Chapter Six
Embarrassed by losing control of his emotions, Martin excused himself from Mrs. Bellamy, claiming that after the excitement, he needed rest. It was not a lie: he did feel exhausted to the bone, and when he shut the door of his drawing room on the rest of the world, he almost collapsed right there on the old sofa.
Even more than rest—which he took properly in his bed for half an hour—Martin needed solitude to compose himself.
He was disappointed in the way he had behaved with Caroline. Mrs. Bellamy was correct that he was wounded by his daughter trying so hard to disrupt their peace. But battles with Caroline were nothing new to Martin. This was, unfortunately, how it had been for almost three years now.
What disquieted Martin more was the exchange with Mrs. Bellamy.
The way his thoughts, in the aftermath of Caroline’s departure, had caught in a loop of worrying what his guest must think.
The way her hand on his back had felt so perfectly comforting.
The way that, when she sank beside him on the settee, a part of Martin had yearned to pull her body against his. To touch her. To know her. To kiss her.
He had not felt such things since Lolly had died.
Oh, he had noticed beautiful women who crossed his path—but with all the same distance as noticing a finely executed painting.
And of course his body felt lust, yet never towards a specific person.
He cared for himself with memories from his twenty years of bliss with Lolly.
He did not fixate on poor widows. Mrs. Bellamy would no doubt be horrified if she knew the fantasy that had flashed across his skin when their hands touched.
It was only because she was his first female confidante since Lolly.
Martin had shared his worries about his children with Maulvi—and occasionally the Widow Croft, but only in Maulvi’s presence, and she was too cheerful a woman to do anything except assure him a father knows best. True, when he and Caroline had first warred over Eddie, he had turned to Lolly’s sister Charlotte for help—but Charlotte was like a well-meaning, overbearing, spoiled cousin to him.
And while he supposed Caroline would point out that he had often relied on Mrs. Chow to care for the children, never had he confided in Mrs. Chow more than concerns for their physical health.
Mrs. Bellamy was the first friend with whom he had shared his deepest regrets and who was a woman.
That was why he had for a moment been tempted to rip open that black cotton dress and sink his lips into her flesh.
Not because it was what he should do, not even because it was what he actually wanted, but because it was instinct, like ducking when hearing a gunshot.
If he cultivated more women in his life to give him parenting advice, no doubt he would become immune to Mrs. Bellamy.
Alone in his bedroom, he saw to that terrible organ of his, fixing his mind on the memory of Lolly’s breasts and Lolly’s quim instead of thinking again of Mrs. Bellamy’s breathless declaration that they were friends.
When he was done—his body trembling with success, yet frustration still lingering—Martin washed his hands and face and changed into his old, patchy waistcoat.
Had the servants not had their half day, he would have rung for leftovers from the failed dinner to be brought to his room and hidden the rest of the afternoon with a book.
As it was, he was forced to venture downstairs again. Not, as a lurid gossip columnist might imagine, because he sought out Mrs. Bellamy but because he was hungry.
He needed—wanted—space from her, not to find out if she still sat in the study, where he could still pin her to the couch to discover what her kiss tasted like.
He made it out to the kitchen and back into the rear corridor of the Hall without indulging his curiosity about Mrs. Bellamy’s whereabouts. He told himself he would go straight upstairs—after all, she was likely resting in her own room.
Except, instead of going up the stairs, he found himself ducking into the study. To collect the committee report on revising the Corn Laws, which he still had to finish reading. That he happened to discover Mrs. Bellamy was, indeed, still sitting by the bookshelves was neither here nor there.
She had moved into a chair so that her back was to the door, and she did not stir at the sound of Martin’s entrance. From the tilt of her head, Martin thought at first that she was asleep, and he told himself to retreat quietly so as not to wake her.
He crept forward instead.
She was not asleep. She studied a letter with her chin bent and her left hand clasped to her mouth, as if someone had died.
Martin’s stomach flipped. Someone could have died.
“Have you had bad news?” he asked, forgetting that she did not know he had entered the room. She let out a strangled scream.
“I didn’t mean to frighten you.” Rushing to unburden himself first of the plate of food and the heavy committee report, Martin sank to his knees beside her chair and put his two hands on her arm to calm her. “Forgive me. I should have knocked at the door.”
