Page 22 of The Cornish Widow

Chapter Eleven

Harriet stood in front of her wardrobe in her petticoat, while Bertha rummaged through its meager contents, her stomach roiling with the effort of preventing her hands from shaking. The morning chill in the air had brought goosepimples up along her bare arms and she shivered. But the cold wasn’t the only cause of the shiver, nor the hand shaking. Why on earth had she said she’d go riding with him? With any man? Still less one so obviously masculine and threatening. The lure of being on a horse again had tempted her into a momentary indiscretion, into allowing her heart to rule her head. Into what she could only perceive as a potentially dangerous situation. One she’d vowed never to put herself in again.

“There it is,” Bertha declared, emerging with a long, brown-paper-wrapped package over her arm. “Let’s get it out and see how time’s treated it. The paper should’ve kept the moths at bay.”

She laid the package on the bed and carefully cut away the paper to reveal the blue, woolen riding habit Harriet had last worn on the hunting field as a girl of seventeen. The faint aroma clung to it of the lavender it had been stored with. Bertha inhaled it like a fine perfume. “I don’t doubt as it’s a bit out of fashion now, seeing as you haven’t had call to wear it for nigh on sixteen years.” She eyed Harriet’s trim figure. “Might have to tighten up your stays a bit to get you into it. Two babies do have a habit of expanding the waist, in my experience.”

As Bertha had never been married, nor produced any babies of her own, yet had a waist several times that of her mistress, Harriet considered this an unkind criticism, but ignored it. After all her years of service, Bertha had earned the right to speak forthrightly to her mistress. Harriet managed a shaky smile. “Shall I try it on first before you tighten them?”

But of course, Bertha was right. Harriet was no longer a slender seventeen-year-old, but a mother of three-and-thirty. Much tightening of her stays was required. “Good heavens,” she puffed. “Was I really this thin? I shan’t be able to breathe properly if you tighten them much more.” But at least all this heaving served to distract her from the disquieting prospect of riding out in the company of a man. And such a man.

Bertha stopped pulling and set her large hands around Harriet’s waist to measure it. “That should do now. Let’s get this on you.”

And she was right again. This time the habit fastened everywhere that was required. A little snug in places, but not dangerously so, and, as it was fashioned of good quality wool, untouched by the depredations of the moth community for the past sixteen years, it was unlikely to provide any unexpected embarrassing disclosures.

Harriet set her matching hat, carefully brushed by Bertha, on her neatly coiffed hair and secured it with a few pins. “Will I pass muster?”

Bertha stepped back to admire her mistress. “Indeed you will. Very nice you look too. Could be a girl fresh out of the schoolroom. Sister to young Lydia rather than mother.”

Harriet sighed. “I wish I had a mirror, but I daresay that’s only being vain. It’s just so long since I wore this habit that I’d like to see how I look.” She compressed her lips. “And I must admit I feel a trifle guilty that I’m not wearing the black that’s expected of a widow.”

Bertha, who, despite to Harriet’s knowledge never having known the truth about Ben, had also never approved of him, shook her head. “It’s been more than three months and this blue’s as near to black as you can get and still be dressed to ride a horse. And I refuse to spoil it by trying to dye it black for you. Seeing as it’s the only one you’ve got.” She set her hands on her hips. “And you won’t be getting another, seeing as he left you practically destitute.”

Very true. But the wearing of widow’s weeds felt as though she donned armor against the world, particularly men, and today instinct told her she might need that armor. If only she could have thought of a way to avoid this outing. But deep down inside, she was looking forward to being on a horse again, even if it meant having to keep company with a man. There was always the possibility that if she felt threatened she could just gallop away from him and head for home. In extremis.

Harriet picked up her gloves from the bed. “We won’t talk about that, thank you, Bertha. And we’re not quite destitute. I still have what’s left of Ben’s army pension to rely on, after his creditors have taken their share. And we have Mrs. Bolitho to thank for this lovely cottage to live in. We should practice being grateful, I think, rather than complaining.”

Bertha’s huff told Harriet she wasn’t in agreement.

Harriet ignored it, and, picking up the long trailing element of her habit, marched onto the tiny landing and promptly bumped into Lydia at the top of the stairs.

“Mama, you look beautiful.” Lydia clapped a hand to her mouth. “So, you are going to go riding with Theo’s Cap’n, after all?”

Who had suggested to Lydia that she might not? “I said I was, didn’t I?” Harriet almost snapped, still annoyed with Bertha. “He invited me, so I could hardly refuse.” Perhaps she was behaving a tad grumpily. It wasn’t Lydia’s fault Bertha had annoyed her. She let her voice soften. “And I used to love riding.”

However, Lydia’s face had already fallen. “I didn’t mean to be rude, Mama.” Her gaze skimmed over the cut of the gown and the smallness of her mother’s waist. “Indeed, your habit looks as though it might well fit me.”

Theo must have been lurking in his bedroom. “If you could ride,” he said, poking his head around the half-open door. “Which you can’t.”

Lydia glared at him. “But I would like to. It looks so very easy.”

This produced a guffaw of mockery from her brother. “That’s what you think. My friend Yves is going to teach me how to ride on his old pony, so I’ll be learning before you. He let me sit on the pony yesterday, in the stable but with no saddle. Her name’s Blossom. He has a new, bigger, pony, so he and I’ll be riding together.”

This was the first Harriet had heard of this, and the dangers immediately leapt into her head, not least the fact that he would be being taught by a boy younger than himself. “We’ll have to see about that. You should ask me first before you make any such arrangements.”

Lydia pulled a far-too smug smile at her brother and flounced down the stairs in front of Harriet. Bertha, tutting to herself, followed behind, her footsteps heavy on the creaking treads.

In the kitchen, Lydia stepped back to admire her mother the better, her head tilted to one side. “A riding habit is so… so becoming. Much nicer than an ordinary dress. Quite military. Did Papa ever see you in it?” She tapped her fingers on the tabletop and her eyes narrowed. “Might you let me try it on to see what I look like in it? Even though we don’t have a horse and I can’t ride?”

Bertha’s snort of disapproval echoed around the kitchen. “Young ladies in your situation can’t give themselves hoity-toity airs.”

Lydia’s brow lowered and her lower lip stuck out in mutiny.

Harriet would have interfered had not right at that moment a sharp rapping on the kitchen door drawn all their attention. Bertha waddled past them and opened the door.

Captain Trevelyan was standing on the doorstep, dressed in a smart blue coat that perfectly matched Harriet’s habit, tall topboots polished to a high luster, and with a beaver hat of moderate proportions on his dark curls. This he removed as he spotted Harriet behind Bertha, in order to sweep them both a low bow.

He straightened up with what could only be described as a roguish smile on his lips. “Bertha, delighted to see you again. I’m here to deprive you of your mistress’s company for an hour or two, if you don’t mind too much?”