The Lady’s Companion

Chapter Fifteen

Not until Susan sat herself on the mail coach and rested her traveling boots on the straw underfoot did she really believe that they were actually on their way to plead Lady Bushnell’s cause. The bailiff sat close beside her, wedged in so tight that he had to turn a little sideways and put his arm around her to steady himself.

She couldn’t notice any discomfort on his face, but she was almost too shy to look at him. It was one thing to enjoy his presence from a chair by the fire, and quite another to have him so close that his breath was warm on her neck. They were like whelks in a basket.

Come now, Susan, what is your objection? she asked herself as the coach picked up speed. You know that you care for him, even though it is not the wisest thing you ever did, and hopefully will soon pass. You know how hungry you were for the sight of him during the past few days, and here he is now, practically sitting on you.

She looked at the bailiff then, and discovered that he was watching her, too, his gaze steady and quite calm. His eyes are so brown, she thought, and I did not notice that many freckles before. I wonder if he burns in the summer. She suddenly wanted to kiss him as he had kissed her that one time on the way across the stable yard, and decide for herself if that was merely beginner’s luck on her part.

And that is my objection to this situation, she thought, permitting honesty to shoulder out artifice, as it did more and more these days. I want to kiss him and do much more that I’ve never done, and there are all these dratted passengers who refuse to go away and let me get at my ruin. She permitted herself a little sigh. As my descent into vulgarity does not yet include exhibitions, I will change my thoughts and hope that this irritating warmth will recede and let me breathe.

Her return to normality was aided by the bailiff, or so she thought. He winced when the toddler hugged tight in his mother’s arms, kicked out and caught him in the small of the back, forcing him even closer to her. “I trust that you can tell I bathed,” he whispered, hardly lover’s talk.

She could tell, right down to the carbolic soap he used and the scent of lanolin on his arms. He was so close she thought she could even smell the singe marking the flatiron tip printed on his shirt beside his neckcloth.

“See there, you’ve singed your shirt,” she scolded, her words as prosaic as his.

He shrugged, which made her even more aware of his well muscled arm around her shoulders and slipping down her back a bit as he grasped the handgrip beside her. “I’m not much of a housewife,” he said. He looked around at the other inmates of the mail coach, and she wondered for the smallest moment if he wanted them gone, too.

“I would have done it for you,” she whispered back, leaning toward him slightly as the toddler aimed another kick into the bailiff which propelled his chest into her face.

“Sorry, Susan,” he said with a frown over his shoulder and a slight shift away from her. “Didn’t mean for you to eat my buttons.” He tried again. “You’ve added ironing to your catalog of skills now?”

She nodded, deciding silently that even with a blindfold on her eyes, she would probably be able to pick out that certain odor of carbolic, singe, and David in a roomful of bailiffs. “Cora is even now teaching me how to do ruffles.”

“Which I will never require,” he added.

“Thank God for that,” she said quickly, without thinking how intimate it sounded, how permanent. “I am not doing at all well with ruffles.”

He chuckled, and the look on his face changed enough for her to wonder what it was she said that seemed to be settling his countenance into such great contentment. He raised his hand up behind her back and twirled one of her loosening curls into a corkscrew on his finger. “I think your pins are coming out.”

“Drat!” she exclaimed, unable to move to do anything about it “Perhaps it would help if you did not play with my hair,” she said, sharper than she intended. The bailiff promptly slid the curl from his finger and settled his arm more comfortably on her shoulder. He leaned back as far as he could, closed his eyes, and was soon asleep.

A man must be tired to sleep in a mail coach, she decided an hour later as the bailiff showed no signs of waking. When the coach stopped to let off a passenger, he settled his head against her breast and slumbered on. I suppose you can sleep anywhere, she thought, remembering Lady Bushnell’s letters and the dreadful campaign from Burgos to Lisbon. Did you dream of Jesusa then, and what are you dreaming now? She decided it was a pleasant dream, because his free arm came around her waist and rested in her lap. She looked at the clergyman seated across from them, but he only nodded at her. Oh, dear, I am certain he thinks we are married, she thought.

Well, what of it? she told herself as her eyes began to close, too. I am tired, and I have worried enough for ten lady’s companions this past week. She closed her eyes and rested her cheek against the bailiff’s hair. He murmured something into her breast and his arm tightened around her waist.

