Wenna Read online

  First, he swigged a pint or two of water. Next, he found himself an orange and a fresh shirt. Energized, he strode back to the Labor Exchange a city block away. When he walked into the cavernous entry hall, he saw Wenna sitting on a long wooden bench, dwarfed by the height of the walls, knees together, hands neatly clasped. She gave him an unreadable glance and stood. Her cheeks looked fever red, but her mouth was etched in gray. She took a step toward him and began a slow crumple. He made a dive forward and grabbed her before she hit the ground.

  He stood with his hands under her armpits, looking for a place to put her until she recovered from her swoon. Scooping an arm under her legs, he lifted her back onto the bench. The other occupants stood to give her space to lie down.

  “Faint, did she? It’s ’ot in ’ere. Wouldn’t mind a little faint mesself.” A stout middle-aged woman peered out from under a faded blue bonnet. “Someone get water.”

  Someone did. Wenna’s eyelids fluttered as he trickled the liquid onto her lips, and she struggled to sit. Dev kept the cup at her mouth. Water dribbled down her chin and darkened the neck of her gown, but she began to sip. He belatedly realized she hadn’t had a drink all day, unless she’d taken one in the Brooks’ house, and was no doubt dehydrated. When she stared at him, he could see dark rings of exhaustion under her eyes, and he mentally cursed himself.

  “I’m a brute,” he said, blotting her face with his handkerchief. “You need a meal and a rest. I’m taking you home.”

  “Your lady wife, is she?” the stout woman asked, her lips pursed. “She shouldn’t be out lookin’ for work in her condition. Expectin’, aren’t you, lovey?”

  Dev nodded rather than explain she’d been driven in the heat all the way from Stirling in the hills without a drop to drink. “Could someone find me a cab? We live a block away, but I don’t think I can carry her so far.”

  Wenna looked dazed. “I can walk.” She stood. Her face turned pale green.

  “Sit, rest, drink another cup of water, and I’ll find some way of reuniting you with your possessions.”

  “You won’t find a cab around here, mate,” the man who had supplied the cup of water said. “If you live close, I’ll bring me wagon to the front and take you home.”

  “Is Rundle Street close enough for you?”

  “I’m goin’ there anyway. Give me a few minutes and I’ll see you outside.”

  * * * *

  Mr. Courtney gave the wagon driver a few coins for his trouble while Wenna stood on the main business street in Adelaide, too woozy to argue. Perhaps the combination of not eating and travelling had caused the faintness. Normally she wasn’t at all frail, but normally she had a good job and somewhere to live.

  “Now, let me show you my humble abode.” Mr. Courtney placed a hand on her elbow and opened a gate connected by a short paling fence to the nearby shop front. Paving stones along the side of the building led to a black door paned with glass at eye height, which he opened into a tiny foyer. A narrow stairway stood between two green painted doors. “Did you find a job?”

  “Everyone wanted maids. Maids, maids, maids,” she muttered wearily. “Young, live in, and paid a pittance.” With his hand lightly guiding her, she trudged to the top of the stairs, where she spotted her unpacked bags.

  He indicated the doorway on the left, and she proceeded into a smallish musty-smelling room containing a fireplace, two worn armchairs, a small desk and chair, a side-table, and a magazine rack. Old newspapers occupied a section of the dusty floor, and a pile of books sat in one corner. The stiff lace curtains didn’t hide the dirty set of windows, which showed a smeary view of the hotel fronting the other side of the main street. “I could have taken a job as a housemaid, a scullery maid, a laundry maid, or a general all-purpose maid, but not a lady’s maid. Upper servants are normally hired by word of mouth. I have good references, but not from anyone who employed me as a lady’s maid.” Her eyes met his. “The first wouldn’t give me one, of course, because I left her for the second.”

  “And the second didn’t bother because of my ill-considered words.”

  She needed to sit again. Her head throbbed.

  “And you are faint because of my unconsidered actions. At least let me put that right. Tidy yourself, and I’ll take you to the pastry shop for a good meal.”

