Page 11 of The Incident at Ingleton (Beau Monde Secrets #3)

A fter her ill-fated birthday party, Hester felt like a child who’d inadvertently kicked a hornet’s nest. By the time they got back to the vicarage, Frank was spitting with anger. He must have woken Rose up in order to tell her about it, because Rose tapped at Hester’s door to see if she needed anything.

“A cup of hot milk?” Rose suggested. “A shoulder to cry on?” She stood in the doorway, rubbing sleep crusts out of her eyes.

“I’m fine. You can go back to sleep.” Hester hoped her smile didn’t look as fragile as it felt.

“If you need anything, you have only to ask,” Rose promised.

Hester lay in bed for what seemed like hours, unable to sleep. Her mind wouldn’t stop racing. Over and over again, she remembered the look of cool confidence on Mr. Butler’s face when he explained his plan to compromise her.

How could he have expected his plot to work? Even if he’d succeeded in forcing her to accept his proposal, her family would have been furious. There was no way Hester’s father would give any of the family livings to someone who manipulated his daughter into an unwanted marriage! Nor would he have agreed to marriage settlements that favored Mr. Butler.

Besides, the curate had forgotten something important: there was more than one way to restore a woman’s reputation through marriage. Another scandal on top of the Colonel Lowell incident would have been devastating, yes, but the damage could have been mitigated if she quickly married a gentleman of good repute. She need not marry Butler; any respectable gentleman would do. Nothing restored a broken reputation as well as matrimony did!

But marrying a stranger merely for the sake of preserving her good name didn’t seem much more appealing than marriage to a scoundrel. She supposed she would do it if it were the only way to keep from dishonoring the family name, but she hoped it wouldn’t come to that. Now more than ever, she wanted something better out of marriage. During her visit to Ingleton, Hester had seen for herself how a marriage of affection could work. Far from convincing her to avoid love matches, it had made such a marriage seem ideal.

Frank and Rose did not always see eye-to-eye, but they clearly cared about each other. They worked well together, too, in part because they were both good-tempered, not prone to quarrelling. Frank’s desire to help people encouraged Rose to use her talents to benefit the parish, while Rose’s playful spirits seemed to cheer Frank up after a hard or boring day.

In the span of a few weeks, Hester had gone from pitying her brother and his wife for their cramped quarters and modest style of living to envying them for their comfortable relationship. It had never before occurred to her that “comfort” was not necessarily synonymous with “luxury.”

If she was honest with herself, she knew it was unlikely that she and Simon Lowell would have enjoyed anything like this cozy domesticity even if they’d been able to marry. Could husbands who liked quiet and comfort even be found among the drawing rooms and ballrooms of the ton ? She had her doubts. Such men probably didn’t come to London, or avoided the activities of the season. How one could arrange to meet such a man, she did not know. She only knew that Rose and Frank were fortunate to have met at Lord Inglewhite’s house party two years ago.

The next day, Hester saw just how much trouble her encounter with Mr. Butler had caused. Frank called the curate into his study in order to sack him. Mr. Butler left the study looking thoroughly abashed. He discomfited Hester by stopping in front of her and bowing.

“Lady Hester, I am deeply sorry for having made you so uncomfortable last night. My jest got out of hand. I assure you that it was an ill-planned joke rather than a genuine threat. I would never have actually tried to trap an unwilling young lady into matrimony!” His dark eyes, brimming with apparent contrition, importuned her forgiveness.

Hester held her breath, wavering between two impulses. She did not for one moment believe Mr. Butler, and she could not decide whether to tell him so. Though she would rather have read him a lecture on the proper treatment of women, she reluctantly decided that good manners required her to accept his apology, however insincere she believed it to be.

“Thank you for explaining yourself, Mr. Butler. I am relieved to learn that I misunderstood your intentions. Though I cannot return your affections, I hope we may remain on good terms.” She could not bring herself to utter the words “I forgive you,” or to wish that they might remain friends. She did not want to be his friend!

“Of course, my lady. Rest assured I would never make the mistake of so insulting you again!” Butler bowed again before walking briskly out the door. She wished she could believe him!

Unfortunately, Hester learned, Mr. Butler did not intend to leave town immediately. Frank would be out of town for a week, so he needed Butler to cover all the church services next Sunday.