She dreamt then, and it was a naughty dream, with the bailiff figuring prominently in it in considerably more detail than the evasive Professor Fowler ever discussed in his silly book. She was feeling much too dreadfully warm again for it to be a dream, so she opened her eyes and looked down. The bailiff still slept— she could tell by his even breathing—but he had worked his hand inside her cloak and it was cupping her breast in a most alarming fashion that she did not wish to stop. And what are you dreaming, sir? she asked herself, and was hard put to feel anything but a most curious mixture of amusement and incredible desire.

It was such a wonderful, drowsy feeling, especially when he began to run his thumb lightly across her bodice front. My goodness, she thought as the warmth spread, but I don’t suppose I ever considered my nipples as anything more exciting than items to be carefully covered when wearing light frocks. This puts a new light on matters.

It won’t do, she told herself at last. If he continues this, the other passengers will be vastly distracted when I unbutton my bodice, raise my skirts and throw myself on the mail coach floor. The thought made her giggle, and the bailiff woke up, removed his hand, and had the good grace to blush a shade somewhere between crimson and bonfire red.

“Susan, I do beg your pardon,” he whispered, his hand at his side now. He straightened up and moved away, careful to keep his army overcoat tight about him.

She thought he wasn’t going to look at her, but after a few minutes, he relaxed, shook his head, and glanced in her direction.

“Well, if you ever had any doubts, I like women,” he whispered. “Heartiest apologies.”

“Accepted,” she whispered back.

He didn’t say anything else, and understanding his embarrassment, Susan did not press him. She was content enough to gaze out the window at the growing dark and wonder at herself. I cannot blame Mama or Aunt Louisa, she admitted, considering her upbringing. I was raised to be a pattern card of propriety. She reflected further; that had not changed. Each time the vicar visited her, she had no urge to kiss him, or even rest her hand on his shoulder. And now here is the bailiff, a man decidedly unacceptable, and I want to kiss him and do something—anything—to relieve this edgy feeling I have. Strange, indeed. I will watch for Wambley and think of dinner, instead.

At Wambley, which appeared about as soon as full dark, Susan had good cause to think well again of the bailiff. She remembered Wambley from the nooning stop on her way to the Cotswolds, when they all left the mail coach – in her case unsuccessfully – in a mad rush for dinner. This time, she girded her loins for what lay ahead. I will plead for nothing more than soup and tea, she told herself.

In the taproom crowded with ravenous travelers, David Wiggins compensated entirely for his naptime lapse on the coach. As Susan prepared to jump up and down if she had to, to attract attention over much taller heads, the bailiff nodded, gestured, and then ushered her to a table that appeared almost miraculously as the crowd parted like the Red Sea.

“However did you do that?” she whispered as a potboy scurried toward them, wiping his hands on his apron.

The bailiff smiled and leaned closer. “You could do it, too, if you were a foot taller and a former sergeant. Bring us some soup, bread, cheese, and tea,” he ordered the potboy. “If you’re really quick, there’ll be some extra coins just between you and me.” The boy grinned at the bailiff and hurried toward the kitchen, oblivious to the calls of the other mail coach riders.

They ate and even had time for a brief stroll about the inn yard before the other passengers emerged from the taproom. It was a quiet walk, neither of them saying anything, until Susan stopped and looked up at the bailiff’s outline in the moonlit darkness.

“I can’t help it,” she said, the words tumbling out. “I must worry. Suppose we are unsuccessful? Suppose young Lady Bushnell insists that her mother-in-law come to the home estate?” She tucked her arm more snugly into the crook of the bailiff’s elbow.

“Well, then, you will be looking for another position, and I will have to take my Waterloo wheat somewhere else that needs a bailiff,” he replied. He sighed. “I can’t see the Bushnells keeping anyone at Quilling Manor, once the old lady is forced to capitulate. I’d love to buy it, to be sure, but I have no money for that kind of purchase.”

Somehow, in all her worrying about Lady Bushnell, she hadn’t considered the full effect on the bailiff. “And you’ll have to leave Quilling Manor?” she asked, but it was more of a statement.

He nodded. “I’ve received an offer of a similar position near Gloucester, but there’s no succession house, and I don’t think the owner is inclined toward experimentation.” He patted her hand. “We just have to convince young Lady B.” He released his grip on her. “Of course, any year now, our good parson might get up the nerve to make you an offer on a leaky vicarage and all the church mice you could catch, which would assure you a future.”