  “I could have been a governess. I can read and write. But I’m too old,” she said with disgust from the depths of the saggy armchair. Even her bones ached. “The position was for a younger woman.”

  “We will worry about that later. First we need to eat.” His gaze wandered over her hair. “But your hat is hanging over one ear, and you might like to freshen up. I have a mirror and a basin in my bedroom.”

  She leaned her head back and narrowed her eyes. “You’re not luring me into your bedroom.”

  “Dash it.” He grinned. The man had an amazing ability to look guileless while he behaved badly, and a weaker woman might smile.

  Not about to succumb to a charmer who clearly knew his own worth, she checked her wayward hat with her hand and found she’d lost a long, beaded pin. “I must look like the wreck of the Herperus.” She dragged in a weary breath.

  “Ah, no. Her eyes were as green the fairy-flax, and her bosom white as —”

  “She had blue eyes, and don’t worry about my bosom.”

  He shrugged, his expression still amused. “Poetic license. Mr. Longfellow wouldn’t mind the color change. Come along. I’m hungry, too.” He led her past the stairway and along the short yellow painted passage. Indicating the first door, he stood back, showing her his bedroom.

  Indifferently clean red velvet curtains hung at the window. A tiled wash-stand holding a leaf-patterned jug and basin and an ivory-handled chest of drawers with a shaving-mirror on top occupied the space not used by a heavily carved, four-poster tester bed with the curtains missing.

  She gave him a look that caused him to raise placating palms and back into the passage while she removed her hat. Lacking a comb, she took the net from her hair and shook her head. The frizz escaped. Years of practice helped to finger-comb the lot at the back and twist a strand around to hold the mass in place. She reapplied the net tightly and added her little hat with her single pin. The water was cold, of course, and she washed her face and hands.

  Not in her wildest dreams had she expected that a gentleman who spoke in a cultured voice and seemed instinctively courteous would lodge anywhere so ordinary. She’d pictured him in a gracious house filled with bustling servants.

  Before leaving, she stared out the window at the tiny yard below, at the weedy garden, the clothesline sagging between two posts, and the little wooden building with a crescent moon cut into the door—a privy, apparently. This had been built against the back lane for the convenience of the night cart. For a single man, perhaps this tiny space was adequate.

  When she re-entered his main room, he was wearing his tan gloves, and he tapped his wide- brimmed hat against his thigh, clearly impatient to leave. He led her back down the stairs, where she noticed a small kitchen lurking behind one of the downstairs doors. “Your lodgings are very compact,” she said, more in surprise than criticism.

  He shrugged. “I don’t need anything bigger, really only my sleeping quarters upstairs. I rarely use the kitchen other than to heat water for my bath. I keep the bath in a room off the kitchen.”

  She glanced at his face. “What about the office front on Rundle Street?”

  “That’s a surveyor’s office.”

  “Not yours?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t have much use for an office.”

  “Where do you work? You do work?”

  “Occasionally. And I buy and sell land.”

  “Is it profitable?”

  “What? The land trading? No. Not yet.”

  She couldn’t imagine what sort of money might be made out of occasionally trading land, but whatever he did to support himself at least paid for his lodgings. Su
rprised by his lack of ambition, she followed him out the door, past his untended garden, and back onto Rundle Street.

  Food, clothes, shoes, leather goods, saddles, horses—anything really—could be bought on this busy thoroughfare. Some buildings looked rickety and insubstantial, and some had been built to last centuries. However, she didn’t have time to take her bearings, for he hurried her along the street, nodding at everyone he passed. She kept her gaze lowered, hoping not to see anyone who knew her.

  They sat down to lunch in the front room of a pastry shop she’d never before patronized. With all her meals provided by her employers, she saved where she could. A few small tables had been set out. Pretty girls in striped brown aprons served the respectable-looking customers: ladies who spoke in low tones and dressed in extravagant tea gowns. Most wore small hats loaded with flowers, or birds, or ribbons, all in the latest styles. Most wore simply-braided hairstyles. Some bunched their hair up and hoped for the best.

