Bed of Flowers Page 6

  “He kissed me,” she admitted.

  “Was it marvelous?”

  “It was…” Bonny paused. “Cordelia, it was awful.”

  “Awful?”

  Bonny struggled to continue. It was strange how hard it was to speak the truth aloud, even to her dearest friend. “I didn’t like the way he held me, like he wanted to make sure I couldn’t escape. It didn’t feel good.”

  Cordelia stopped in the middle of the street. Her eyes flashed dangerously, but her voice was mild as lukewarm porridge. “Call off the engagement.”

  “I can’t!”

  Bonny checked for eavesdroppers, but they’d reached on the outskirts of town where quaint cottages occupied generous plots of land. The only creature paying them any mind was an old plow horse, poking its head over a weathered paddock fence.

  “What if it was my fault?” Bonny said.

  “How could it be your fault? You’ve never kissed a man before.”

  “Exactly. Maybe I did it wrong. Maybe I was a terrible disappointment.”

  Cordelia, a woman of supreme fairness and decency, actually considered that argument. “Why don’t you have a talk with Mr. Gavin? Surely he wants you to find pleasure in his affections.”

  Bonny shuddered. “He would be furious.”

  “Then it doesn’t matter whose fault it was,” said Cordelia. “If you can’t talk to your fiancé about something which is, by all accounts, a necessary component of any marriage, then you’ve chosen the wrong fiancé.”

  “My family needs this connection. You know that.”

  “Tell your family what he did, and find out if they still want the match. They might surprise you.”

  Bonny wasn’t going to describe kissing Mr. Gavin to her parents. Heaven forbid. And besides, she’d feel awful if they released her from the engagement. Like a petulant child.

  “None of the other young men in New Quay have courted me. Everyone says that beautiful women can take their pick of men, but…” Bonny shrugged. “Perhaps I’m not beautiful enough.”

  “Bonny, if you’re not beautiful enough, then no one is.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” Bonny silenced her friend with an abrupt wave. “Besides, it’s years too late to change my mind.”

  “Let us be exact.” Cordelia’s voice sharpened on the last word. “It’s too late for you to change your mind without upsetting anyone. It’s too late for a change of mind to be easy or painless. But”—Cordelia narrowed her eyes—“it is not too late.”

  Bonny groaned. “You don’t understand.”

  “You find a man’s touch repulsive. Once you marry him, he’ll be able to touch you as often as he wants, whether you like it or not.” Cordelia slid her gaze to the horizon, her expression bland. “Quite a puzzle.”

  “No marriage is perfect,” Bonny said weakly.

  “Is that the lesson here?”

  Bonny kicked glumly at the gravel road.

  “Really?” Cordelia pressed.

  “Can we talk about something else?”

  Cordelia, true friend that she was, immediately gave the heavy basket a swing and said, “I read the books that Mrs. Twisby loaned us. There’s one I found very strange—I’d be interested to hear your opinion on it. It’s called The Widow.”

  “Give it to me and I’ll start tonight.”

  The conversation shifted naturally to more benign topics as they continued their route. Bonny chattered away but with half a mind. Her thoughts turned to Mr. Gavin, to the ease with which he’d held her in place for his kiss, to Cordelia’s uncompromising advice.

  What if she had made a mistake? And if she had—what next?

  Bonny burned most of a candle reading The Widow that evening. It was a novel told from the perspective of a housekeeper gathering her possessions as she prepared to leave the home of her mistress, a wealthy widow who’d recently died.

  Both women’s life stories unfurled as the housekeeper, Mrs. Godwin, emptied the house. The widow, Mrs. Madott, had lost her husband as a young woman and never remarried. When she died childless, the housekeeper had become her heir.

  Bonny had no trouble believing that a lonely widow might leave a substantial bequest to a competent caretaker, but it soon became clear there was more to the story.

  Mrs. Godwin had been working for Mrs. Madott for almost twenty years before she discovered her mistress’s alarming secret: She wasn’t a widow at all. She’d run away from an abusive husband and assumed a false name. Forced to support herself, she’d made a fortune selling scented bath powder. Soon after acquiring this wealth, she’d hired a housekeeper.

