Page 34 of The Cornish Widow

Chapter Sixteen

Captain Carlyon, true to his word, came calling on Harriet the very next day. Bertha was busy with the housework, and Lydia and Theo, begrudging being kept indoors on such a fine morning, were seated at the kitchen table working at their schoolbooks. Harriet, dressed for work in her oldest gown and an apron, was digging the weeds out of the overgrown beds at the front of the cottage in the hope of one day growing flowers there. The ramshackle, wobbly-wheeled and woodworm-infested barrow she’d found in the tumbledown woodshed stood beside her, rescued from being consigned to firewood and now piled high with leggy greenery.

The sound of a horse’s hooves on the gravelly track had her straightening up, her heart, quite out of her control, doing a kind of somersault of emotion that was an odd mixture of fear and excitement as she stared up the track. But it wasn’t Jack. That she’d been hoping it was dawned on her as she felt her heart sink, and a wave of guilty heat surged to her cheeks. Instead of Jack, the singularly more disturbing Captain Carlyon, on his fine gray gelding, came riding towards her, an expression of amused interest on his face.

“Good morning, Harriet,” he called, as he halted the gray ten yards distant. His gaze ran up and down her attire in obvious speculation. Why did he make her feel as though he knew every secret she kept close, as well as what she looked like naked? Again. Most disquieting. If only they hadn’t bumped into him yesterday. But she was going to have to be polite.

The memory of how Jack didn’t like Fitz Carlyon rose swiftly, followed by the unnerving thought that she herself might know more than she should about smuggling activities here, just because the children had seen the ship. She should have been insistent yesterday that she wasn’t ready to accept callers.

She smoothed down her skirts and untied her apron, plastering a welcoming, but not too welcoming, smile onto her face. She’d have to pretend she was pleased to see him. She’d had plenty of practice at pretending.

Fitz Carlyon swung down from the saddle and glanced around himself as though searching for somewhere to tether his horse.

Harriet remembered herself. “Good morning, Captain. I believe there’s a tethering ring at the side of the house.” Although that would mean he could stay for longer than if he had to hold onto his horse. Unless, of course, he took recourse to hitching the gray’s reins to a branch of one of the low trees, as Jack had done.

“Fitz. Please call me Fitz. Everyone does and, as I’m already calling you Harriet, I feel there’s no point in you persisting in calling me ‘captain’ every five minutes.” He led the horse round to the side of the house.

A movement caught Harriet’s eye. Both her children, and Bertha, had their noses pressed to the kitchen window. She waved a hand at them and scowled, having to wipe the scowl off her face in haste as Fitz returned, now without his horse.

Taking his hat off and executing a smart bow all in one fluid movement, he smiled, but the smile didn’t reach his cold and calculating eyes. That he was here for some reason other than to merely call on her seemed glaringly obvious. Or maybe she was just being too suspicious. Maybe she should try accepting people at face value. Or maybe not… she’d done a sight too much of that in the past and look where it had got her.

He pulled off his gloves and tucked them into his hat. “I said I’d call, and here I am. Too much talk of babies going on at Roskilly for me. My cousin Ysella, charming and pretty as she is, can be quite boring when she brings up the subject of her offspring. I’m very much of the ‘children should be seen but not heard’ school.” He glanced at the window, now thankfully empty of those eager faces. “And of course, Nat’s wife is just the same as Ysella. Even Nat’s sister, little Hetty, pretty as a picture and as yet unmarried so quite a distraction, joined in. I don’t know what it is with women and babies. So, with no one to talk to who wasn’t drooling over a baby, I remembered you’d extended a welcome. Hence, here I am.”

She hadn’t exactly extended a welcome to him. More he’d invited himself. Instinct warned her to be wary of this rather predatory gentleman; that perhaps he might prove himself to be less of a gentleman than she thought, if she were caught off her guard. She’d invite him in where there was company. That would be her safest move. “Pray come inside and I’ll ask Bertha to make some tea. You do like tea?” It was mid-morning, after all. Surely he couldn’t want brandy, which was still the only spirit she possessed. But you never knew with men.

Fitz set his beaver and gloves on the bench by the kitchen door and followed her inside. Lydia and Theo kept their heads down, but the pens in their hands remained suspiciously motionless. They were watching out of the corners of their eyes and listening like bats, and so was Bertha, with her back turned and a duster in her hand as she attacked the shelves above the range.