She laughed. “I can’t count on that happening in this century,” she said. “He still isn’t brave enough to look in my direction for more than ten seconds at a time!” And heaven knows he’s never kissed me as you have, or sat in my bedroom chatting, or put his hands anywhere they don’t belong. I don’t think it would ever occur to him, and more’s the pity. She looked at the bailiff, and the smile that made his brown eyes dance, even in the half light of the inn yard. “And don’t remind me of your proposal!”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he assured her. “It would have been a bad idea, anyway, considering that there would be both of us with no income.” He looked then at the coachman, who was gesturing toward the mail coach like a hen after chickens. “Come on, Susan. We’d hate to miss a minute of our excursion to London.”

The mail coach was much emptier after Wambley, with other passengers remaining behind to make connections further south. They had the entire seat to themselves, and the same parson seated opposite who continued to smile benignly at them. He burped quietly several times—a natural consequence of a rushed meal at the inn—then sighed himself to sleep like an old dog before a winter hearth.

“Put your head on my lap, Susan,” the bailiff said as they started off. “No telling how long before we are sandwiched in here again.”

“I shouldn’t,” she protested, even as she swung her legs up on the seat and did as be said.

“If we’re going to talk about shouldn’ts, you should still be in London under your father’s care,” he said mildly, resting his hand on her shoulder.

In a few minutes his hand felt heavier and heavier, and she knew he slept again. I wish I could sleep anywhere, she grumbled to herself as she unfastened one hook on her skirt and settled her cloak around her. Perhaps I shall count sheep.

Sheep proved to be unprofitable, because they only reminded her of Ben Rich, and the Welsh boy, and then lanolin, and then David Wiggins, and then back to the problem of Lady Bushnell. You are all so complicated, she thought as she ordered her eyes to stay shut. All that resulted in was mental dialog: David, you promised good behavior to Lady Bushnell for ever and ever. You promised Lord Bushnell that you will always keep an eye on her. And young Lady B surely promised her husband, the unfortunate Charles, that she would always take good care of his mother, even if good care is too much care.

But I have promised nobody anything, she considered, and surprised herself with tears. I’m not bound to anyone by any promises, she told herself through her tears and sniffles. I could leave tomorrow and no one could claim me, or hold me to a mark. She sniffed back the rest of her tears, determined not to wallow in self-pity.

“Susan, don’t cry,” the bailiff whispered as he handed her a handkerchief. It smelled of lanolin, and she sobbed harder. “You’re a silly widget, did you know?”

“I thought you were asleep,” she whispered back and then blew her nose. “I’m feeling sorry for myself, that’s all,” she explained in hushed tones, her eyes on the parson as she gathered her dignity about her.

She felt him chuckle. “Well, go ahead and cry then, Suzie. My overcoat’s had worse on it than tears, I assure you.”

He was still then, resting his hand in the warmth of her neck this time. She felt herself relaxing by degrees, until she heard the parson stir as he leaned forward.

“Is she all right?” he whispered to the bailiff.

“She’ll do,” he replied. “She gets this way sometimes.”

I do not! she wanted to protest, but she had the good sense to lie quiet

“In the family way?” the parson inquired.

She stiffened, felt herself blush from head to toe, then turned her face against the bailiff’s thigh so she wouldn’t laugh out loud.

“No, I don’t think so,” the bailiff said, his voice remarkably steady, considering how stiff his own leg was just then. “You know the ladies, sir, and how they are sometimes.”

That satisfied the parson. In another moment he snored. Susan rested her cheek against the bailiff’s leg again. “‘You know the ladies,’” she mimicked. “No, how are we sometimes, Mr. Wiggins?”

“Shut up, Suzie,” he whispered, and she could hear the laughter in his voice. Amazingly reassured by his unloverlike endearment, she slept.

London at two in the morning in front of a public house was different from London at two in the morning after a ball in the Mayfair district, she decided as she stood beside David Wiggins and waited for the coachman to hand down her bandbox. The inn yard was busy with farmers rattling in from the country, their wagons filled with produce and poultry for the great London markets. A yawning crofter’s lad maneuvered a hog past her as she leaped closer to the bailiff. There by the edge of the lamplight sat a beggar with no legs, his army overcoat bunched tight around him against the chill that rose like the tenth plague off the docks.

