South Landers: Wenna Part 3

"She had blue eyes, and don't worry about my bosom."

He shrugged, his expression still amused. "Poetic license. Mr. Longfellow wouldn't mind the color change. Come along. I'm hungry, too." He led her past the stairway and along the short yellow painted pa.s.sage. Indicating the first door, he stood back, showing her his bedroom.

Indifferently clean red velvet curtains hung at the window. A tiled wash-stand holding a leaf-patterned jug and basin and an ivory-handled chest of drawers with a shaving-mirror on top occupied the s.p.a.ce not used by a heavily carved, four-poster tester bed with the curtains missing.

She gave him a look that caused him to raise placating palms and back into the pa.s.sage while she removed her hat. Lacking a comb, she took the net from her hair and shook her head. The frizz escaped. Years of practice helped to finger-comb the lot at the back and twist a strand around to hold the ma.s.s in place. She reapplied the net tightly and added her little hat with her single pin. The water was cold, of course, and she washed her face and hands.

Not in her wildest dreams had she expected that a gentleman who spoke in a cultured voice and seemed instinctively courteous would lodge anywhere so ordinary. She'd pictured him in a gracious house filled with bustling servants.

Before leaving, she stared out the window at the tiny yard below, at the weedy garden, the clothesline sagging between two posts, and the little wooden building with a crescent moon cut into the door-a privy, apparently. This had been built against the back lane for the convenience of the night cart. For a single man, perhaps this tiny s.p.a.ce was adequate.

When she re-entered his main room, he was wearing his tan gloves, and he tapped his wide- brimmed hat against his thigh, clearly impatient to leave. He led her back down the stairs, where she noticed a small kitchen lurking behind one of the downstairs doors. "Your lodgings are very compact," she said, more in surprise than criticism.

He shrugged. "I don't need anything bigger, really only my sleeping quarters upstairs. I rarely use the kitchen other than to heat water for my bath. I keep the bath in a room off the kitchen."

She glanced at his face. "What about the office front on Rundle Street?"

"That's a surveyor's office."

"Not yours?"

He shrugged. "I don't have much use for an office."

"Where do you work? You do work?"

"Occasionally. And I buy and sell land."

"Is it profitable?"

"What? The land trading? No. Not yet."

She couldn't imagine what sort of money might be made out of occasionally trading land, but whatever he did to support himself at least paid for his lodgings. Surprised by his lack of ambition, she followed him out the door, past his untended garden, and back onto Rundle Street.

Food, clothes, shoes, leather goods, saddles, horses-anything really-could be bought on this busy thoroughfare. Some buildings looked rickety and insubstantial, and some had been built to last centuries. However, she didn't have time to take her bearings, for he hurried her along the street, nodding at everyone he pa.s.sed. She kept her gaze lowered, hoping not to see anyone who knew her.

They sat down to lunch in the front room of a pastry shop she'd never before patronized. With all her meals provided by her employers, she saved where she could. A few small tables had been set out. Pretty girls in striped brown ap.r.o.ns served the respectable-looking customers: ladies who spoke in low tones and dressed in extravagant tea gowns. Most wore small hats loaded with flowers, or birds, or ribbons, all in the latest styles. Most wore simply-braided hairstyles. Some bunched their hair up and hoped for the best.

In her plain blue gown and her low-crowned straw hat, Wenna squirmed with embarra.s.sment. Normally, she didn't eat with her betters. Nevertheless, she consumed a meat pie covered with pastry flaky enough to melt in her mouth. The tea in the pot was the perfumed variety Mrs. Brook drank, not the thick brown brew offered to her servants. All in all, Mr. Courtney had treated her well, but she still didn't have a place for the night or a job.

"After all that fuss before, I can barely force myself to return to the labor exchange," she said, ma.s.saging her forehead to relieve a dull ache.

"I don't think the exchange is the place for you to find a job." He settled his forearms on the table and linked the fingers of two shapely, well-kept hands together. For reasons unknown, this made the blackguard look earnest.

She heaved a breath. "I need to regroup and examine my options. I must know someone who can help me find employment. Heaven knows I've always been hard working and respectable."

"My best contact, the previous governor, left the colony last year, unfortunately, or I could have taken you to his wife. She would have found a placement for you, because she knew all the ladies in town."

She inclined her head, letting her face express her disbelief. "Isn't that always the way? You promise to help a woman find a job and suddenly you can't."

"You're a harsh taskmistress. I promised to help, and I will. But I've had another idea." He rested his chin on the points of two meeting forefingers. "You want to go to Cornwall. I have to go back to Cornwall this year. I could take you with me."

"How kind. Would you put me in your trunk?"

"I would put you in my cabin." He frowned.

"Of course you would. You've done nothing but proposition me since you first saw me. What do all the other women in this colony have against you?"

"You might think you are the only one, but I do have other choices." He sounded annoyed. "It's just that, well, I could marry you." Leaning back, he frowned as if he didn't quite credit the words he had said. "In fact, I'm beginning to think you would be the perfect choice."