“I wish I could’ve sent him packing today,” Frank explained, “but I do need him this week. Besides, he’s already paid for a month’s lodgings. He may need to stay at Mrs. Jamison’s house while he works out his next plans.” He twisted his face into a grimace. “I know little about Neville’s family, except that they are not wealthy. He will have to seek a new position as curate, and it may be hard to do so without a letter of reference—which, of course, I would never give him after the way he treated you.”

Hester shook her head, surprised by her brother. Frank sounded almost sympathetic towards Mr. Butler. But when she considered how her life could have been altered if Mr. Butler’s plan had succeeded, she could not bring herself to care whether or not he found a new position. For all she cared, he could go pick oakum in the nearest workhouse, so long as he left soon. She did not feel comfortable walking abroad alone while he remained at Ingleton.

*

A few nights later, the sound of someone pounding on the vicarage door yanked Hester out of slumber. She sat up and shook her head, momentarily confused. She’d been dreaming of a visit to Vauxhall, of all places. In her dream, she stood by Simon’s side as fireworks burst overhead. The loud knock on the front door had merged with the boom of the fireworks, making it hard for Hester to tell the dream from reality.

As she woke up and realized where she was, she remembered her final, fateful encounter with Simon in the Duke of Creighton’s garden. There had been fireworks that night, too. Hester’s heart ached as she recalled the pain of learning that Simon, whom she fully expected to marry, had married an heiress without even telling Hester beforehand.

As if marrying someone else without warning had not been bad enough, Simon had the audacity to ask Hester for a goodbye kiss. “Such dear friends as we may kiss each other good-bye when fate pulls them apart, mayn’t they?” he’d said.

Hester should have known that kissing a married man was wrong. Had she thought about it with a mind unclouded by emotion, she would have realized how demeaning it was for Simon to refer to her as a “friend,” when in fact, they had been sweethearts.

Though Simon had never officially proposed to Hester, she’d allowed him far more liberties than a young lady ought to give her fiancé. They’d shared many stolen kisses and private embraces; in fact, he’d come close to ruining her. After all that passed between them, for Simon to turn around and marry a girl with a larger dowry was beyond insulting. It was almost evil.

But the night of the Creighton ball, none of those things had occurred to Hester. She’d thought only of her love for Simon, and of the grief she would feel now that they must be forever parted. She’d assumed that in a dark corner of the garden, none of the other guests would see what they were doing.

So, she had tipped her face up for Simon’s last kiss. At first, he had pressed his mouth against hers lightly, almost chastely. Then he’d wrapped an arm around her and drew her body against his. Their embrace had been oh so sweet, until fireworks had started bursting.

Not figurative fireworks. Real ones. Hester had pulled her mouth away from Simon’s and tipped her head back to stare up at the pyrotechnic display. Red and gold flowers arched gracefully through the sky, making brief, brilliant constellations, only to fall in sparkling showers. Behind her, she’d heard the familiar “Oooh!” of spectators delighted by the fiery show. And that’s when she realized that she and Simon were not alone. Their adulterous kiss had been observed by at least a dozen members of the bon ton . Now, revisiting that scandalous moment nearly two months later, Hester looked back with a mixture of regret and relief. Regret for the mistakes she’d made with Simon: relief that she had not married him after all. Given that Simon had been willing to kiss Hester while married to another woman, what was to say that he would have been faithful to Hester if they’d married each other? Poor Eliza Prescott had been married to him for only a few days before he violated his marriage vows!

Hester shook her head, dismissing those painful reflections. Once she paid attention to her surroundings, she heard raised voices coming from downstairs. She slipped out of bed, donned her dressing gown, and hurried downstairs.

She found Rose in the foyer, staring out the open door. Rose covered her mouth with one hand, looking distraught.

“What is it?” But Hester didn’t need to wait for the answer. When she stared down the lane that led into the rest of the village, she saw a bright glow, like a bonfire, but larger. “A house fire?”

“Yes. Mrs. Jamison’s house,” Rose explained. “That poor woman!” She shook her head.

Something niggled at the back of Hester’s mind. She’d heard the name “Jamison” before, though she couldn’t remember why. She set that puzzle aside in favor of more immediate concerns. “Should we go join the villagers?”

It must have been past midnight, but the full moon cast a bright light over the village green, where the entire population of Ingleton seemed to be clustered. Hester could not make out any faces, of course, just dark forms silhouetted against the blazing fire.

