Spinster and Spice (The Spinster Chronicles, Book 3) Read online

  “Not that much,” he grumbled, rubbing at his thigh. “And what of an escort?”

  It was clear his sister was as naïve about London as she was about most other things as she shrugged and seemed completely nonplussed about it. “I’m not sure. What sort of chaperone does one need in London?”

  Oh, Lord.

  “Never mind,” he told her quickly, trying for a smile. “Suffice it to say, two women do not go out without a chaperone. Ever.”

  Kitty’s brow wrinkled in confusion, but she nodded anyway. “All right.”

  Steps down the corridor stopped them from further conversation, and Kitty lowered her eyes as the housekeeper, Mrs. Jersey, approached.

  Still not comfortable with her, then.

  Interesting.

  “Mr. Morton, Miss Morton, there’s a Miss Lambert here,” Mrs. Jersey intoned in her very formal way, though she bore a curious smile. “I have shown her into the parlor. Should I offer her some tea?”

  “She’s here already?” Kitty squeaked, forgetting to be shy. She looked to Sebastian in panic. “Sebastian!”

  He bit back a laugh and nodded. “Go and finish getting ready, Mouse. I will see to our guest.”

  Kitty darted off with the frantic scampering of a child, and he came around the desk towards Mrs. Jersey. “Please inquire if she would like some tea, and I will be along momentarily.”

  “Yes, Mr. Morton,” she replied, still bearing that curious smile. She bobbed a curtsey and moved back towards the parlor.

  Sebastian waited for a moment, his fingers rubbing together with a very faint anxiety. He couldn’t have said why, for it was not as though she made him nervous or gave him any cause for worry or concern. On the contrary, he had never felt quite so comfortable in the presence of any woman, barring his sister and their late mother.

  But here he was, slightly anxious.

  He moved to the looking glass in the corridor and adjusted his cravat, then smoothed his hair, and then, for some completely unknown reason, he smiled with the full intention of examining it.

  He caught himself and strode away from the looking glass at once.

  “Pull yourself together, Morton,” he muttered to himself, shaking his head.

  The parlor was before him, and he could see Izzy within, smiling out of the window, posed rather like a portrait might have been.

  But no portrait would ever have seemed so alive as this.

  Shaking his head again, he moved into the room, smiling politely. “Miss Lambert.”

  Izzy rose at once and curtseyed as he entered. “Mr. Morton.”

  “Please,” he murmured, gesturing to the seat once more as he moved to a chair opposite.

  “I am sorry to intrude,” Izzy began, smiling in her warm fashion. “I do know that I am early, but the day is so lovely, I couldn’t wait.”

  Sebastian glanced out of the window to see the sun shining brightly, belying the chill in the air. He turned his attention back to Izzy, his expression quizzical. “And the cold would not sway you to a more comfortable activity today?”

  Her smile spread and turned impish. “It is not so cold today, Mr. Morton. I am properly attired, as you see.”

  He did see, and he found it quite charming. Nothing in the height of fashion, if his forays into London society were any proof, but very sensible. He found her deep red, hooded cloak and cream-colored muff to be charming, and the bonnet she wore seemed to be lined with flannel, which he thought was rather ingenious.

  Izzy tugged one hand out of her muff to show gloves on her fingers, as if he had questioned her still. “And I have a scarf beneath the cloak.”

  “I stand corrected,” he said with a tilt of his head in acknowledgement.

  Her lips slowly shifted into a natural, content smile. “I hope you don’t mind my taking your sister out on this winter day. I find London to be confining at times myself, and as she has spent so much time in Bedford, I did not want her to feel the same.”

  “I don’t mind at all,” he replied, surprised that she would even think it. “It’s a very good idea, actually.”

  Her brilliant eyes crinkled at the corners at that. “I do occasionally get good ideas, you know.”

  He groaned at the jab. “I did not mean to imply that you did otherwise.”

  “And yet, you sounded surprised.”

  Her impish look might have been the most charming one he had seen in her yet, and it made him smile. There was nothing else to do, and no other response to give.

  Except one.