A prostitute stood closer to the inn door, her hair wild and matted from a night’s hard work. She eyed the bailiff and started in his direction until Susan grabbed his arm and glared at her.

“I think I can protect myself,” David assured her, a smile in his eyes. “Not exactly your part of London, is it?”

Susan shook her head, and did not relinquish her grip on the bailiff. “I wonder how many diseases she has?”

“More than you could ever imagine,” he whispered back. “Now be nice. Everyone has to earn a living, some by their wits, some on their back.”

How true that is, she thought as she waited for him to find a hackney. His presence seemed to command less respect in the London inn yard than it had at Wambley. He was shouldered away from the first two hackneys to come along by a drunken company of beau-nasties, who told him to stand back from his betters. The third hackney driver to happen along a half hour later insisted on seeing the inside of David’s wallet before he would take them anywhere farther than three or four blocks. “Ye can’t be too careful-like in this neighborhood,” the jehu assured them as he motioned them in. He looked significantly at the veteran begging by the inn. “I sees plenty of sorry heroes and scaggy hoors. Beggin’ your pardon, miss.”

They rode in silence through streets, which grew less crowded the farther they went from the unrefined, earnest heart of the city. The streets looked familiar now. My goodness, she thought as she learned against the bailiff in her exhaustion, was it only two months ago that I braved ice and snow on this street to an employment agency?

They stopped then in front of the Steinman Agency, dark now except for a lamp glowing in an upstairs window. “We’ll stay the night here,” David said as he helped her down, then paid the driver. “Joel’s expecting us.” He smiled at the look of surprise she knew was on her face. “I wrote him, too. My dear, remember this piece of advice: if you’re ever lucky enough to save someone’s life, you can always use him in outrageous ways!”

So she was smiling, too, when the door opened on Joel Steinman in nightshirt, robe, and cap. He was followed closely by his mother, who took her by the arm and tugged her inside, whisking her upstairs while the men chatted below.

“A little mulled wine will be just the thing,” Mrs. Steinman said as she helped Susan from her clothes and into her nightgown. “You get in bed, and I’ll hand it to you. Can you feel the warming pan?”

She could, and between the warmth in her toes and the wine that mellowed its way down her throat, she could have purred with contentment. In a stupefying trance of huge comfort, she handed back the goblet, rested her feet on the towel-covered warming pan and closed her eyes.

Susan had scarcely shut her eyes before it was time to open them again, this time at the gentle insistence of Mrs. Steinman, who called her leibchen and bubeleh and offered the further enticement of hot chocolate passed several times under her nose. She sat up slowly in the feather bed that threatened to pull her under again, gripping the brass bars to prevent a return to the horizontal state. The chocolate was followed by a forced feeding of enough little pastry puffs to get her on her feet and washing herself with wonderful hot water and lavender soap so creamy it was almost sinful. She was humming as she followed a servant to the breakfast room.

“Ah, excellent!” Joel Steinman said as he dabbed at his mouth with a napkin and rose to his feet. “You certainly look better early in the morning than David Wiggins does!”

The bailiff turned around from his perusal of food at the side table and nodded to her. “Smells better, too.” He looked at the clock on the mantel. “We’re promised at Lady Bushnell’s in an hour, Susan.”

She nodded and joined him at the sideboard, searching for more of those same little pastries that had revived her in bed. David had the last three on his plate, so she took one of his without any compunction, winked at him, and sat down.

“I thrashed a man once for stealing from my plate,” the bailiff commented as he sat beside her.

She responded by popping the pastry in her mouth. “You would never do me an injury,” she said, her mouth full.

“No, never an injury,” he agreed, smiled at some secret thought of his own, then tackled his own breakfast. He glanced at her sideways. “Although I might be tempted to...”

“To what?” she asked.

He smiled that slow smile that was starting to bother her on a regular basis. “Oh, just that I might be tempted to. Eat your breakfast, Suzie.”

I should worry when men smile like that, Susan thought. She looked at her own plate, but was distracted by Joel Steinman, who stood beside her chair, then with a flourish, set a present on the table before her.

“Oh, my!” she said, dropping her fork and picking up the package. “Is it in my contract that I am to expect presents from my employment agent? Perhaps I should have read the small words at the bottom. Who knows what else I have promised?” she teased as she opened the package. She stared dubiously at the rectangular object in her hand. “I would like to be delighted, but please tell me what it is, sir.”