“Frank told me to stay here,” Rose admitted. “I suppose you are welcome to go watch the fire from up close if you prefer—”

“No.” Hester hadn’t meant for them to be mere spectators. “I just thought there might be something we ought to be doing to help. Hauling buckets of water, perhaps?”

She’d never witnessed a house fire before, but she had the vague idea that lots of water would be needed to combat it, since there were no fire engines in a village this small. In fact, that might be why everyone had gathered in the village green. There was a water pump in the green.

“Oh!” Rose looked down at her round belly and wrinkled her nose. “Maybe. I don’t think I’d be of much use waddling back and forth with buckets of water, though.”

“No, I suppose not.” Hester came very close to giggling as she imagined Rose trying to put the fire out. At this stage of her pregnancy, merely going up stairs made her struggle to catch her breath. The way Rose’s eyes crinkled at the corners suggested Hester wasn’t alone in her amusement.

“You are welcome to go if you wish, but I believe I ought to stay here,” Rose said.

“I doubt I would be of much use, either,” Hester admitted. She was neither particularly fast nor particularly strong, and she’d certainly never helped put out a fire before. She might very well get in the way of more competent helpers.

Rose smiled at her. “In any case, I would appreciate your company while I wait for Frank to return. And I may even need you here, if any of Mrs. Jamison’s lodgers need shelter for the night.”

“Lodgers?” Ah, that was the memory that had been teasing Hester! “Mrs. Jamison is the woman who rents out rooms, isn’t she?”

Rose nodded. “It’s very unfortunate that the fire struck her house, of all places. I don’t know where she’ll go or what she’ll do! Her husband left her with little but her house, so she supported herself by taking in lodgers. She won’t be able to earn money that way now.”

“Oh.” That hadn’t occurred to Hester at all. Naively, she’d assumed that as long as everyone escaped the fire unharmed, all would be well. Houses could be rebuilt, after all. But how was a widow with no income supposed to rebuild her home?

Something else occurred to her, too, as she thought about Mrs. Jamison’s lodgers. “Isn’t that where Mr. Butler lodges?” So far as she knew, Mrs. Jamison was the only villager who took in lodgers. Most people did not have the extra rooms.

“It was where he lodged, yes.” Rose’s voice was flat, and Hester could get no sense of how she felt about that.

“I suppose he was going to leave town anyway,” Hester mused. “So perhaps it is not a great loss to him.” Was it too much to hope that the fire would drive him out of town earlier? Her heart suddenly lifted at that idea.

A moment later, she sternly reminded herself that she ought not be glad about the fire. A woman had lost her home and her livelihood. It was a terrible thing! But Hester hoped that perhaps this meant the last she’d seen of Neville Butler.

She and Rose sat in the parlor, looking out the window to watch the fire for what seemed like hours. Hester leaned back in her chair and began to close her eyes for longer and longer periods. Rose yawned loudly enough to wake the sleeping souls in the churchyard.

“Maybe you should go to bed?” Hester suggested. She understood that Rose wanted to be on hand in case her help was needed, but it probably wasn’t good for her to go without sleep.

“You may be right,” Rose said. “I am sure if Frank were here, he’d tell me that I shouldn’t wait up for him. But you’re tired, too, aren’t you? You ought not stay up either.”

“I suppose not.” By now it seemed clear that there was nothing Hester could do to help Mrs. Jamison or her lodgers. In the unlikely event that her assistance was needed, someone could simply wake her up.

Both women returned to their bedchambers, and Hester, at least, slept long past her usual waking time the next morning. When she awoke, she found a rather nasty surprise waiting for her. Neville Butler himself met her at the breakfast table. After the fire was extinguished, he’d spent the rest of the night at the vicarage, sleeping on the sofa in the parlor.

The meal was awkward, to say the least. Hester and Rose both studiously avoided talking to Mr. Butler. He initially tried to engage them in light conversation, but when he received no encouragement, he soon gave up. He finished his meal in a hurry, muttered something about sorting through the belongings he’d rescued from the fire, and left the room.

Afterwards, Frank pulled Hester aside to explain the situation. “I wanted to reassure you that Mr. Butler is not going to stay here one minute longer than necessary,” he said firmly. “Later today, he’ll move up to the castle, since they have extra bedrooms. He may leave some of his things here, but you won’t need to see him after today.”

Hester could only hope her brother-in-law was right.