‘I know he does. And I'm truly happy for you.’ The weight of responsibility settled round her neck like a millstone. ‘Leave me now, Alice, I will try and sleep.’
Henrietta lay on the bed watching the sun shift round on the panelled walls, the shadows gradually lengthen. The clatter from the great hall as the meal was cleared came and went and silence fell over the front part of the house as the servants went about their business in the stillroom and laundry.
The household routine was as familiar to her as her own heart beat. She could follow the time by it and knew when she heard the cattle lowing as they were driven in for evening milking that it was almost suppertime. She would have to make a decision soon, but she felt strangely sapped of both strength and will, as though she had been ill for a long time.
Henrietta moved restlessly against the banked pillows. Her aunt was right, Alice was right, she acknowledged it. So why was it so difficult to say yes? Because Matthew Sheridan made no pretence of wanting her for himself? Because he was so obviously marked by the loss of his first wife? Or because she had lost even the appearance of choice in the matter?
But struggle as she might she knew her duty lay in securing the future of her people.
At last she heard the sounds she had been waiting for, her aunt moving in the adjoining chamber as she tidied herself to meet their guests at supper. Henrietta smoothed out her crumpled skirts, splashed cold water on her face from the ewer that stood on a chest by the wall and pulled a comb through her curls. A glance in the mirror showed her a wan face and with a sudden spurt of pride she touched rouge to her lips and cheekbones and hung her pearl-drop earrings in her lobes.
Matthew Sheridan was never going to guess the hours of anguished thought he had cost her.
‘Come in,’ Aunt Susan called when Henrietta scratched at her door. ‘You've decided to accept him,’ she said shrewdly after one comprehensive glance. ‘I am glad of it, you foolish girl.’ She bustled forward and kissed Henrietta's cheek. ‘I am sorry to have had to scold you, but this is no time for blowing hot and cold. Matthew Sheridan is the perfect man for you, and I am glad you've had the sense to realise it.’
Henrietta dropped a dutiful curtsy and kept her inner thoughts to herself as she watched Susan finish her toilette, pinning on her best lace and fastening the diamond ear-studs her late husband had given her as a betrothal gift. 'You are very fine tonight, Aunt.’
‘Well, my dear, you must keep this a secret,’ she dropped her voice and looked almost coy. ‘But Lawrence Stone has asked me to marry him. I have said yes, but not until I see you safely married. I was quite firm about that.’
It was the final feather settling on the millstone of responsibility around Henrietta's neck and it almost brought her to her knees. There was no way now she could refuse Matthew Sheridan's offer. If she did so, insisted on going to the Low Countries, her aunt's sense of duty would compel her to go too.
‘I don't mind telling you,’ Susan continued, apparently taking her approval for granted, ‘when Lawrence read the will this morning I thought all was up with us and we'd end our days in Bruges with your aunt and uncle Walton. And I make no bones about it – live with my brother's wife I could not!'
Henrietta looked at her aunt's animated face and saw the shade of the lively young woman she'd once been. ‘I'm so happy for you, Aunt,’ she said truthfully. ‘And I can think of no one who better deserves their good fortune. You'll enjoy society in the county town, and visit London often, I'll be bound. Why did I never guess how Lawyer Stone cared for
you? I saw it so clearly this morning.’
‘He knew I would never leave you, my love.’ Susan could not resist the opportunity to point up the moral. ‘You see, virtue and attention to duty do bring their reward in time.’
I need no lectures about duty, Henrietta thought ruefully as she followed her aunt to the top of the stairs. And what is it going to get me? Not the mature love and companionship her aunt and Lawyer Stone would share, nor the passion and devotion Alice and Robert had found, which perhaps Matthew had shared with his first wife. The satisfaction of being a good housekeeper and devoted mother would have to fill the void where affection should be. And yet, only this morning, that satisfaction was all she had asked for. What had changed? Why was it no longer enough?
‘Drat the girl!' Susan stopped beside a large bowl of pot-pourri that had been left on a table in the corridor. 'Letty has a mind like an empty jar. I distinctly told her to place this in the master bedchamber. It smelt musty this afternoon and I would not have Master Sheridan think us bad housekeepers for anything. Take it in, my dear, supper will be a few minutes yet.’
Henrietta obeyed reluctantly, balancing the shallow bowl filled with rose petals, bay leaves, lavender and orris root between her palms. The door was ajar. She breathed a sigh of relief. He must already have gone down.
A nightingale had begun its bubbling song in the hawthorn bushes beside the moat and she paused by the open casement to listen to the beauty of the clear notes before putting the bowl down on the linen chest.
The melancholy song tugged at her heart. She had heard it often before but it had never seemed so sad and beautiful as here in this room her parents had shared, where she and her brothers had been born and where her mother had died giving birth to Francis.
Henrietta ran one hand down the heavy folds of the bed-hangings. They needed taking down and beating. She would see to that in the morning when Matthew Sheridan had gone. She still had to tell him she had changed her mind, would be his wife. Her fingers clenched on the brocade as she looked down at the wide bed. And in due time this would be her marriage bed.
‘Henrietta, you have come to me.’ The latch clicked as Matthew pushed the door shut behind him and crossed the room to stand before her.
‘No.’ Henrietta backed away from the bed, aghast at what he must think. ‘I came to bring some pot-pourri, and to tell you supper awaits you.’ In the wall-glass behind him she could see herself reflected, see her own wide eyes and the agitated rise and fall of her breast.
Matthew's mouth tightened. ‘I had hoped you had come to me with an answer.’
She scanned his lean face, seeing only the harsh lines of impatience, imagining only the urgency of a lawyer wanting to conclude a bargain. Could he not say something soft, make some move to woo her? Could she really give herself in marriage without some measure of affection, take her mother's place as mistress of Winterbourne beside this man who wanted only a housekeeper, a mother for his children, who offered no sympathy, no meeting of minds?
‘Alice!’ Robert called from the foot of the staircase. ‘Do you have the keys to the cellar?’
It was enough to recall her to her duty. ‘I have your answer, sir. I… I am content to be your wife.’ There, it was done and there was no going back.
‘Madam, the warmth of your acceptance overwhelms me.’ He lifted one unresponsive hand to his lips and kissed it fleetingly. ‘This morning I put your rejection down to shock at the suddenness of the news of my existence. Perhaps when we have become better acquainted you will tell me what it is about me that repels you so.’ His voice was hard and flat, his hand guiding her towards the door impersonal. ‘Come, let us go down and tell the others our happy news.’
Chapter Five
Aunt Susan and Lawyer Stone looked up as Matthew and Henrietta came through the screens separating the staircase from the great hall. They had obviously had their heads together talking, and not only about their own marriage plans, thought Henrietta.