Steinman took the object from her hand and set it on the table. With the casual air of someone who had been practicing, he rested his palm on top, and reached down with his fingers to wind the back. He released the object, detached the metal spindle and sat back in triumph over his one-handed effort. “This, Miss Hampton, is a metronome. They are new from Germany and Mamele found it for you.”

As the spindle ticked back and forth in strict rhythm, Steinman jiggled a little weight and it ticked faster. “It is to regulate your piano playing,” he explained when she continued to stare at it. As he leaned closer to her, Susan was amused to observe that the bailiff suddenly leaned closer, too, in a manner that she could only consider proprietary.

“Your letter about Lady Bushnell’s tyranny at the piano was so anguished that I knew I had to make amends,” Steinman told her. “Perhaps I feel I owe you an apology for foisting that job upon you.”

“You owe me no apologies, Mr. Steinman,” she said quietly. “It’s turning out to be the best thing that ever happened to me.”

“Even if we lose it all after our interview this morning?” the bailiff asked, and he sounded peevish.

Are you jealous, sir? she thought in wicked delight. The thought was followed immediately by a most monumental surge of love for the bailiff that went beyond any emotion she had ever experienced before in her life. It left her limp inside; she could only stare at the metronome, because she knew that if she turned her head to even look at David Wiggins, she would cry, or kiss him, or crawl into his lap, or maybe do all three at once. She forced herself to concentrate on what Steinman was saying.

“If it comes to that, Miss Hampton, I must tell you that I have obtained that job for you with the widow and her two daughters. It only waits an interview, and let me assure you that I have told her you walk on water.”

“What? What?” she asked. “Oh, yes! Well... my goodness.”

Steinman grinned at her and stopped the metronome. “You are supposed to tell me ‘thank you’ prettily for my exertions on your behalf, and not bumble about.”

“Thank you,” she said, feeling as miserable now as she had felt exhilarated only seconds before. If we do not succeed this morning, I will have no choice but to accept Mr. Steinman’s dratted job. I will never see David Wiggins again. She rose to her feet so quickly that both men on either side of her sat back in surprise. “Hurry up, David! We can’t be late!”

As they walked to the Bushnell town house, Susan knew she should have engaged in some of that light patter for which the Hamptons were so famous, but for the life of her, she couldn’t think of a thing to say. In silence she berated herself for considering for even a moment that just because he was a bailiff, she was proof against him, no matter what Mrs. Skerlong said. I have fallen in love with a bastard Welshman who was a poacher and a sneak thief and a sergeant and now a bailiff. He is of a social class so far removed from my own that I could grow dizzy contemplating the chasm between us, if I allowed myself to. She hurried along, telling herself that the feeling just had to pass, and the sooner the better. I might as well wish away the moon and the tide, she thought, limp again with the anguish of loving the bailiff.

I have been feeling this all along, she thought, without even knowing what the feeling was. Something in the way he had leaned toward her so protectively—so instinctively—when Joel Steinman made her an innocent gift, must have been the spark that finally lit the tinder. It was as though she knew at that moment that David Wiggins would always protect her, and take care of her, and love her more than himself. The reality of it took her breath away and she stopped and stared at him on the crowded sidewalk.

“Susan?” he asked, looking down at her in alarm. “Are you all right?”

I will never be the same again, she thought. I feel empty and full at the same time, and you ask me if I am all right? “I’m fine,” she lied, and continued at her brisk pace.

It still chafed her to take those steps down to the servants’ entrance, but she swallowed her pride and followed the bailiff. I wonder if I can find anything sensible to say to young Lady Bushnell, she considered, as she stood behind the bailiff in the narrow passageway and admired the broadness of his shoulders. My concern for old Lady B pales beside what I am feeling now about me and David.

After time for a cup of tea that tasted to her like gall and wormwood, the butler showed them into the bookroom. She spent the time in silence, staring at her hands and looking up only once or twice to see the bailiff standing before the cold hearth, his back to her. What are you thinking, sir? she asked herself. Are you wondering at my sudden strangeness, or are you thinking what you will say to Lady Bushnell?

“Don’t worry, Susan,” he said quietly, and she wondered again at his ability to read her.