  “I don’t know you well enough to be surprised about your ideas, Miss Lambert,” he murmured. “Hopefully before the end of this, I will.”

  He watched as her smile faded in surprise, then tucked in against her cheekbones. And there it stayed, in a smaller version that was no less potent than its previous occupant.

  And he wanted to see that smile more often.

  All the time, in fact.

  In everything.

  “Then I think, perhaps, you should call me Izzy, Mr. Morton,” Izzy told him, her voice tight with some sort of amusement. “All of my friends do.”

  He nodded slowly, smiling still. “Perhaps I should.” But he said nothing further, and only smiled.

  Izzy waited, then laughed, tilting her head back to do so, just as she had done before, and it made no difference that her eyes were squeezed shut or that her hair was covered or that she was completely bundled up.

  It still struck him.

  She laughed so freely, so easily, and without any restraint, though there was nothing boisterous about it. It wasn’t musical, but it had the sound of a song. It wasn’t delicate, but there was something gentle about it. It wasn’t extraordinary, but the richness in it was captivating.

  A laugh was captivating? He had no idea such a thing was possible, but here he was, moved by one woman’s laughter.

  “You are impossible,” Izzy informed him, laughter still lingering in her cheeks.

  “So my friends inform me,” he replied.

  “Then it seems I am your friend,” she returned without hesitation, setting her hand back into her muff and lifting her brows in suggestion.

  Sebastian let his smile spread and linger. “So it seems.”

  “Izzy!” Kitty gasped as she burst into the room entirely out of character. “I am so sorry.”

  Both Izzy and Sebastian sprang from their seats as though they had been caught in a sin of sorts. As if it had been choreographed, they awkwardly turned as one to face Kitty.

  “Sorry for what, dear?” Izzy said sounding a bit frantic. “Sebastian and I were only being social waiting for you.”

  Sebastian jerked at the sound of his given name from her lips and looked at her quickly, but she was completely focused on his sister, no hint of embarrassment in her cheeks.

  She’d said it without meaning to say it. She’d said it easily when in a panic.

  She’d called him Sebastian.

  She thought of him as Sebastian.

  Izzy.

  “Well, shall we go?” Kitty was saying, sliding her hands into gloves. “I don’t want to be out and about when there are too many others. I’ll become a complete wallflower in a setting entirely devoid of walls.”

  Izzy chuckled and stepped forward to take Kitty’s hand. “You’ll be fine, dear. We won’t see many people at all, I promise.” She turned to bid Sebastian farewell, but he couldn’t let her.

  He was moving before he meant to. “I’ll come with the pair of you. You must have a proper escort, after all.”

  “Oh, I brought a footman,” Izzy replied, eyes going as wide as Kitty’s always were. “There’s really no need…”

  “Nonsense,” he overrode as he strode past them. “He can come along, certainly, for two ladies surely require double the escort.”

  Kitty giggled at that, but he couldn’t hear if Izzy did as well. It didn’t matter if she did, he would come with them regardless.

  He had to.

  He called for his
greatcoat, gloves, scarf, and hat, wishing he had time to change, but not willing to delay the ladies further. It would be all right; he was an army man, after all. He’d been through much worse than a crisp day in improper clothing with a new and fascinating friend by his side.

  “Well,” he called to them when he had his things, “shall we?”

  It wasn’t long before their little trio with footman in tow reached Hyde Park, which was nearly empty, as Izzy had promised, which delighted Kitty to no end.

  “I do realize that I will have to socialize eventually and go to events where there will be strangers,” she told them both, her breath dancing on the winter air in visible puffs.

  “Ideally, yes,” Izzy teased, nudging the younger girl with her slender shoulders.

  “Eventually,” Sebastian added with a hint of a chuckle.

  Kitty ignored them both. “But I would rather not do so now.” She looked at Izzy, suddenly uncertain. “Is that all right?”

  Sebastian opened his mouth to reply, but Izzy beat him to it.

  “Dear Kitty,” she stated very firmly, “you do not need to ask permission for anything at all. If you don’t feel comfortable with large social gatherings as yet, then we will not take you to one. That is the point of my being here. To make you comfortable and secure, so that when it is time for you to begin in the larger and more terrifying venues, you don’t feel so alone.”