"That's very flattering." She suppressed the urge to push him off his chair. "But I would rather be a lady's maid than a gentleman's cabin comfort."

His eyebrows lowered farther. "If you marry me, you'll have a fine house in which to live, with enough money to support your grandparents."

She sighed and smiled politely. "Then, that's a very good idea. Shall we marry right away?"

"I wouldn't think we could get a license right away. It might take a few days."

"During which time I would stay with you?"

"Yes."

"Oh, dear. I must look like a droplet just come down in the rain." She glanced out the window at the blaring sun. "You can't be that desperate. Some women would call you handsome, and until I saw your grubby little rooms I would have thought you were well off."

"Grubby little rooms? You are, of course, used to living in gracious mansions." His eyebrows tilted disdainfully.

"The most gracious."

"In the servants' quarters." He nodded, a.s.suming he had put her back in her place, which he had. "With a good scrub, my rooms wouldn't look too bad. I'm a bachelor. I'd hardly need a big house full of servants."

She lifted her chin. "I suspect you're an adventurer, a good-looking single man who knows on which side his bread is b.u.t.tered. You spend your life as a guest in other people's houses, eating their food, being waited upon hand and foot. You would never want to marry unless you could find someone rich enough to support your indulgent lifestyle."

"That's quite a speech." His mouth formed a grim line. "You might remember that had I tried, I might have added Patricia Brook to my string of prospective brides rich enough to support me."

"You're not that stupid. Miss Patricia would have wanted you at her beck and call. She would have held the purse strings. You would want someone meek and mild."

He gave her a strange glance. "As a matter of fact, Miss Know-It-All, I think you would suit me very well. I wouldn't have proposed, had I not. And no one in the world would call you meek and mild. I'm astonished that you lasted so long as a lady's maid. I wouldn't have thought you could hold your tongue long enough to flatter a mistress."

"I was sorely tried, on occasion. But when I thought of the money I was earning, I kept my opinions to myself."

"Money. That's practically all I've heard from you."

Suddenly her throat hurt. "I hate you, you irresponsible lecher," she said in a clogged voice. She wiped at a tickle under her chin and her hand came away wet. Her nose had blocked, and she realized she was dripping with furious tears. "You've messed up my life, and you've left me in a fix, and all you can do is sit there looking harmless."

"I know what I did," he said, his expression stark. "And I know I can't put it right, not today, not straight away."

"You're such a rag of a man."

His lips relaxed. "Should I a.s.sume that's a 'no' to my proposal?" He handed her his clean-enough white handkerchief again.

She blotted her face. "You didn't mean it."

"So, will you marry me?"

She gave a long deep sniff, not about to blow her nose in front of him. "All you want is someone to clean up that place of yours."

"That would certainly be a bonus." He watched her face.

"There's no point in me trying to find a job as a lady's maid for weeks. Everyone is away for summer, or everyone who is anyone."

"How does one qualify to be anyone?"

"Money, that word you despise. That's the only measure in this country unless you happen to be a prince."

"The same as in the old country. So, you won't be looking for a job immediately?"

"Which means I'll need somewhere cheap to stay for a few weeks." She tried to read his expression but couldn't, and she wouldn't give a second's consideration to his proposal, which he'd clearly made in the spur of the moment, perhaps hoping to impress her with his gentlemanly ways. The darned man couldn't. She certainly did have his measure. "What's behind the door of your other upstairs room?"

"This and that."

"Which and what?"

"Boxes, mainly."

"You owe me lodging since you lost me mine." She folded her arms across her chest.

"You want to lodge in my spare room?" His eyebrows almost hit his hairline. "Surely you would rather send me there?"

"No. That would mean more work for me. The spare room will do. Since all my prospective employers are out of town, none will know I'm staying with you. And, I won't be wasting any of my own good money."

He eyed her. "This trip to Cornwall-it's really so important to you?"

"I don't break promises. I told my mother I would always care for her parents, and I will." She found her gloves on her lap.

"Well, if I'm about to have a lodger, I'll need to busy myself with some extra furniture. We'll go back and you can look around the room and tell me what I need to buy." Adopting a look of purpose, he rose to his feet.

Doubtless, given time, he a.s.sumed he would get under her skirts, but he wouldn't. She didn't like the way men pushed into women. Although about six years ago, she thought the pain might have been worth the effort, had she not discovered that the carpenter she had set her mind on was also dallying with a lowly tavern maid.

Two ladies arrived in the entrance of the shop and looked around. The older one glanced at Mr. Courtney, scrutinized Wenna, and put a gloved hand over her mouth to whisper something to the younger, who laughed. No doubt they'd speculated about seeing a poorly clad spinster with a fashionable gentleman. Wenna's cheeks warmed as Mr. Courtney held out his hand to help her arise.

Noting her focus, he glanced behind him, spotted the ladies, smiled, and said, "Good afternoon," as he moved toward the doorway with Wenna.