Her unprofitable meanderings were relieved by the appearance of Lady Bushnell, who swept into the room, looking almost as disordered as Susan felt, followed by a thin woman in black with a tape measure around her neck, and a man with a sheaf of papers that threatened to spill from his grasp.

“Stop!” Lady Bushnell commanded, raising her hand to the people who almost trampled on her heels. The bailiff turned around in surprise, startled by the circus behind her. Perhaps you were not thinking of Lady Bushnell, Susan considered as she watched him. Then what, sir?

“Madam, how can I finish fitting your wedding gown if you dart about like a minnow?”

“Madam, I must know if you want hothouse plants or spring blossoms for the ballroom. Colonel March says he is allergic to pussy willows, phlox, and lilies. I really must know! The suspense is killing me!” He waved the papers to cool himself, and they fluttered down like leaves from an autumn tree.

With a sigh, Lady Bushnell sat down and glared at the modiste and florist. “Take yourselves off for five minutes!” she said through clenched teeth. The modiste glared right back, but the florist took her arm and pulled her from the room, closing the door behind him with an audible click.

“Colonel March doesn’t much care for daisies, either,” David said from his place by the hearth. “Lady Bushnell, I had no idea that you were marrying my Colonel March. Congratulations!”

Oh, but you have a way with women, Susan thought as she watched Lady Bushnell visibly collect herself and relax ever so slightly.

“He is the best, isn’t he?” she said quietly as she patted the chair beside her. “Sergeant Wiggins, you remind me how lucky I am.” She smiled. “Can you not stay around here for two weeks and organize this ... this ... balloon ascension I seem to find myself trapped in the middle of?”

He relaxed in that casual way of his that seemed to fill Susan’s entire vision. “You’ll manage, Lady Bushnell. Just tell them all to go to hell like your mother-in-law would, and suit yourself.”

She nodded, the picture of peace again. “Perhaps I shall. What brings the two of you here? Please tell me it is good news for I need some.”

It was not good news, and the bailiff minced no words in telling her. He was still describing Lady Bushnell’s lapse when the door opened and Colonel March came in. The bailiff leaped to his feet from force of habit, and Susan thought for a second that he was going to salute the slender little man dressed impeccably in black. No uniform was necessary; this was a man used to leading armies.

He smiled at the bailiff, and to David’s momentary confusion, extended his hand. “Come, Sergeant, and let us shake. You are a civilian now, and I am soon to become one.”

The men shook hands. “Best of good wishes to you, sir,” David said.

The colonel sat beside his fiancee, took her hand in his own and kissed it. “My dear, it is done.” He patted his breast pocket “A special license. What do you say we abandon all these preparations that seem to be taking on a life of their own and elope?”

She turned shocked eyes on the colonel. “I could never, Edwin!” she exclaimed, then allowed herself a squeeze of his hand. I own that it is tempting.” She indicated the bailiff. “And now David Wiggins brings us glum tidings of Mother. Tell Edwin what you have told me, Sergeant,” she said.

Patiently, David repeated the catalog of Lady Bushnell’s troubles for the benefit of the colonel. “The doctor insisted that I tell you, else he would.” He hesitated, seeming less sure of himself. “He insisted that it was time now to gather Lady Bushnell to the home estate. He feels this is the beginning of her final illness.”

There was a long silence. “Then we must,” said young Lady Bushnell finally with a sigh. “I promised poor Charlie.”

David cleared his throat. “My lady, Miss Hampton and I have come here to plead the case that she be allowed to maintain her independence at Quilling.”

The widow shook her head. “You know it cannot be, Sergeant. She is practically a national treasure, and people would say that I had neglected my duty to all Waterloo heroes and the Peninsula army, too! No, Sergeant. You were right to come and tell us. We need only make arrangements to move her to Bushnell, where she can be watched night and day.”

She paused and her expression grew petulant. “Why is it that troubles always come bounding after one another like jugglers? We had so hoped for two weeks in Paris ...” Her voice trailed off and she looked at her fiance. “Edwin, I am provoked, but I will do my duty.”

“My lady, Miss Hampton and I are here to request that we be allowed to continue her care at Quilling,” David said. “You, of all people, know how independent she is. It would drive her downhill even faster to give up her self-reliance. Miss Hampton and I will ...”