  Mrs. Godwin remembered very clearly when Mrs. Madott first encountered her erstwhile husband. He’d tracked her down—not to demand her return, not to make amends or start a new life together, but to demand money. He threatened to expose her true identity, assert his legal rights, and have her committed to an asylum. He was physically violent.

  And then he disappeared.

  After reading about the husband’s behavior, it was impossible to believe that he’d left of his own accord. He’d had too much to gain by insisting on his rights. And late in the novel, nearly at the end, Mrs. Godwin casually mentioned stepping over his grave.

  The husband had been murdered—but who had done the deed? The housekeeper? The “widow”? The novel presented good reason to suspect both women but no definitive answer.

  Bonny woke feeling tired and troubled. The gray, blustery weather suited her mood exactly. She puzzled over The Widow on her way to Mrs. Twisby’s house. She’d liked it but… she wasn’t sure they should be handing it around to the ladies in town.

  She mentioned it to Mrs. Twisby when she arrived. “That book you loaned us, The Widow. It’s very strange, isn’t it?”

  Instead of answering, Mrs. Twisby asked, “Have you finished it?”

  “Last night.”

  “Who do you think killed the husband?”

  “I don’t know!” Bonny exclaimed. “If Mrs. Godwin had done it, she would have said so, wouldn’t she?”

  “Well, didn’t she? When she described how shocked and relieved Mrs. Madott was after her husband’s disappearance?”

  “But Mrs. Madott might have been feigning.”

  “And Mrs. Godwin would have seen right through it.”

  “Hmm.” Bonny bit her lip. “Perhaps. Let’s take a walk.”

  “I don’t like to walk.”

  “We’ll make a loop around your property—”

  “That’s much too far.”

  “We’ll walk down the drive to your gate and back.” Bonny paused but, this time, received no objection. “It’s dreary outside, but the fresh air will do you good.”

  Bonny soon had Mrs. Twisby on her feet and bundled into a warm cloak, with a thick scarf around her neck and a fur muffler for her hands. She matched her steps to the older woman’s slower ones.

  “Have you read any of the other the books I gave you?” Mrs. Twisby asked.

  “I always give my friend, Miss Cordelia Kelly, first crack at them—I enjoy reading, but she’s passionate about it and reads much faster than I do.”

  “Ah. So has Miss Cordelia Kelly said anything about my donations?”

  “She thanked you,” said Bonny. “As do I—you were very generous.”

  “Anything else?”

  “No, not yet.”

  Mrs. Twisby hummed, then changed the subject. “What about this fiancé of yours? You’ve known one another for a long time?”

  “Since we were children.”

  “You’ve made a good choice then,” said Mrs. Twisby. “So many young people think passion is the key to a successful marriage, but it’s not. Friendship is far more important.”

  “Oh?”

  “Indeed.” They reached the end of the drive and turned around. “Would you like to know how I met Mr. Twisby?”

  “Very much.”

  “I grew up in a place called Tonk, a city in the north of India. My father arranged a marria
ge for me to a Muslim man in good standing with the Nawab. But my mother learned, from other women familiar with this man, that he was a drunkard.” She cast a sidelong glance at Bonny. “I should tell you that Muslims are less tolerant of drunkenness than the English; we consider it a serious defect of character. My mother decided I could not be married to a drunkard, and so one day when my father was away, she invited Mr. Twisby to visit and introduced him into my bedroom…”

  “No!”

  “Oh, yes.” Mrs. Twisby nodded. “He served as a secretary to the British Agent, but he was well liked and expected to rise. She thought the alliance would be better for me and better for the family… and she was right.“

  “But to take such a risk!”

  “Indeed it was,” Mrs. Twisby agreed. “But we had no way of arranging a polite meeting, no occasions for innocent discourse… Either I married as I’d been told by my father, or I risked my honor as my mother preferred. You know which I chose.”

  Bonny hazarded, “It all ended well enough…?”