  In her plain blue gown and her low-crowned straw hat, Wenna squirmed with embarrassment. Normally, she didn’t eat with her betters. Nevertheless, she consumed a meat pie covered with pastry flaky enough to melt in her mouth. The tea in the pot was the perfumed variety Mrs. Brook drank, not the thick brown brew offered to her servants. All in all, Mr. Courtney had treated her well, but she still didn’t have a place for the night or a job.

  “After all that fuss before, I can barely force myself to return to the labor exchange,” she said, massaging her forehead to relieve a dull ache.

  “I don’t think the exchange is the place for you to find a job.” He settled his forearms on the table and linked the fingers of two shapely, well-kept hands together. For reasons unknown, this made the blackguard look earnest.

  She heaved a breath. “I need to regroup and examine my options. I must know someone who can help me find employment. Heaven knows I’ve always been hard working and respectable.”

  “My best contact, the previous governor, left the colony last year, unfortunately, or I could have taken you to his wife. She would have found a placement for you, because she knew all the ladies in town.”

  She inclined her head, letting her face express her disbelief. “Isn’t that always the way? You promise to help a woman find a job and suddenly you can’t.”

  “You’re a harsh taskmistress. I promised to help, and I will. But I’ve had another idea.” He rested his chin on the points of two meeting forefingers. “You want to go to Cornwall. I have to go back to Cornwall this year. I could take you with me.”

  “How kind. Would you put me in your trunk?”

  “I would put you in my cabin.” He frowned.

  “Of course you would. You’ve done nothing but proposition me since you first saw me. What do all the other women in this colony have against you?”

  “You might think you are the only one, but I do have other choices.” He sounded annoyed. “It’s just that, well, I could marry you.” Leaning back, he frowned as if he didn’t quite credit the words he had said. “In fact, I’m beginning to think you would be the perfect choice.”

  “That’s very flattering.” She suppressed the urge to push him off his chair. “But I would rather be a lady’s maid than a gentleman’s cabin comfort.”

  His eyebrows lowered farther. “If you marry me, you’ll have a fine house in which to live, with enough money to support your grandparents.”

  She sighed and smiled politely. “Then, that’s a very good idea. Shall we marry right away?”

  “I wouldn’t think we could get a license right away. It might take a few days.”

  “During which time I would stay with you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, dear. I must look like a droplet just come down in the rain.” She glanced out the window at the blaring sun. “You can’t be that desperate. Some women would call you handsome, and until I saw your grubby little rooms I would have thought you were well off.”

  “Grubby little rooms? You are, of course, used to living in gracious mansions.” His eyebrows tilted disdainfully.

  “The most gracious.”

  “In the servants’ quarters.” He nodded, assuming he had put her back in her place, which he had. “With a good scrub, my rooms wouldn’t look too bad. I’m a bachelor. I’d hardly need a big house full of servants.”

  She lifted her chin. “I suspect you’re an adventurer, a good-looking single man who knows on which side his bread is buttered. You spend your life as a guest in other people’s houses, eating their food, being waited upon hand and foot. You would never want to marry unless you could find someone rich enough to support your indulgent lifestyle.”

  “That’s quite a speech.” His mouth formed a grim line. “You might remember that had I tried, I might have added Patricia Brook to my string of prospective brides rich enough to support me.”

  “You’re not that stupid. Miss Patricia would have wanted you at her beck and call. She would have held the purse strings. You would want someone meek and mild.”

  He gave her a strange glance. “As a matter of fact, Miss Know-It-All, I think you would suit me very well. I wouldn’t have proposed, had I not. And no one in the world would call you meek and mild. I’m astonished that you lasted so long as a lady’s maid. I wouldn’t have thought you could hold your tongue long enough to flatter a mistress.”

  “I was sorely tried, on occasion. But when I thought of the money I was earning, I kept my opinions to myself.”

