After they agreed to consider a future together, Mrs Winstanley took him to see Sarah, with Aldridge trailing along.
"Do you feel better now, Lord Overton?" the little girl asked, politely.
Hugh had no wish to discuss their last meeting. "I am, thank you." What could he say to give her mind another direction? "How is your doll, Miss Winstanley?" he asked.
Her eyes lit, but she retained her reserve. "Very well, thank you, Sir."
"My daughters liked the ones I bought them in the same shop." And talked about them and showed them off to anyone who would listen. Surely this grave child would take the bait? "I chose one with dark hair for Sophie, and fair hair for Emma. Sophie's doll is named Frances, and Em's is Charlotte."
Sarah admitted her doll was called Anne, and—at a suggestion from her mother—went to fetch the toy and its wardrobe. After half an hour sitting on the carpet in the parlour, displaying all the doll's treasures, Sarah had thawed only slightly, largely because 'Uncle Lord Aldridge' was down on the carpet with them.
If Hugh made little progress with the daughter, he had, at least, pleased the mother. When he left after the proper thirty minutes, she gave him the warmest smile he'd yet seen.
"We are invited to Mrs Winstanley's for the evening," Aldridge told him, when they met to dress for dinner at Haverford House. "Miss Winstanley's actually, but Becky is moving to stay with her daughter." He exaggerated his sad face, pushing out his lips and drooping his mouth and his eyes. "She says she cannot lie with one man while she is contemplating marrying another."
Hugh forbore to comment. Or to punch Aldridge, as the man deserved.
"She is still under contract," Aldridge complained. Hugh rethought the punch, then saw Aldridge's lip twitch in a half-smile. The man used to needle the masters at school just so—to relieve boredom, satisfy curiosity, or out of sheer devilry.
"Poking the bear, Aldridge?"
Aldridge just laughed.
*****
Hugh's admiration for Mrs Winstanley grew in the course of the evening.
Aldridge's claim that she came from the gentry was borne out. She showed it in a thousand ways. Gentle manners and speech could be learned, of course, but she was natural, and at ease, and never made a slip.
She showed a keen mind, too, and was clearly well read, discussing with equal ease the impact of enclosure on the good health of farming workers, Walter Scott's new narrative poem, and the war on the Peninsula.
They left early, but not before Mrs Winstanley had accepted his invitation to go driving the next day.
*****
Becky and Sarah were waiting when Lord Overton arrived at two o'clock, just as he had promised. Becky paused on the doorstep. He had borrowed a curricle from Aldridge; she recognised the horses. It would be a tight fit for the three of them.
Sarah had no such qualms, and was already down in the street, renewing her acquaintance with Prince and Brown Beauty, chattering away to the groom Lord Overton had also borrowed, another old acquaintance.
"We'll tuck Sarah between us where she will be warm, and out of the wind," Lord Overton said, correctly interpreting her concern. "Neither of you are large. We will fit."
It was a tight fit, and at first Sarah shrunk away from Lord Overton. Soon, though, she was telling him everything she knew about the horses, as they made their way through the streets to the park, the groom up behind.
With his focus divided between Sarah and the horses, Becky was free to watch him, and to wonder what life would be like as his wife. If he continued to be kind and respectful, if he were not putting on an act, if this plan of Aldridge's worked...
By the end of the drive, Sarah and Lord Overton were friends, and he cemented the friendship by producing sugar cubes for her to feed the horses. She went to her governess and the schoolroom in full charity with him.
Lord Overton stood in the hall, smiling, watching her skip up the stairs.
"Do you intend to charm me by charming my daughter, Lord Overton?" Becky challenged.
He turned, laughing. "Is it working, Mrs Winstanley?" Then, serious again, "But no, I wanted to charm her, as you call it, for her own sake. Is she always so quiet and good?"
"She does not take easily to strangers," Becky said. Sarah had reason to be wary, and Becky would do well to remember it. Still, Lord Overton's attempt to win Sarah's favour was more to his credit than not.
*****
He returned for dinner that night, and it became the pattern for their days: an outing in the afternoon, dinner in the evening, and afterwards, cards, chess, or reading together. And they talked. Lord Overton had read many of the same books she enjoyed. He agreed with her views on enclosure. She did not share his confidence in the military genius of General Wellesley, but acknowledged that his own background as an army officer gave him the edge in judging such a thing.
She asked about his estate, and about his daughters, who would be her daughters, too. Perhaps. If she dared...
And at night in her bed, she wondered whether his shoulders were as broad, his hips as slender, as they looked.
