon to choir practice, Susan,” he said, and it didn’t sound like a mere suggestion. “We’ll deliver Joel’s glove afterward and you’ll see me in action again.” He grinned. “Joel is such a war hero in this part of the Cotswolds!”
And you, sir, what are you? she asked herself as he picked up his coat from the rack and left the kitchen. And most of all, she thought as her hand went to her cheek, why do I care what the bailiff does?
Chapter Ten
“You probably think I am missish in the extreme to be mournful about no tea again with Lady Bushnell this afternoon,” she told the bailiff after he handed her into the gig, climbed in after her, and settled a blanket around them.
He spoke to the horse in Welsh, and they started in the direction of Quilling. “She’s never offered me tea, and I’ve known her more than twelve years,” he observed, amusement evident in the crinkles around his eyes. “Of course, I am not a gentleman, and never expected such attention.” He stared straight ahead at the road between the horse’s ears. “It couldn’t be that you worry too much about inconsequentials, could it, Miss Hampton?” His expression was blank, his tone neutral, and she wondered suspiciously just how much experience he had around women.
She let out an unladylike protest. “Oh, worse and worse! Now I am Miss Hampton again!” She tucked her hands under the blanket. “Perhaps I do borrow Monday’s trouble from Tuesday,” she admitted grudgingly, then hesitated until he glanced at her. “I am being bold, indeed, Mr. Wiggins, but have you ever been married? You remind me of my Aunt Louisa’s husband, rest his soul, with that placating tone that could only come from the hard usage of experience,” she accused, humor high in her voice. “I know when I am being condescended to.”
He chuckled and made himself more comfortable as he overlapped into her space on the narrow seat. “I thought you would. And the answer is yes, or sort of, I suppose. I had a woman in Spain.”
He did not say anything for a considerable distance. “Oh,” Susan said finally. “I’m prying, aren’t I?” she asked when thesilence stretched some more.
“Not really,” he replied. “I opened the subject, I think, in a sideways kind of fashion. Sometimes I forget that you have quite excellent powers of observation, Susan.”
“Where is she?” Susan asked.
“She died giving birth to our son during the withdrawal from Burgos. We couldn’t stop for anything. Our son died, too.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said, contrite right down to her toes. “I wish I had not asked in such a flippant way.”
“No matter. It was a long time ago,” he said, his voice wistful for a moment. “Sometimes it seems to have happened to someone I hardly know anymore. But to the case in point: Jesusa didn’t speak any English, or not much, and I have discovered that women are mostly the same in any language.” The subject didn’t seem to make him sad, and she wondered at his resilience. “I learned pretty early that a bland tone in Spanish let me get away with any amount of reproof.”
“And so you reprove me about my worries?”
“A little,” he agreed, “but only a little. Are you so sure that your aunt or your father wouldn’t have exerted themselves to find you a husband, had you remained in London?”
“I have no money,” she reminded him simply. “What man would be tempted?”
He stared straight ahead again. “I cannot imagine that there was no one of your class who wouldn’t rejoice in a wife with high looks and some considerable intelligence, even if she were as poor as Job’s turkey.”
I am at least smart enough to know when I am being complimented, Susan thought, and, sir, you take my breath away. “I think that’s the nicest thing anyone ever said to me,” she told him frankly, also staring straight ahead.
“Well, then, tell me ‘thank you’ prettily,” he said, amused. “The problem is your father, then, that man you won’t write to,” hesurmised, nudging her shoulder. “I gather he is a walking debt machine and scares off sensible suitors. I remember little lords like that in Wellington’s army.”
She nodded, too embarrassed to speak, and marveled, as the village came gradually into view, at just how many emotions she could feel in such a short drive.
“Then if you can’t find a rich man with sense, you’ll have to marry a poor man, after all,” he concluded, turning the gig into the churchyard. He gestured toward the church. “And since you won’t marry me, let me introduce you to our poor and single curate.”
“Are you so determined to find me a husband?” she whispered, blushing fiercely and surprised to find herself balanced so delicately between irritation and high good humor. “And must you bring up that proposal? I thought we agreed you were impulsive and feeling sorry for me.”
“Did we?” he asked, his face bland again. “If you say so, it must be true. I forgot.”
She let him help her from the gig. “Did Jesusa find you exasperating?” she asked.
“Of course she did,” he replied with equanimity. “She still loved me, though.”
I think I have just learned an interesting lesson, if I am to believe the bailiff, Susan told herself as she walked beside him into the vestry. The man who exasperates me even more than the bailiff is my father, but I do not feel inclined to forgive him, and I am certain I do not love him. In this, as in other matters I could tell, I suspect I am very much the bailiff’s inferior, she considered honestly. And yet Lady Bushnell, who knows David Wiggins very well, will never offer him tea because he is not a gentleman, and Aunt Louisa would lock me up for a lunatic if I brought him home to dinner. Not that I ever would, she amended hastily. It’s the idea that counts here. Perhaps it’stime I stopped being a snob, considering that I have little to be arrogant about these days.
“We’re redding up some special music for the Easter service,” he explained as he showed her to a pew at the back of the church.
“Heavens, Lent hasn’t even begun yet!”