“Mr. Wiggins, please,” Lady Bushnell interrupted. “You know you have not time for the kind of work she will require.” Her eyes were kind as she regarded him. “I was raised in the Cotswolds myself, Sergeant, and I see in you that spring exhaustion that all bailiffs have. And landowners. I think of my own father.” She glanced at his hands. “I look at your hands, and I know that if the colonel demanded that you remove your coat and roll up your sleeves, we would see your chapped arms. You’re spending your days and nights with the sheep and I know it. Suppose Mother really needed you? Where would you be?”

David rose and walked to the window and back. “Madam, that is where Miss Hampton comes in. She has proven to be a highly reliable lady’s companion, better than we had any reason to hope for, considering her age…”

The colonel interrupted this time. “And there’s her problem, Sergeant, I am sure.”

“I am reliable,” Susan interrupted, speaking up for the first time.

The colonel smiled at her, but shook his head. “My dear Miss Hampton, I do not question your reliability, but your pretty face! How long before some young man snatches you away?” He paused a moment, as though wondering if to continue, but forged ahead anyway. “For all that your father is Sir Rodney Hampton, I feel certain you will not remain above another month or two in that place!”

“We’ve already heard that the vicar is interested,” Lady Bushnell interjected. “No, Miss Hampton, we need two people who would never leave the place and disrupt my mother’s continuity yet again. The bailiff is far too busy, and I fear you will not stick, no matter how earnest your good intentions.” She looked at the bailiff again. “Sergeant, we must make arrangements! Colonel March and I have already discussed this eventuality, and he is willing to offer you a place. Of course, you will not be a bailiff right away, but in time, you can work up to it.”

David said nothing, but only looked at Susan, as though he wanted her to solve his problem. I have no solution, she thought as she stared back, her mind in disarray. We have failed. You must start over, and what will become of your Waterloo wheat?

“Miss Hampton, you need not fear unemployment,” Lady Bushnell was saying. “I was talking to Mr. Steinman only this week about hiring some more servants, and he told me of a wonderful offer for your services with a widow and two daughters.” She paused, and her tone became more discreet. “Of course, I am certain that you might wish at any time to return to the protection of your father.” She hesitated. “Such as it is.”

“Or there is always the vicar,” teased the colonel, patting the marriage license in his pocket. “I heard a rumor…”

In desperation, Susan leaped to her feet, too, and went to stand beside the bailiff. Precious little good this has done, she thought as she glanced at him. We have lost, and a grand old lady is to be ripped from her independence and sent to a certain, smothering death. “You do not understand my constancy,” she murmured. “I want to do this for Lady Bushnell, and I know that I can.”

“My dear, all we have are your good intentions!” said Lady Bushnell, her voice rising now. ‘To end this pointless discussion, I don’t scruple to add that Hamptons are not known for constancy!”

It was an ugly phrase and it hung in the air like a bad smell. Susan took a step back under the pressure of it, but could only acknowledge the truth of what Lady Bushnell was saying. Again my father’s reputation has ruined my good efforts, she thought. Well, I will not have it anymore.

The solution came to her as she stood there beside the bailiff. She didn’t know why it hadn’t occurred to her sooner, and she permitted herself a smile—the only one in the room just then. I will be thought three parts lunatic by everyone who knows me, she considered as she quickly and coolly weighed the advantages and disadvantages. Here I go, she thought as she put her arm through David’s suddenly. He tensed, but to her relief, did not back away from her. She took a deep breath.

“David, we have not been entirely honest with Lady Bushnell, have we?” she asked, striving for just that certain coquettish modesty she remembered as a fixture with her husband-hunting cousins.

“We haven’t?” he asked, his eyes wide for only a moment. To her infinite relief, she discovered that she had not underestimated David Wiggins. His former careers of felony, poachery, and varying degrees of larceny had fully developed his quickness of mind in chancy situations. Her toes almost curled with pleasure as he sighed, and tightened his grip on her arm. “No, we have not, Lady Bushnell,” he said with a sorrowful shake of his head. He looked at her then, almost as expectant as the others, but only she could see his face, so it didn’t matter.

“No, we have not,” she declared firmly, with what she hoped was just the right touch of embarrassment. “Lady Bushnell, I think I know what will change your mind, and we have been a little shy to admit it. I will most assuredly be constant about Quilling. You see, David Wiggins proposed to me, and I have decided to accept him.”