  “That it did. But you can understand how terrified I was, married under a cloud of scandal to a man I’d never properly met. Eventually I learned that he was kind and thoughtful man, a devoted husband who earned my absolute trust, but it took time.”

  “Didn’t he try to reassure you?” Bonny demanded.

  “Of course he tried. But trust can’t be forced. It takes time to develop, even between two people who are trying their hardest to hurry it along.” Mrs. Twisby patted Bonny’s hand. “You’re lucky to arrive at the altar with such a solid foundation to build upon. I hope you appreciate that.”

  Bonny would have felt very smug about the conversation if it had happened a week earlier. Instead, she left Mrs. Twisby’s feeling rather unsettled.

  The idea Mrs. Twisby had formed of Bonny’s upcoming marriage swirled like oil around her own expectations for it, thin as water.

  If Bonny trusted Mr. Gavin, she would not have spent the past two years in a state of perpetual anxiety. She would have been surprised to learn, in the midst of his proposal, that he had been searching for a better bride.

  But she hadn’t been surprised, except by his tactlessness. She didn’t know who he’d considered, where he’d gone searching, but she didn’t need to. She knew his mind. He had to have the best tailor, the best horses, the best parties… the best wife. He wanted the best more than he wanted her, specifically.

  And she wasn’t the best. Nobody was. “Familiarity breeds contempt,” as her mother liked to say. “Only strangers are flawless.” It followed that only strangers could be the best.

  No wonder Mr. Gavin had had such a hard time choosing a wife.

  This trail of thought ended at a dark place. She knew Mr. Gavin’s mind and understood his motivations. As a result of that knowledge, she had not trusted him. What did that mean for her marriage?

  She was still gnawing on this troublesome thought when she reached the gates to Woodclose. She stood in the road for a few minutes, wrestling with her worst self. It would be humiliating to return after she’d stormed away, to quiz Loel about accusations that she’d condemned him for making.

  Charles Gavin is not the man you believe him to be.

  Lord Loel had been the first person ever to speak an unkind word about Mr. Gavin in her presence. That could mean no one else had anything ill to say… or it could mean something very different.

  The Gavins held a great deal of power in New Quay and exercised it gently. They held the leases on half the homes and businesses in town. They owned the brine pits, a major source of employment—especially since the fire. They donated to charitable organizations, patronized the shops, hosted dinners and parties.

  Bonny had always found the Gavins easy to like. But if Bonny went about asking odd questions, looking for slander, Mrs. Gavin would hear about it. And that… frightened Bonny.

  It frightened her.

  But she had to know what Lord Loel had meant. He would sneer, but she could swallow her pride. Whatever he told her, she would listen. If there was any truth to his accusations, she would find out.

  She found him in the yard, stripped down to his shirtsleeves again as he plucked the feathers from a duck. He’d killed several—one, pink and pimpled, lay on the table beside a cleaver.

  “Lord Loel.”

  He paused his work. “Why are you here, Miss Reed?”

  “I was just chatting with Mrs. Twisby down the way and—”

  Loel returned to his plucking.

  Bonny trailed off. Dancing around her purpose only irritated him. “I was hoping you’d explain what you said the other day. About Mr. Gavin.”

  “Oh?” Loel swept his forearm across his brow, keeping his bloody fingers well clear of his face, which gave the rough gesture a dainty, feminine twist. “What did he do?”

  “Nothing.”

  Loel snorted.

  Bonny narrowed her eyes. “Nothing I’m going to tell you about.”

  His eyebrows shot up. “That bad?”

  Yes, that bad. She wouldn’t be here otherwise. But she’d do them both a favor and keep that to herself. Lord Loel’s response would doubtless be smug, cutting, and unworthy of him. By averting it, she’d spare his dignity and her temper.

  “Aren’t you busy?” Bonny changed the subject, waving at his ducks. “If not, let me know. I could make some tea.”

  He swung his legs over the bench beneath his weathered worktable and stood. He slapped the dust from his trousers, not looking at her, and it struck Bonny that he was gathering his thoughts and trying to hide it.

  Her stomach knotted. If a man as blunt and unfeeling as Lord Orson Loel had to brace himself before he spoke, whatever he had to say must be truly awful.

