But she couldn't pretend Lawyer Sheridan was ignoring her. She could feel his eyes on her profile, longed to tug the edge of her collar higher so that the heavy lace and crisp linen concealed the swell of her breasts. The skin prickled with the awareness of his look and she gripped the stem of her glass as she felt the blush begin to stain her throat.
However severe she'd been with Alice, there was no denying the girl had been right: Matthew Sheridan was a very attractive man, disturbingly so. She could cope with the likes of Marcus Willoughby, indifferent to the reams of passionate poetry he quoted, his mannered wooing. He excited nothing within her, yet this man, who couldn't even be bothered to exchange social pleasantries, was stirring emotions she'd only ever tasted in the poems of Marvell and Donne.
Without realising it her lips silently framed the opening phrase of her favourite poem. ‘“Had we but world enough, and time. . .”’
Their eyes met and she realised with a shock that he had read her lips, for he completed the second line softly, ‘“This coyness, Lady, were no crime”.’
Henrietta stared, too taken aback to cap his quotation, turn this into a harmless, if flirtatious game. This was all she had ever dreamed about, sitting in a secluded window seat with a handsome man quoting exciting words of love to her. Why was the reality so unsettling, so different from the dream? In her reveries the man pressed heated yet respectful kisses on her hands, she accepting his devotion as her right.
This was altogether more dangerous, yet all he had done was quote one line of poetry. Why was she in such a tumult?
‘You have another visitor.’ He had turned his head from her as though nothing had passed between them, the sharp eyes focusing on the horseman swinging through the gatehouse arch on a showy chestnut.
Henrietta turned quickly, then sank back with a sigh. ‘Oh, not again.’
Sheridan said nothing, but his expression grew mocking as he surveyed the details of the young man's appearance, the negligent way he sat the horse, the length of his blond curls, the extravagance of lace and plumes.
‘Marcus Willoughby, a neighbour,’ Henrietta explained, unable to conceal the impatience in her voice. ‘And yet another new horse. Let us hope this one will not unseat him on the carriageway like the last.’ Despite her annoyance she couldn't resist a smile at the memory of Marcus's dusty discomfiture.
‘Aren't you going to greet your guest? Or should I say, suitor? He looks like a man who has come a-wooing, although it's a pity he cannot manage both that horse and a nosegay at the same time.’
‘They will tell him I am engaged,’ she said dismissively, too much in agreement with Matthew Sheridan’s assessment to resent his familiarity. Marcus and she had grown up together, almost brother and sister, and his recent transformation into ardent suitor was too sudden for her to take seriously.
Marcus had reached the front door and was using his spurs to make the horse caracole showily on the gravel. The watchers from above were treated to a fine view of his enormous plumed hat and the bunches of ribbons at his knees as the chestnut plunged and cavorted.
‘A very handsome young sprig,’ Sheridan commented drily. ‘A neighbour, no doubt.’
‘Indeed yes.’ She felt more comfortable now his attention had shifted from her. ‘And young is precisely the term for him,’ Henrietta sighed as Marcus was turned away, a crestfallen expression on his face.
‘You must have many suitors to dismiss such a fine one without a trace of regret.’
‘Too many, and all cut from the same pattern, I fear.’ Encouraged by the amused quirk of Sheridan’s brows, she let herself elaborate. ‘My older brother's friends are either dead or in exile for their loyalty to our sovereign King; only their little brothers are safe at home, youths like Marcus Willoughby. And all have ambitious mothers who all see Winterbourne dropping into their hands through an alliance with me.’
There was a moment's silence then he said carefully, ‘You are a young woman. Surely a youthful husband should not be displeasing to you? Or perhaps there is one among them you favour most?’
‘Marriage is a duty, sir,’ Henrietta responded coldly, not liking the implication in his words that she might look for passion in marriage. ‘I must marry to provide Winterbourne with a strong master, and a father for its heirs. These are troubled times and no inexperienced youth will serve my purpose.’
She turned to face him, feeling the colour high in her cheeks with her vehemence, the heavy pearls rising and falling with her breath. ‘My mother died ten years ago, I had to learn young to control a household. My father was killed in '44, James four years later. For the last three years I have been trustee to my little brother for this house, these lands, his people. Now they are my people, and I will not abdicate this heavy responsibility easily to some fortune-hunter.’ And I want a man to love and cherish me too, she thought wistfully. But that was something a well-bred girl could never express.
‘The country is at peace now. You are wrong in thinking there are no men capable of shouldering your burden, sharing your bed. Good men of family and experience, honest men who want nothing more than to put this division and bloodshed behind them and rebuild the country for their heirs.’
‘Honest men?’ Henrietta found herself on her feet in a swirl of black skirts. ‘Parliamentarians, you mean? Turncoats and traitors all of them. Scavengers on the lands of those who would be true to the King.’
Sheridan was on his feet too, his voice low with anger. ‘The King is dead, madam. And many thousands of good men died for his intransigence. Parliament and the rule of law govern England now and Winterbourne and every estate like it in the land will suffer until the Royalist party accepts this truth.’
‘King Charles the Second lives. In shameful exile perhaps, but he is no less the King for that, nor for the fact he became King because of the unlawful killing of his father. Do not preach the law to me, sir. Reconciliation will come when our King is restored and the traitors punished. Only then will I accept the sacrifice of my father and brothers.’
Henrietta's hands clenched into fists at her side, her arms aching with the effort of keeping them there and not striking the harsh, judgemental face before her. Sheridan’s chin was set and grim, all the mockery that had lightened the taut features gone. They had kept their angry voices low, but some quality of the exchange must have reached the seated figures at the far end of the room, for both had turned to look in their direction and Aunt Susan was half out of her chair.
There was an abrupt movement in the shadows and the clerk moved from the concealment of the brocade hangings and into a shaft of sunlight. Henrietta turned and saw him clearly for the first time, a thin figure in rusty black cloth, his lips above the severe white collar forming the word strumpet as clearly as though he
'd spoken it aloud.
The master might not be a Puritan, but his clerk most certainly was, and his scandalised gaze on her low-cut gown and dishevelled curls left her feeling stripped to her shift.
‘Sir.’ Henrietta drew herself up haughtily. ‘Your servant is impertinent and I would be obliged if you would keep both him and your opinions in their place in my house.’
‘Nathaniel – ’ Sheridan gestured briefly and the man stepped back into the gloom. ‘I suggest, Mistress Wynter, that you wait until your legal position is confirmed before you lay down the law.’ His voice was even, but there was an edge to it which made a shiver pass down her spine.