  “Money. That’s practically all I’ve heard from you.”

  Suddenly her throat hurt. “I hate you, you irresponsible lecher,” she said in a clogged voice. She wiped at a tickle under her chin and her hand came away wet. Her nose had blocked, and she realized she was dripping with furious tears. “You’ve messed up my life, and you’ve left me in a fix, and all you can do is sit there looking harmless.”

  “I know what I did,” he said, his expression stark. “And I know I can’t put it right, not today, not straight away.”

  “You’re such a rag of a man.”

  His lips relaxed. “Should I assume that’s a ‘no’ to my proposal?” He handed her his clean-enough white handkerchief again.

  She blotted her face. “You didn’t mean it.”

  “So, will you marry me?”

  She gave a long deep sniff, not about to blow her nose in front of him. “All you want is someone to clean up that place of yours.”

  “That would certainly be a bonus.” He watched her face.

  “There’s no point in me trying to find a job as a lady’s maid for weeks. Everyone is away for summer, or everyone who is anyone.”

  “How does one qualify to be anyone?”

  “Money, that word you despise. That’s the only measure in this country unless you happen to be a prince.”

  “The same as in the old country. So, you won’t be looking for a job immediately?”

  “Which means I’ll need somewhere cheap to stay for a few weeks.” She tried to read his expression but couldn’t, and she wouldn’t give a second’s consideration to his proposal, which he’d clearly made in the spur of the moment, perhaps hoping to impress her with his gentlemanly ways. The darned man couldn’t. She certainly did have his measure. “What’s behind the door of your other upstairs room?”

  “This and that.”

  “Which and what?”

  “Boxes, mainly.”

  “You owe me lodging since you lost me mine.” She folded her arms across her chest.

  “You want to lodge in my spare room?” His eyebrows almost hit his hairline. “Surely you would rather send me there?”

  “No. That would mean more work for me. The spare room will do. Since all my prospective employers are out of town, none will know I’m staying with you. And, I won’t be wasting any of my own good money.”

  He eyed her. “This trip to Cornwall—it’s really so important to you?”

  “I don’t break promises. I told
my mother I would always care for her parents, and I will.” She found her gloves on her lap.

  “Well, if I’m about to have a lodger, I’ll need to busy myself with some extra furniture. We’ll go back and you can look around the room and tell me what I need to buy.” Adopting a look of purpose, he rose to his feet.

  Doubtless, given time, he assumed he would get under her skirts, but he wouldn’t. She didn’t like the way men pushed into women. Although about six years ago, she thought the pain might have been worth the effort, had she not discovered that the carpenter she had set her mind on was also dallying with a lowly tavern maid.

  Two ladies arrived in the entrance of the shop and looked around. The older one glanced at Mr. Courtney, scrutinized Wenna, and put a gloved hand over her mouth to whisper something to the younger, who laughed. No doubt they’d speculated about seeing a poorly clad spinster with a fashionable gentleman. Wenna’s cheeks warmed as Mr. Courtney held out his hand to help her arise.

  Noting her focus, he glanced behind him, spotted the ladies, smiled, and said, “Good afternoon,” as he moved toward the doorway with Wenna.

  The ladies fluttered. “Good afternoon, Mr. Courtney,” replied the older one, while the younger coyly batted her eyelashes. She seemed about to engage him in conversation, but he nodded politely and escorted Wenna outside.

  The man had protected her.

  With her chin atilt and her expression tight, she walked beside him—until she had a dreadful thought. Those ladies might not have been discussing the discrepancy between a scruffy redhead and a golden god, but whispering gossip about the beauteous Mr. Courtney leaving Stirling with his doxy. No. Surely not. The story could not have travelled to town so swiftly.

  She needed to stop seeing herself as everyone’s focus. Ladies wouldn’t discuss her, other than to make certain that anyone who could afford to employ a lady’s maid knew the name of the rare temptation for husbands and male guests. Although such humiliation was hard to bear, she marched back to Mr. Courtney’s rooms as if she belonged with him.