  Kitty beamed at Izzy, and Sebastian almost felt his knees buckle just witnessing his sister’s pure and unfettered joy.

  It was a look he hadn’t seen her wear in many years.

  He’d forgotten that she could look so.

  A raw lump formed in his throat, and it took several moments to clear it as he looked away from the girls to the barren trees around them.

  “Oh, look! The pond is frozen at the edges!” Kitty commented, darting over to the water like a child.

  “Careful, Mouse,” Sebastian called to her, though it was unnecessary to warn her.

  It was a brotherly habit.

  “Mouse?” Izzy repeated softly, peering up at Sebastian now. “Is that your name for her?”

  He nodded fondly, watching Kitty as she wandered the edges of the pond, staring at the forming ice. “I gave it to her when she was perhaps four years old. I was around fifteen or so and home from school, and she was so quiet all the time. Granted, she fussed as any child her age does, but she was still very quiet about it. So, I told her one day, ‘You’re not a kitty, you’re a mouse!’ And impossibly, she didn’t argue. She loved it.” He shrugged and grinned down at Izzy. “I doubt she still loves it, but I keep at it anyway.”

  Izzy snickered and shook her head. “Very brotherly, Mr. Morton. I approve.”

  “Well, that’s quite a relief, Miss Lambert,” he sighed with a dramatic air. “After more than ten years, I have the approval to call my sister the name I have been calling her without approval.”

  “Ooh.” Izzy hissed, laughing still. “Now that was very brotherly. Well done.”

  Sebastian winced and looked down at the ground. “I hope you don’t take offense, Miss Lambert, that was very short.”

  “Not at all, Mr. Morton,” she insisted quickly, her laughter evaporating. “Feel free to be as short as you like with me in jest. I will never take offense at it. I never take offense.”

  There was an odd sort of truth in her words, though he doubted that she was aware of it. It was too soon for him to ask her about something so profound and personal, but he made a note to do so at another time.

  When he knew her better.

  “May I ask you a personal question, Miss Lambert?” he asked, sweeping his hands behind his back as they walked.

  “Only if you call me Izzy,” she returned, trying for a smile again.

  He returned her look, but pointedly kept his mouth shut, and tried to look apologetic.

  Izzy rolled her eyes and scoffed. “Very well, Mr. Gentleman Morton, you may ask.”

  He nodded once, chuckling. “Why the Spinsters?”

  She reared back in surprise, then looked away in thought. “Why spinsters… That’s a question for the ages, Mr. Morton. Why are any of us spinsters? Believe me, we try to figure it out every day of our lives, and there is no simple answer. I would give anything to not be a spinster, personally, but…”

  “My dear Miss Lambert, I hate to interrupt…” he broke in, eyes wide.

  She paused, waiting, her brow furrowed.

  He smiled in another apology. “I meant the other kind of Spinsters. Capital S.”

  “Oh!” She clamped down on her lips, giggled, then started walking once more, her step quicker. “My apologies. You really need to specify, you see.”

  “Yes, I do see.”

  “That’s a completely different matter. Entirely.”

  “I thought so.”

  She looked up at him, clearly ready to laugh again. “It’s really not that entertaining. Georgie was tired of girls despairing about being spinsters in their younger years, and some taking drastic steps to avoid it. So, we gave spinsters a voice. A commentary from our point of view, and hopefully in doing so we take away the stigma of the label ‘spinster’. It’s enough to live with it in ourselves; we don’t need it from others as well. There’s nothing worse than pity, and we’re really not so poorly off, any of us. Just not married. Just spinsters.”

  Sebastian nodded in thought, smiling at the completely forthright explanation, devoid of any emotion or bitterness, despite the topic.

  She didn’t take offense, she didn’t feel bitter, and she didn’t pity herself.

  Yes, indeed, he could be friends with Izzy Lambert.

  He would very much like to be.

  “Now what is this I hear about you being nice, Miss Lambert?” he asked in a teasingly formal tone.