“Knocked at the door of your own study?” Her spare hand landed on top of his fingers, and she let out a shaky breath, clearly trying to paste over her emotions.
“I should have removed to my room when you left. I remembered this letter that your daughter delivered and thought I would read it first, and since then, I forgot myself.”
Caroline had said the letter was from Mr. Sebright—which couldn’t mean that anyone had died, or Caroline would have shared that news, too.
Unless Mrs. Bellamy’s niece had finally written and the note had gone to her old address.
Still holding onto her arm, Martin asked, “Is it news from your family?”
Shaking her head, she removed her fingers from his to hold the letter again. “A bill of dilapidations for the rectory.”
Anger surged through Martin. Of course, it was not irregular for a new rector to ask the previous family to cover the cost of repairs to the parish house—yet he thought it in extremely poor taste considering Mr. Sebright counted Lord Harewood as a relation while Mrs. Bellamy didn’t even have anywhere to live.
Besides, it had only been Mr. and Mrs. Bellamy living in the rectory for this past decade, with no children or grandchildren to wreak havoc. There couldn’t be a great need for repairs.
“Are they asking for very much?”
For a moment, she seemed unable to answer, her eyes glued to the letter, her mouth stuck open on a word that would not come. At last, she said, “Whether it is very much or very little, I am afraid I cannot pay it.”
She blushed—as if it were some stain upon her honor that she did not have the funds for such a bill!
Martin wanted to take her in his arms, and yes, he would kiss her, but more importantly, he would erase the shame from her being.
He settled for taking the letter from her.
Moving into the chair beside hers—his knees could not bear to kneel for much longer—he read over its charges.
New wallpaper to replace a patch in the living room.
New thatching for the roof to fix a leak in the main bedroom.
New tiling for the hearth in the kitchen.
This was not a good faith bill asking to share the burden of updating a rectory. This was highway robbery of a poor widow.
“This must be negotiated, Mrs. Bellamy. You do not bear the burden for all of these repairs.”
She stared down at her feet, which were dainty in a pair of silk slippers she had probably bought as a bride.
“I shouldn’t like to cause trouble in the village over it.
Perhaps I can pay in installments. I had planned to help my niece with her household, but I could take in sewing as well to pay off my debt. ”
Not for a second would Martin allow her to accept such a responsibility. “It shall not be so bad as all that. We’ll talk with Mr. Sebright to sort this out. I promise you it shall not cause any trouble in the village.”
She shook her head. “This is my challenge, not yours.”
“Why should it be yours alone when I am ready and willing to help?”
With the same strength she had displayed in accepting his invitation to live at Northfield Hall, she lifted her chin and met his gaze directly. “You have already taken me in as a houseguest with no termination date. I will not turn into a leech, sir.”
All questions of shoulds or shouldn’ts, all reasoning of why he felt this way or that, disappeared.
Martin reached across the space between their chairs to touch her again, this time threading his fingers through hers.
“I invited you to live here as a part of my duty. Now, I offer you my help as your friend. My dear Mrs. Bellamy, please, won’t you allow me to be your knight in shining armor? ”
How thrilling it was to even call her that: my dear Mrs. Bellamy. The words echoed in the air as she looked down at their intertwined hands, then back into his eyes. Martin couldn’t breathe as he waited for her answer.
Her fingers tightened ever so slightly around his as she nodded. “If you so wish it, my lord.”
“I do,” he said, and though he knew he should let go of her hand, he didn’t.
Lord Preston arranged for them to ride to Thatcham the very next day in the family’s carriage.
As opposed to the gig, which was so well-used that it could have belonged to any prospering farmer in the neighborhood, the carriage could only be that of a lord.
It boasted four wooden wheels with spokes painted to match the black lacquer of its body.
The door bore the family crest in gold and red.
When Boyle, the coachman, drove it round the sweep to fetch them, he wore a linen livery that Martha hadn’t yet seen on the household servants.
“The gig is perfectly comfortable,” Martha said to Lord Preston as he led her down the marble steps to the carriage. “I don’t need such pampering as a coach-and-four.”