Pam Rosenthal - The Slightest Provocation

One doubted it, for she seemed to be dressed for traveling. The sky wasn’t quite so black anymore, and one could see-for she continued to walk toward them, though slowly and warily-that she was wearing a large portion of her best clothes piled atop each other, with what looked like the remainder of her possessions wrapped in yet another large shawl and jammed into two of Mary’s discarded bandboxes.

A hedge rustled, and an imposing man stepped out from behind it. He carried a shabby valise; his overcoat was brown, his boots Wellingtons, and for a moment Mary and Kit each and simultaneously imagined that Mr. Oliver was making an oddly chosen final appearance.

Only for a moment, of course. For it was a taller and much handsomer man. An honest mistake for people of their station; neither of them had ever seen Thomas out of livery.

“My people in Ripley won’t give permission,” Peggy explained. “They’ve got somebody they like better than Tom that they want me to marry, but I won’t.”

Kit winked, Mary began to laugh, Peggy raised her chin proudly, and Thomas put an arm around her shoulders and drew her close to him.

“Of course you won’t, Peggy. You’ll marry who you want, with my hearty congratulations.” Kit brought some coins out of his pockets and handed them to Thomas, who thanked him gravely.

“Even if it means I’ll be left all tied up in my corset?” Mary asked.

Peggy made a hurried and slightly abashed curtsy. “I wouldn’t have left you like that, Lady Christopher, if you’d been home earlier. I’d have put you to bed, quite tidy as always.”

“It’s all right,” Mary said, “I meant it as a joke, and anyway, we can depend upon Lord Christopher to put me to bed until you return. He’s not as tidy as you, Peggy, but he has other qualities to recommend him. I shall manage. Just don’t stay away too long, will you, on your honeymoon? Ah, but on second thought, you must have secured a position with the marchioness, for you’ll want to be working with Thomas, I should imagine.”

The two servants looked at each other, Peggy finally shrugging her shoulders while Thomas drew himself up to his full, impressive height. “I won’t be a footman any longer, Lady Christopher,” he said. “And we won’t be returning here.”

“Been studying about fixing engines, he has.” Peggy’s expression warred between pride and skepticism. “Talks about steam, says it’s good for more than kettles and tea. Says he can earn more than three weavers or two footmen by it.”

“Good man,” Kit said. “Good night-well, good morrow, I expect-and Godspeed.”

“But at least take the umbrella,” Mary called, “to make up for how drenched the two of you got in Calais. My husband and I shan’t be needing it tonight on our way to Rowen.”

The dower house at Rowen had several entrances. One, toward the back, seemed to lead to the kitchen, but if you knew how to slide a certain panel, you’d find a hidden staircase.

It really was a clever piece of work, Mr. Greenlee had thought, when he’d climbed the staircase to the marchioness’s bedroom earlier that night. He nodded. Probably my cleverest piece of work.

He wasn’t usually the sort of man to make a fuss about his accomplishments, but tonight he was feeling in rather a celebratory mood. Estate carpenter at Rowen was an excellent position. He’d loved the same woman for, oh, forty years it must be, shared her bed for most of that time, and weathered the difficulties of a long, hidden, sometimes maddeningly complicated liaison. Good times and bad-the worst, perhaps, her episode with the Prince of Wales, just to draw people’s suspicions away from what was really happening. But mostly good.

The best, perhaps, that their son might be finding his way to happiness.

Mr. Greenlee had been thinking these thoughts at about eight at night-before Kit and Mary had interrupted a bad elopement, helped along a more optimistic one on its way, and done what they could do to turn back the tide of an ill-fated revolution. For all Mr. Greenlee had known at eight, their night out in the rain and the wind might have turned out disastrously. But he hadn’t thought it would, and as it happened, he was right.

“Emilia?” Rapping softly on a secret panel that led to the bedchamber.

Still, the marchioness thought some hours later, it was a relief to hear the horse, the creaking of wheels, and the jingling of traces.

She’d hoped they’d be back before dawn. For you never stopped worrying about your children.

She thought she could hear a faint sound of laughter. Yes, she was pretty certain of that. It was laughter.

We had fun, Mary had once confided through her tears. We could always make each other laugh. But I expect that fun and laughter aren’t enough, are they, your ladyship? Poor child, it was when she and Emilia both were waiting to hear the news from Spain.

Fun and laughter make a good beginning, Emilia had answered, thinking of a certain day, many years before, in Martin Greenlee’s workshop. Perhaps the most fun she’d ever had, and the only day they’d dared make love there, and possibly the beginning, amidst shrieks of pleasure and whoops of laughter, of what would turn out to be Kit…

“They look happy.” Martin Greenlee stood by the window in his dressing gown, which hung hidden behind yet another partition during the day. Living in this room, Emilia thought, sometimes felt like living in a conjurer’s box, with its trick panels and false walls.

It wasn’t what she would have chosen, but it was fun in its way.

She plumped up the pillows behind her, wrapping a shawl around her naked shoulders. Her white breasts, grown heavy but still very pretty, shone in the firelight. She felt his eyes on her. The room was a bit chilly, but she let the shawl drop open. He nodded, grinning in a way that most people didn’t see, and folded his arms in front of him, tapering, squared-off fingers resting on upper arms that still had plenty of muscle and sinew in them.

“He’s taking her back to the castle,” he said. “They’re going to wake up together, eat their breakfast together…”

She sighed. “You would have liked that.”

“You know it wasn’t only your secret to keep, Emilia. There was also Martha to consider.”

Since his wife’s death, they’d sometimes wondered if they might be a bit freer about their meetings-being careful, of course, to keep it from Wat and Susanna.

“We could go away together,” he said now. “There’s a small lodge I know about. We could be alone for a few days.”

He’d always enjoyed the sound of her laughter, but just now he didn’t know what he’d said to set her off that way. “Well, why couldn’t we?” he asked. “Why is that so funny?”

“We should starve. I don’t know how to cook.”

“Not even eggs?”

“Eggs? You know, I’ve always wondered what one does to them to get them hard like that. And the shells, however does one…?”

He laughed too. “Perhaps we’d better not. We’re all right as we are.”

“Even if Kit never knows his father?”

“I think perhaps he does.”

“I hope he does,” she said. “I think it might help him be a good man, to know…”

But sentimentality had never been their way, and so she found it a great comfort that even at his age, he could still leer at her, and very convincingly too.