Harry half expected that Mrs. Tavernor would have set out for home alone, especially as her house was so close. But she was still outside the door, hugging each of Mrs. Franks’s three children, who were about to be hauled unwillingly home by their father while their mother and their aunt remained behind to tidy the house.
Mrs. Tavernor waved the children on their way, turned to Harry, and fell into step beside him as they made their way along the street. No one seeing them would make anything of it, he thought. They were just two neighbors taking the same direction home for a few steps before their paths diverged.
He had better make sure there was no more to it than that.
Five
Mr. Solway enjoyed himself even though he told his daughters he wanted no fuss made of his birthday,” Mrs. Tavernor said. She had clasped her hands behind her back beneath her cloak and thus discouraged Harry from offering his arm.
“He did,” he agreed. “He likes to pretend to be a crotchety old man, and I daresay he will grumble to his long-suffering daughters, but he loved being the focus of everyone’s attention. Your fruitcake, by the way, was fully appreciated. It was the best I have ever tasted.”
“You are kind,” she said. “But you flatter me. I have had very little experience as a baker. I do know, though, that a fruitcake ought to be baked considerably sooner than two days before it is consumed. The spices need time to blend together and pervade the whole, and the fruit needs time to moisten and enrich the cake. However, I had very little advance notice. I did the best I could under the circumstances.”
“Your best was actually better than that,” he said.
She turned her head to look at him. “My cake was better than the best?” she said. “How very reassuring. And how grammatically illogical.”
He laughed. He liked her quiet flashes of humor. He had no doubt most of his neighbors had no idea she was capable of them.
Her cap this evening was trimmed with a double border of delicate lace. He had noticed every detail of her appearance tonight: the neat, modest dress—long sleeved and high waisted, with a plain round neck, lavender in color— her gray shawl, the cap. She wore it now beneath her bonnet, to very pretty effect, it might be added.
Now there was a decision to make. There really ought not to be. He had told himself that quite firmly just a few minutes ago.
They walked past the copse of trees and around the curve in the road to stop outside her gate. It was not too late simply to see her to her door as he had the last time, bid her good night as soon as she was safely inside with a candle lit, and continue on his way home. No harm would have been done. He would merely have shown her the sort of neighborly courtesy any other man would have. She surely had no real expectation of more. She had not been specific last week and had immediately wanted to take back what she had said. He had not been specific yesterday morning. She probably would be relieved if he took this unspoken thing between them no further, and he would be saved from doing something he would almost certainly regret.
Alas, good sense did not prevail.
“Will you invite me inside?” he asked even before they stepped beyond the gate. “For a cup of tea, perhaps?”
She turned to him and raised her eyebrows, though in the near darkness—he had not lit his lantern when he left Solway’s house, having planned to light it from her candle—it was impossible to read the expression on her face. There was a moment of silence before she answered.
“I did not bake today,” she said.
Was that a no?
“I have already eaten far more than I ought,” he said, “including a very generous slice of your birthday cake.”
She turned back to the gate without another word, opened it, went through, and continued along the path to her door without shutting the gate behind her.
Was that a yes?
He stepped in after her and closed the gate. She had the door open by the time he caught up to her and she was bending to pat the dog, which had come dashing out to greet her with excited yips before turning its ire upon Harry.
“I know,” he said. “You are a fierce guard dog even if you do look like a mere bit of fluff. I am in fear and trembling.”
The dog barked again, decided that Harry was to be tolerated even if not welcomed, and turned to trot back into the house. Harry chuckled and stepped inside after Mrs. Tavernor, who was busy lighting the candle. He shut the door while she removed her bonnet and cloak, hung them up, and went to light two more candles on the mantelpiece in the living room. Then, still without looking at him, she disappeared through an archway into what he could see was the kitchen, where she poked the fire that had been banked in the range, built it up, and set the kettle over the heat to boil. Harry did not move from where he stood or offer to help.
Neither of them had spoken a word since they were outside the gate.
There seemed to be a bit of a shortage of air in the house.
Harry had never been gauche or uncomfortable with women. But then he could not remember a time when he had been completely alone in a house with a respectable female, especially late in the evening when both of them were aware that they were considering having an affair.
She was the first to break the silence. “The kettle will not take long,” she called. “The water has been keeping warm while I have been away.”
Harry had never seen the inside of the house before, though he must have passed it hundreds of times. The dressmaker who used to live here had retired when he was still a boy and become something of a recluse, though she had always nodded and smiled sweetly at him and his sisters when she saw them go past. She had died a couple of years or so ago.
It was a well-designed house, furnished for comfort as well as elegance. The living room looked inviting and cozy. There was a workbox on one side of the chair by the fireplace, a knitting bag on the other. Two needles poked out of the top of the latter, displaying something soft and warm-looking and sunshine yellow. There were three books rather haphazardly spread on one cushion of the sofa facing the fireplace. Two of them had well-worn leather covers. The third looked newer. Cheerfully bright and pleasingly mismatched cushions were strewn against the backs of the sofa and the two chairs. Those on the chair that was obviously her favorite had not been plumped when she last got up from it.
She was tidy, then, but not fanatical about it.
She came to stand in the archway, and Harry realized he was still just inside the door, wearing his coat, with his hat clutched in his hand. He would give anything, he thought at that moment, to be striding alone up the drive to his house. It had been a cardinal rule of his mother’s—one with which he had always concurred without question—that one did not become sexually or even romantically involved with anyone who lived within five miles of Hinsford Manor. Not unless she— or he in the case of his sisters—was being given serious consideration for matrimony. That, of course, had been in the days when his mother was the Countess of Riverdale and he was heir to the earl’s title and his sisters were Lady Camille and Lady Abigail Westcott. His status had changed since then, but he had continued to observe the rule.
One’s reputation was a precious commodity and virtually impossible to retrieve once it was lost. That would apply doubly to Mrs. Tavernor, of course. A man’s reputation was usually more durable than a woman’s. But not much more in a village like this.