Chapter Seven A Locked Door
CHAPTER SEVEN
A Locked Door
Mary Beth discovered the next morning that deliberate foolishness was much harder to excuse than the accidental kind.
A woman could blame rain for a ruined hat, a loose stone for a fall, even a moment of loneliness for an ill-advised confession.
She could not blame anything but herself for walking into a carriage room, kissing Ambrose Tavener because she wanted to, and then kissing him again after he had given her every opportunity to stop.
She had slept badly. Ambrose, judging by the condition of the north slope by breakfast, had apparently slept not at all.
From the morning-room windows she could see the temporary bypass carrying a steady brown ribbon of water toward the lower meadow.
Two new timber braces stood against the exposed section of retaining wall, and a wagon from the lower quarry had already delivered three sample blocks to the work yard.
Men moved through the mist with shovels over their shoulders while Ambrose stood among them in a dark coat, one boot on a timber beam, studying the cut bank as though masonry were simpler than women.
Mary Beth suspected he was correct.
The estate steward brought her Ambrose’s revised estimate at nine.
The quarry stone had tested sound. If the damaged face could be taken down in controlled sections, enough original stone might be recovered to rebuild nearly half the wall, and Blackthorn’s own quarry could supply most of the rest. The saving was substantial.
The final note, written in Ambrose’s compact hand, was less encouraging.
No excavation beyond the western marker until the buried drain has been opened and shored. I will inspect before noon.
The note contained no greeting and no unnecessary word; nothing suggested that the man who had written it had kissed her against the plans table the previous evening until she had forgotten why she had gone there.
Mary Beth folded the estimate. “Has Mr. Tavener eaten?”
The steward hesitated just long enough to make the question sound personal. “With his men, ma’am. At the temporary shed.”
“Of course he has.”
She dismissed him and spent the next three hours proving to herself that she remained capable of governing Blackthorn without considering the whereabouts of one infuriating engineer.
She approved timber purchases, answered two tenant requests, corrected a supplier’s invoice, and wrote to Benedict’s agent declining yet another offer to recommend a mason.
The work required enough attention that for nearly seven consecutive minutes she did not think about Ambrose’s mouth.
At half past eleven, she surrendered and went outside.
The rain had stopped, though the sky had not committed itself to improvement. Mary Beth crossed the yard in the better boots Ambrose had demanded she wear and followed the marked path toward the north slope. He saw her before she reached the first flag.
“Stay on the boards,” he called.
“Good morning to you as well.”
“Good morning. Stay on the boards.”
She obeyed, which seemed to surprise him more than disobedience would have. Ambrose came down from the cut with mud on his trousers and a field book in one hand. He looked tired, occupied, and entirely too much like the man she had spent breakfast pretending not to remember.
“You received the estimate,” he said.
“I did. The saving is better than you predicted.”
“The stone is better than I expected. Your husband’s uncle built the original wall with what he had on the estate. Someone later spent a great deal of money making the face prettier without making the drainage better.”
“Blackthorn has always had a weakness for appearances.”
His gaze settled on her. “Present mistress excepted?”
“Entirely.”
That almost produced a smile. Mary Beth held out the folded estimate. “You have been avoiding me.”
Ambrose took the paper but did not open it. “I have been working.”
“Those activities are not mutually exclusive.”
“In this case they have been useful together.”
The admission warmed her more than a denial would have. She lowered her voice because two laborers were close enough to hear if either of them became foolish. “Do you regret last night?”
His answer came immediately. “No.”
“Admirably quick.”
“I considered the question at length before you asked it.”
“All morning?”
“Most of the night.”
Mary Beth glanced toward the men to hide a smile. “And what conclusion did all this sleepless philosophy produce?”
“That the western cut is safe enough to open tomorrow, the lower drain is worse than I thought, and I possess less good sense where you are concerned than I did a week ago.”
“Only a week? I am disappointed.”
“You should be relieved.”
He stepped past her to examine one of the timber braces. Mary Beth followed along the boards. He did not touch her, but she was acutely aware of the distance between his hand and hers.
“Benedict’s dinner is Thursday,” she said.
Ambrose’s attention remained on the brace. “I remember.”
“I have not decided whether to go.”
“That is your decision.”