  “He fathered a bastard child,” Loel said abruptly.

  Bonny actually staggered back a step, arms flying out to balance herself against the awful sensation that the ground beneath her feet had dropped away.

  “It’s not the worst thing I could say about Charles Gavin,” Loel continued. “Rather the easiest for you to verify. It happened in New Quay. The woman might still be in the area.”

  “But…” It didn’t make sense. Mr. Gavin always treated women courteously, spoke of them respectfully. He liked to say that he revered women. “He’s a gentleman.” Bonny clenched her jaw to stifle further protests. Lord Loel wouldn’t care, and throwing a tantrum wouldn’t make him take it back.

  “To you or to all women?” Loel gestured for her to take the seat he’d just abandoned. “Sit. Stay as long as you like.”

  He disappeared into the greenhouse. Bonny breathed a sigh of relief; Lord Loel did not have a comforting presence. He hadn’t seemed to enjoy crushing her hopes and dreams, but he hadn’t seemed to mind it either. He just didn’t care.

  Loel spoke with such confidence, as though he’d never made a mistake in his life, but of course he had. He’d kicked over a lit lantern and burned down the quay. He was as fallible as anyone else, and that meant that he could be wrong. He could be spreading a rumor, unknowingly circulating a lie.

  She would consider Mr. Gavin innocent until given proof to the contrary. She owed him that much, at least.

  Thus decided, Bonny followed Lord Loel into the greenhouse. He was in the middle of repotting one of his flowers, carefully packing wood chips and moss around the root bulbs.

  “I’ll find out if you’re lying,” she said.

  “I’m not.”

  Bonny bit her lip. “How is the orchid that I knocked over? The Odo…”

  “Odontoglossum crispum.” Loel shrugged. “It’s not dead yet.”

  “That’s good, isn’t it?”

  “That’s what you want to hear. It’s not what I said.” He finished his task and led her to the table where the sad, stunted thing sat all alone. His mouth twisted bitterly. “Its chances of survival were never very good.”

  “But it has a chance.”

  “No.” His expression softened into a rueful smile. “No, but
thank you. Your optimism is so obviously deluded that it’s clarifying.”

  Bonny scowled. Her optimism wasn’t a delusion. It was a choice. She had enough experience of misfortune—as he well knew—to justify a repellant, gloomy outlook on life.

  But she preferred not to make herself, and everyone around her, utterly miserable.

  “I don’t know of any English collector who’s caught the knack of growing South American orchids,” Loel continued. “The greenhouses run too hot; even the fans I’ve built aren’t enough in the summer. The flowers suffocate.”

  “So give it to me,” said Bonny.

  “What?”

  “Give it to me,” she repeated. “If the orchid is dying and all your skill and knowledge can’t save it, why not? At least I’d try.”

  “It’s yours.” He flicked his hand at the pot. “Take it. It’ll be dead by morning.”

  “You sound like you’d be glad. I suppose now that you’ve assumed the worst, all that remains is to wait until you’re proven right and the plant dies and—” Bonny stopped herself before she made it too obvious that she was really talking about Charles Gavin.

  But Loel heard the unspoken words. She could tell because there was pity in his eyes.

  “Show me what needs to be done,” said Bonny. “The plant can stay here, but I’ll return and I’ll—sing to it maybe. I’ve heard that plants like singing.”

  “You’ll sing to it.” The skepticism in Loel’s voice was so strong it bordered on contempt. He shrugged. “Why not? Come back in the morning and I’ll show you how to water it.”

  “I will,” said Bonny, though in the back of her head she was scrambling to think of how she’d manage to get here in time and what she’d tell her parents.

  “Prepare to be disappointed.”

  “I’d say the same back to you, but I think you already are.” Bonny sniffed. “I’ll see you tomorrow, bright and… now I think about it, it’ll be too early to be bright.” Bonny sighed. “Just early then.”

  Chapter 6

  Bonny was sewing by the fire that evening when her mother walked in, a wrapped bundle in her arms. “I have something for you.”