The ladies fluttered. "Good afternoon, Mr. Courtney," replied the older one, while the younger coyly batted her eyelashes. She seemed about to engage him in conversation, but he nodded politely and escorted Wenna outside.

The man had protected her.

With her chin atilt and her expression tight, she walked beside him-until she had a dreadful thought. Those ladies might not have been discussing the discrepancy between a scruffy redhead and a golden G.o.d, but whispering gossip about the beauteous Mr. Courtney leaving Stirling with his doxy. No. Surely not. The story could not have travelled to town so swiftly.

She needed to stop seeing herself as everyone's focus. Ladies wouldn't discuss her, other than to make certain that anyone who could afford to employ a lady's maid knew the name of the rare temptation for husbands and male guests. Although such humiliation was hard to bear, she marched back to Mr. Courtney's rooms as if she belonged with him.

Until she found her next job, she would hide away, and hope the incident would be forgotten.

Chapter 4.

Leaning against the doorway, Dev watched Wenna a.s.sess his dingy second bedroom. He imagined, being a lady's maid, she was used to better. "How old are you?"

"Twenty-six," she answered, toeing a box near the window. "What's in this?"

"I don't know." Merely his age. Interesting. He had always preferred older women. "My father sent them on to me after he'd cleared out my mother's possessions." The early afternoon light from the window painted a pink halo around her hair and outlined her shapely silhouette.

She gave an exasperated sigh. "See if he sent anything useful. If not, stack two boxes in that corner for me to use as a bedside table, and move the rest behind the door."

"No sooner said than done." He opened the nearest box and picked through the paper wrapping. "Plates in this one."

"Take them to the kitchen." She sounded as though she meant to put order into his life. "This one seems to be framed paintings. You can hang those up." She straightened, glancing at him with her fine red eyebrows raised. "Shall I go through the rest while you buy a bed? We don't have many more hours of daylight left."

He tugged out his fob chain to check the time, and remembered. "My watch first," he said, palm out. "And my ring, too, if you please."

Her mouth considered. She blinked. "Oh, yes, your watch. Now that I have a place to stay and all my things, you should have your sureties back." From somewhere in the folds of her skirt, she casually pulled out his valuables.

He donned both, annoyed that she accepted his trust as her ransom. "You're a mightily suspicious woman. So, I'll be off now to buy you a feather mattress."

"Feather?" She gave him a smile he could only describe as long-suffering. "That would be too much to ask."

Expecting an expensive mattress that with luck would not be used more than a few days would be unreasonable, but challenged, he left without answering. He would buy her a d.a.m.ned feather mattress, if only to confound her.

A few lanes farther along the street, he bought a bed, which the maker sent two boys to deliver. Dev hoped Wenna would let them in, or he would need to carry the thing upstairs alone, not that the lightly-made frame would weigh more than a few pounds. Finding a feather mattress was another matter. The colony had a surfeit of hair mattresses. Finally he was forced to buy one, knowing she would continue to think him entirely useless.

On his way back to the first shop he had tried, the closest to his lodging, he heard his name. "Ah, the Honorable Devon Courtney, if I'm not mistaken." Strictly speaking, Dev was Lord Dellacourt, but not until last year, when the second of his brothers had died. As the only son now, Dev would hold the t.i.tle of the heir to the Earl of Marchester, but certainly not in this country. He glanced at the speaker, a tall, outrageously handsome chap wearing a tailored suit and a faultlessly placed hat.

"Dev to you," he said chidingly to Nick Alden, a.s.suming Nick was ragging him, as was the colonial habit when confronted with aristocratic lineage.

Nick's mouth tilted at one corner. "I'm sure you are still perfectly honorable."

"I prefer not to seem like a t.w.a.t, if you don't mind." Dev examined Nick's face and shook his head. "You didn't get a shiner from that ball yesterday, I see. I can only spot a slight b.u.mp and a bruise on your face."

"You're on the wrong side of the bruise. From my side, it's a headache for which I fortunately have the cure." Nick gave a jaded smile, indicating the tavern. "I don't seem to have the self-protective instinct these days to play cricket."

Six years ago at Cambridge, where the two had met, Nick had been carefree and charming, although as irresponsible as the rest of the South Australian lads. Before Dev had arrived in the colony, Nick had returned from England with the others, but he'd found greener pastures in New South Wales, from which he'd only recently returned. At the cricket match yesterday, Dev had briefly seen a changed man who no longer cared for anything he couldn't find in a bottle. Word was that alcohol could be addictive. Dev wasn't sure. He could take a drink or ignore a drink, depending on his mood. "Did you come back to town this morning?"

"Yesterday. My father banished me from the hills the moment he saw the lump on my head. Thought I should see a doctor. The doctor mumbled something about drunks and fools. Since I'm a combination of the two, I'm immune to hard knocks, or so he led me to believe. Whither thou goest, my fine young man?"