“You say that as though you have no opinion.”
“I have several. None gives me a vote.”
She stopped. “Name one.”
Ambrose straightened. For a moment he seemed to consider refusing. “If you sit at Sablehurst’s mother’s table, half the county will decide he has restored you to respectable society before the soup is cleared.”
“That is rather the point of the invitation.”
“Yes.”
The single word cooled her pleasure in the prospect. Benedict had presented the dinner as generosity: old families, familiar rooms, the quiet disappearance of invitations once withheld. Ambrose made it sound like a transaction whose price had not yet been stated.
“You dislike him.”
“I do not know him well enough to dislike him properly.”
“Yet.”
“Yet.”
Mary Beth leaned one hip against the table. “And your second opinion?”
His gaze moved over her face and became harder to read. “I think I should return to work before I say it.”
“Coward.”
“Possibly.”
He turned back toward the slope, but she caught his sleeve before he could step away. The contact was small. It affected both of them far more than it should have.
Ambrose looked down at her hand.
Mary Beth released him. “There. You may work.”
“How generous.”
“Do not steal my lines, Mr. Tavener.”
“I shall add it to the estimate.”
She walked back to the house irritated, amused, and no more certain of herself than before.
At four, Benedict’s card arrived with a brief note in his elegant hand. His mother’s carriage would call at seven on Thursday. He hoped Mary Beth would allow herself to be seen again among people who had once valued her company.
Once.
She read the word twice.
There was kindness in Benedict. She did not doubt that entirely.
He had called on her for months without asking for public gratitude, and he had never joined the chorus of men who treated her reputation as permission to be crude.
But Ambrose had planted an unwelcome question.
Was Benedict offering her a room to enter, or reminding her that he possessed the key?
Mary Beth put the card away unanswered.
By supper the rain had returned. The beck rose quickly, and the lower bridge disappeared beneath a sheet of fast water before dusk. Ambrose came to the house shortly after seven to tell the steward that his crew had taken the village road. He intended to follow after checking the temporary drain.
Mary Beth heard this from the dining room and sent back one instruction: Mr. Tavener was not to risk either road in darkness and rising water when the blue room stood empty.
The answer returned five minutes later.
Mr. Tavener had objected.
Mary Beth sent a second instruction.
Mr. Tavener could object from the blue room.
At eight thirty, she saw light beneath its door from the far end of the guest corridor.
She did not go to him then.
She went to the library, attempted to read, abandoned the book, reviewed the quarry figures, abandoned those too, and drank half a glass of brandy she did not need.
At ten, the household began to settle. Doors closed below stairs.
The last coal scuttle sounded in the passage.
Rain whispered steadily against the windows.
At half past ten, Mary Beth stood in her dressing room wearing a plain dark robe over her nightdress and stared at herself in the glass.
She looked neither wicked nor reckless. This annoyed her. If one intended to commit a scandal, one ought at least to appear capable of it.
She put on slippers, extinguished the lamp, and opened her door.
The corridor was empty.
Mary Beth had lived at Blackthorn long enough to know which boards complained under a careless foot.
She avoided them without thinking. The house around her had the strange intimacy of late hours: familiar furniture reduced to shadow, portraits watching from darkness, the distant clock in the west hall measuring time for no one who wished to hear it.
The blue room lay beyond the old nursery staircase.
Light still showed beneath the door.
Mary Beth raised her hand and knocked once.
Ambrose opened it almost immediately.
He had removed his coat and waistcoat. His shirt sleeves were rolled to the forearms, and the collar stood open at the throat. A set of plans covered the writing desk behind him. For one startled second he looked like a man who had been expecting no one and hoping for exactly her.
Then caution returned.
“Mary Beth.”
“Ambrose.”
His eyes moved past her to the empty corridor. “You should not be here.”
“That is an observation, not a question.”
“It may become both.”
She stepped into the room.
Ambrose did not stop her.
He also did not close the door. It remained open a hand’s breadth behind her, allowing a narrow line of corridor darkness into the lamplight.
Mary Beth looked at it. “You have developed a tiresome affection for open doors.”
“They encourage good judgment.”
“Then we have established that they are wasted on us.”
She closed the door.
The latch clicked.
Ambrose remained where he was.