*****
Surprised to discover that Mrs Winstanley and Sarah had never been to the Royal Menagerie at the Tower, Hugh arranged a visit. It was not a success. Though others visiting the Royal beasts seemed not to care they were kept in small dirty cages, both mother and child grew quieter and quieter. When a boy poked a stick through the bars of a cage to rouse a lethargic leopard, Sarah turned swimming, pleading eyes to Hugh.
"Here. Leave the animal alone," Hugh told the boy, who made a rude gesture but desisted.
Hugh moved his ladies on, and asked the keeper for directions to the room where the monkeys were kept.
"Had to be removed, didn't they," the keeper told him. "Attacked a boy. Mauled him something awful."
"Probably," Becky suggested tartly, as they left the Tower, "because the boy attacked the poor monkeys."
Hugh consoled them with ices at Gunter's, including one for the silent governess who played propriety. Uncle Lord Aldridge took her to Gunter's, Sarah confided, but he'd never taken them to the park, or to the Tower.
"You didn't like the Tower, Sarah," he pointed out.
"No," she agreed. "But I liked that you took me. Some of the other girls have been."
He delivered them home, wondering about the little girl's life. He forgot for hours at a time that Mrs Winstanley was a kept woman. He only knew that he wanted her.
He was light-headed in her presence, his blood being otherwise occupied, and he grew adept at keeping furniture, or his silk hat, or his folded overcoat in a strategic position to avoid letting her know what an advantage she had. When he was alone in one of Aldridge's spare bedchambers at night, he let the memory of her fill his senses, and imagined the touch and the taste of her. Her skin was pale, protected from the sun, but it would be paler yet on her breasts and her thighs. Pale, and tender, and soft.
The silk of her hair would cling to his fingers as he spread it out on his pillow. Yes, and while he was paying due worship to her lovely breasts, he would find the silk of her other hair, too, and what it guarded. He wanted to taste the sweet honey of her desire more than he wanted to breathe, to bring her to glorious completion, to find his balance again between her warm thighs.
The fantasy was unwise. It didn't make the days easier to bear, the momentary satisfaction giving way to a profound hollow only she could fill. Was she using some ancient concubine's art to ensnare with lust?
No.
He must forget that she'd been Aldridge's kept woman or he wouldn't be able to go through with it. And marrying Mrs Winstanley had become his most ardent desire.
*****
When Lord Overton asked if she would call him by his first name, he was sitting on her parlour carpet, eating a picnic lunch, their expedition to the park being aborted because of rain.
He leant towards her, his eyes warm but his smile a little uncertain.
"It not being consistent with a lord's dignity to feed pastries to dolls on the carpet, we had better dispense with all this 'my lord' business, do you not think? Will you call me Hugh, Mrs Winstanley?"
She studied her hands, fiddling with a ribbon on her gown. "If you will call me Becky, Hugh."
Later, when she and Sarah had seen Hugh out the door, Sarah said, "May I ask you a question, Mama?"
"Of course, darling."
"Is Lord Overton going to be my new uncle? Doesn't Uncle Lord Aldridge love us anymore?"
This was a conversation for the parlour. Becky held out her hand and led Sarah into the room, closing the door firmly behind them.
"Come and sit with me, darling."
How to explain? With Sarah cuddled against her side on the couch, she started with Sarah's question about Aldridge.
"Sarah, Lord Aldridge hasn't stopped loving us." Did Aldridge love her? It didn't matter. Aldridge did love Sarah, she was sure of that, lavishing on the little girl the affection he could not give his own lost children. "You will always be special to him. But we cannot stay with him forever. I told you we would be moving to the country one day."
"Then why do we need another uncle?" Sarah asked. "I thought it was going to be just you and me."
"Lord Overton would not be your uncle, my darling. But would you not like him for a papa?"
Sarah frowned, but did not reply.
"You like Lord Overton, do you not? Would you mind very much if our house in the country were his house? If I married Lord Overton?"
Sarah pulled away far enough to look up. Tears drowned her eyes and dripped down her cheeks. "Married, Mama? Forever?"
Not if Sarah were against it. Becky swallowed against a huge lump in her throat. Until she faced giving him up, she had not realised her growing desire for Lord Overton and this marriage.
She started to shake her head, but Sarah threw herself against Becky's shoulder, speaking around great hiccupping sobs. "Oh, Mama, that would be wonderful. He will never, never leave us, will he, Mama? If he marries us, he will stay forever? No more uncles?"
"No more uncles, my dearest. Forever." Becky was crying too. "No more uncles."
That evening was one week to the day since Aldridge first suggested the marriage to Becky. She was waiting in the parlour when Hugh arrived for dinner. "I think we can make a bargain," she told him. "If you still wish it, Hugh."