Page 42 of The Baronet’s Bartered Bride

“A proper party,” Polly agreed, eyes wide.

“Thank you. But he tried to leave me behind in London. I don’t think he wants me with him in his new home. We’re going to Cornwall,” Inez said, surprised by this sudden urge to confess. It was unlike her.

“Kernow!” Polly cried. “Where to? Never say Callington.”

“Actually, yes. I believe his estate lies nearby.”

Polly blinked and snapped her fingers, summoning Inez to strip out of her stays. “The only estate thereabout is Penwellen.”

“That is where we—he is going, I believe.”

Polly’s eyes kindled with rage. “Is the old baronet dead, then? Good riddance. A very slawterpooch, ee was. All us maids knew not to work there, couldn’t keep his snib in his breeches.”

“The new baronet is quite the opposite,” Inez hurried to say, wondering whether she might press for more information about the man Joseph was succeeding, and the place he had inherited. Polly looked to be a handful of years younger than she was, perhaps no more than six or seven and ten years, though a hard world put a woman’s face on a girl early, Inez knew.

“And that Treen.” Polly snapped her fingers again, indicating that Inez was to surrender her shift. The innkeep handed her a towel to shield her nakedness. “Tell that’un ee’s a polrumptious, pluffy, pussivanting piggy-whidden.” The girl’s eyes flared with righteous anger. “And don’t trust a word that comes out o’ ee’s clunker, neither.”

Inez nodded obediently. “I won’t.”

Polly sniffed, still bristling. “A pair o’ grammersows, those two. If Sir Reuben is gone, it’s a blessing for every cheel in that town, it is.”

“He sounds horrible,” Inez said.

“Granfer to half the town, ee’d be, all the maids he kindiddled.” Polly curled up her lip as if she meant to spit on the past baronet’s memory, until a sharp look from her employer halted her mid-insult.

“Giss on, and be about your work,” said the innkeep, shooing Polly toward the door. She turned back to Inez with a businesslike air. “Speaking of which. If you’ve any need of making certain…all comes regular-like with the woman’s curse. She circled a hand before her midsection. “I’ve a tea I can make you.”

“The woman’s—oh.” Inez felt her face draw taut with heat. So much for convincing the landlady she was not a whore.

She oughtn’t be ashamed. Conversations on the preventions for catching a babe were common in Dark Lane; they had to be, for the health and protection of the Vestals. Inez suddenly recalled the redolent herbs her mother stewed now and again over their small fire, and the bitter concoctions she made herself drink though Inez could tell she hated the taste of them.

“Actually,” Inez said. “I might be interested in such a tea.” She glanced toward the door, lowering her voice as if she feared to be overheard. And yet these were precautions she ought to consider did she wish to pursue certain thoughts she was developing in relation to Joseph Illingworth.

The innkeep tilted her head to the side and regarded Inez with a speculative look. “If ye catch, thas one way t’spring the shackle.”

“I don’t intend to trick him into marriage.”

Her mother had extracted her deathbed promise mainly to keep Inez from disease, because no one should have to die in slow stages or poison themselves with mercury merely to prolong their pain. But a babe was the other consequence, and one that put a hamper on the commerce of Dark Lane.

Inez couldn’t think about marriage, not again. Marriage was a shackle for the woman, as good as a rope tying her the hearth and kitchen. Marriage meant her husband could say where she went when she left the house, and with whom she associated. Marriage meant every coin laid in the wife’s hand ended up in the husband’s pocket.

Marriage meant a woman could not say no when her spouse came to her bed demanding the exercise of his marital rights, no matter how cruel or callous he was in his usage of her, no matter whether he stank of vile dealings and sometimes other women.

Marriage meant that, when a husband died, the wife watched their home dismantled into the hands of those who held his debts, and the little left over seized by those who claimed with however slender a right to be his heirs. Marriage was to be bound to the stake with a noose around one’s neck and a trap door that could fall open at any time. She wouldn’t put her head in that harness again.

And yet, as the innkeep sprinkled lavender in her bath water and the sharp, clean scent rose to her nostrils, Inez allowed herself to wonder, for the briefest moment, what marriage to Joseph Illingworth would be like.

His warm smile when she brought his tray of bread and butter and steaming coffee, which he liked hot enough to scald.

Chatting with him in the parlor at the end of a day, hearing of his projects and the ideas that engaged his mind, glimpsing that beautiful and orderly and thoughtful world he dwelled in.

Having his big body at her side to protect her from want, from harm, from the Wigsbys of the world.

“I’ve a tincture I’ll bring you,” the innkeep said as Inez took up a cloth and settled her feet in the basin. “And an oil for yer hair, such lovely locks as ye have. Also a virgin’s milk for yer skin, if you wish to—be a bit paler here.” She made another motion, this one encompassing her face. “Unless, of course, yer gent likes ye dark. Some do.”

And just like that, Inez was reminded why Joseph Illingworth would never marry her.

It took her a moment to speak past the obstruction in her throat. She bent her head toward the wash basin, focused on bathing her feet. “The lavender water will do for my face, thank you. But I would be grateful for the hair oil and the tincture you mention. In the event that…well.”