  Her groan made him grin, and it remained there for the duration of their walk.

  And for some time after.

  Chapter Seven

  Opportunity is a strange thing. We seek it out, and yet when it comes, we let it pass us by, or we are too afraid to explore it. Perhaps it would be best if nothing ever happened to us at all. But then what would we do with ourselves? Boredom is so much worse.

  -The Spinster Chronicles, 9 September 1817

  “So, the pair of you walked Hyde Park and talked the entire time? Alone?”

  Izzy looked at her cousin with an abashed smile. “It was not the pair of us at all, Georgie. Kitty was right there with us the entire time.”

  Georgie did not look at all convinced by the clarification. “Yes. By the pond.”

  “True…” Izzy wrinkled up her nose and slumped her shoulders with a heaving sigh. “All right, so she was not actively engaged in the conversation very much at all. For the most part, it was just Sebastian and I, and we simply… talked.”

  “Sebastian?” Georgie asked in a blatantly suggestive tone. “Really?”

  Izzy flushed so quickly she thought her hair might catch fire from it. “Oh, stop, Georgie… Stop, it wasn’t anything like that.”

  “It never is, dear.”

  Izzy glared at her cousin fiercely. “Don’t do that. Don’t pretend that my inexperience with men somehow indicates that I am also naïve in all things surrounding them. Don’t pretend that your married status somehow makes you all-knowing when just a year ago you were in the same position I am.”

  Georgie’s smile turned from impish to sad, and she came to sit beside Izzy on the sofa. “You’re right. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t tease. But you must understand, I am very fond of Mr. Morton, and it would be only too delightful if… Well, I am happy that the two of you are coming to know each other better.”

  “We certainly are,” Izzy sighed, looking down at her fingers absently. “It’s only natural isn’t it? I am mentoring and practically sponsoring Kitty, and in attempting to make her comfortable and help her, I become more closely acquainted with him.”

  “Yes, that does follow,” Georgie agreed with an understanding nod,
her eyes wide. “How could you avoid such things?”

  Izzy glanced over at her, smiling a touch. “I think I can call us friends now, Georgie. Mr. Morton, I mean.”

  Georgie covered her hands and squeezed them gently. “I am glad for it, Izzy. Truly. Mr. Morton could use a friend like you, and he’s surely known enough hardship to deserve it.”

  “What do you mean?” Izzy asked with a curious lurch of her heart.

  Georgie reared back warily. “He didn’t tell you?”

  “How can I answer that when it’s clear I don’t know to what you’re referring?” Izzy pointed out, trying for a smile she did not feel.

  Her cousin chewed on her lip for a moment. “It’s not my place to reveal sensitive information about other people…”

  “That’s never stopped you before.” Izzy turned her hands to grip Georgie’s tightly. “I care about them, Georgie. Both Kitty and Mr. Morton. I am their friend, surely I may know.”

  Georgie hesitated for a long moment, then sighed. “All right, but you must promise to never reveal to anyone that I have told you. Especially not to Tony, he would never forgive me for revealing a confidence.”

  Izzy nodded firmly, still holding her hands.

  “Have you never wondered why Mr. Morton and his sister are in London alone?” Georgie asked softly. “Why they are so attached?”

  A sinking feeling hit the pit of Izzy’s stomach. “I assumed their parents were deceased, and I did not think it right to pry.”

  “You assume correctly, and that is fairly known to anyone acquainted with them.” Georgie glanced behind her, though none of the others had appeared yet. “What is not commonly known is that the Mortons died when Kitty was only a child. Five, perhaps six years of age. Their father passed rather suddenly, and their mother a few days after from her all-consuming grief.”

  “Sebastian would have been at school,” Izzy broke in, her voice more of a gasp. “And Kitty…”

  “Kitty was alone at the house,” Georgie finished softly. “She had her governess, and the servants, of course, but Sebastian had not yet returned after his father’s death when his mother also passed. He arrived to find them both deceased, that he was now the heir of Lindley Hall, and that he was guardian of his very young sister. He was only sixteen years of age.”