“My children,” Harriet said. “And my maid. Bertha, can you bring tea into the drawing room, please, for Captain Carlyon and me?” And before Bertha had time to respond, Harriet ushered Fitz into their rather bare parlor, conscious of the fact that had he ever been on friendly terms with Jack or his mother, he might have seen some of this furniture before. She left the door deliberately ajar and sat where she could see Bertha at the stove, pouring boiling water into the teapot.

To do Fitz credit, he made no reaction, but took a seat when offered on a faded, highbacked wing chair close to the empty fireplace. The sight of the cold grate almost made Harriet shiver, as this room, unlike the cozy kitchen, had a definite chill to it.

“How nice it is to see you again,” she began with, judging it best to stick to polite inanities with this gentleman.

His eyes shone with something that might have been a mix of amusement, admiration and… was that desire? The heat that had ebbed from Harriet’s cheeks renewed itself. In Bath, she’d not dared venture into society for fear of accusations from Ben, unfounded though they would have been. She’d scarcely met any men in the last ten years other than Ben, his friends and the occasional tradesman. Even when he’d been away with the regiment, she’d not dared deviate, for fear someone might tell him she’d been out socializing. He would have taken that the wrong way.

So, being desired by someone, even though she felt nothing for him, was both frightening and a little pleasing, so long as it went nowhere. She sat up all the taller at the thought of it, and pushed thoughts of Jack, who’d looked at her in quite a different way, out of her head.

“In truth,” Fitz said, “I could hardly wait to get away. The memory of your beauty stayed with me all night long, preventing me from sleeping any more than fitfully.”

Good heavens, but he was forward. With her lack of experience with men other than Ben, Harriet recoiled a little in shock at his words. Of course, she knew she had once been pretty, but Ben had instilled into her that only a hoyden exploited her own good looks, and he would not have his wife disport herself like one of those. Plus, she was still confined to wearing black, a color she felt she never wanted to abandon as up until now it had served her as a suit of armor, rendering her untouchable and sacrosanct. Besides, she’d always viewed her looks as not the sort men would fall for. Ben had said… No, she wouldn’t think about that.

“I must apologize for having caused you a problem.” She didn’t look up but regarded her fingers, forcing them to resist the impulse to twist themselves together in her lap.

He laughed, a deep, rolling laugh that was not unpleasant and seemed to reverberate around the cottage’s parlor, filling it to the smoke-stained rafters. “No need for apology, Harriet. It was a pleasant night, if not a restful one. I would have had it no other way. You are quite the distraction to a man.”

She looked up to find him gazing at her out of those speculative dark eyes. There was no denying his attractions, but they were not the sort likely to hold her in thrall. This man was too used to getting his own way—over everything.

She was saved from replying to his declaration by Bertha coming in with the tea tray. This she set down on the low table with a clatter of crockery. She took a step back and stood her ground as though expecting to be asked to do more, or to stand as chaperone to her mistress.

“Thank you, Bertha, that will be all.” With the door left open, Harriet nurtured the illusion of safety.

Bertha gave a harrumph of displeasure and shot Fitz a heavy glare. Despite her instant liking for Jack, she appeared to have taken a just as instant dislike to Fitz. Possibly with good reason. “I’ll just be in the kitchen if you need anything else, Miss Harriet. I’ll leave the door open, in case you call.” She spun on her heel and departed, leaving the door open to its full extent.

“I fear your maidservant has taken against me,” Fitz said as Harriet poured the tea. “I seem to have that effect on some people. I can’t think why.” His tone gave the lie to that. Captain Fitzwilliam Carlyon knew exactly why he wasn’t liked.

“Ignore Bertha,” Harriet said, a little guilty at her disloyalty to her friend. “She’s been with me since my childhood and is of the opinion she’s my second mother and can tell me what to do.” She poured the tea and handed him a dish.

He grinned, more wolfish than ever, making Harriet wonder if she should comment on how pointy his ears were or what long teeth he had, like the fabled Little Red Riding Hood in Theo’s chapbook. “Then you should send her packing. If a servant becomes too familiar, it’s time to say goodbye to them.”