A Widow's Guide to Scandal (The Sons of Neptune Book 1) Page 3

  “Then, friend?”

  Henrietta froze. Of all the people to catch her mistake, she couldn’t believe Sarah would call her out. Wasn’t that forbidden? “It was nothing. A long time ago.”

  A bony hand gripped her shoulder and Mrs. Moskowitz’s cloying perfume tickled her nose. “We’re absurdly old, and we remember a long time ago. Spill it, bubeleh.”

  Her mouth opened and closed. There was no getting around them. “I kissed him once.”

  A chorus of ohs filled the room to the rhythmic pounding above them.

  “Only once?” Mrs. Gittel heaved in disbelief.

  Henrietta shook her head, smoothing a crease in her skirt. “He didn’t return the favor.”

  “Ay, Dio.” Mrs. Medina clicked her tongue. “Have a biscuit.” She shoved the plate at her. Henrietta chose one.

  The banging on the roof ceased. A scraping sound moved over their heads before another loud thunk and then quiet.

  “Friends, we should discuss the book. ’Tis why thou has gathered us.”

  “She gathered us, Friend Sarah, for us to amuse her,” said Mrs. Moskowitz.

  “You gather to amuse yourselves.” Henrietta fed Mrs. Medina’s biscuit to the fireplace as soon as she turned away. She noticed there were at least three others tossed under the grate. She’d have to remember to clean it out before she got mice.

  The banging resumed. Why didn’t she ask him to come tomorrow when Sam’s uncle was due for a visit? He would have been chaperone enough, forbidding, awful man that he was. But she knew the answer. It wouldn’t have been this fun. According to Uncle Caldwell, Sam never did anything wrong except marry her. If only she’d known about his debts before they exchanged vows.

  “Frances,” Henrietta said, calling Mrs. Mizrahi by her familiar name. “I know you won’t take a gift for the baby until the baby arrives. We can’t wait. We’re all bursting to share your joy.” A sharp stab hit under her breastbone, and she forced a smile on her face.

  Frances leaned back in her seat, rubbing both hands over her belly. Beneath her dress, the mound moved. She groaned. “He won’t stop. He’s a cat chasing its tail any time I sit or lie down.”

  Mrs. Moskowitz smiled knowingly. “Just wait. He’ll be like that for the next five years.”

  “Five? Did you see that fine specimen?” Mrs. Gittel pointed to the roof. “He doesn’t look like the sitting still type.”

  Sarah flipped through her copy of the book. “There was touring around England, a widow with mystery. I stopped reading when she reached Ireland. I had trouble staying awake.”

  It took Henrietta a moment to realize Sarah meant the book. She hadn’t read it. She tried, but it was drier than Mrs. Medina’s biscuits.

  “You’re a widow with mystery.” Mrs. Moskowitz topped everyone’s tea and passed around the sugar bowl. Real, imported bohea tea. Not the liberty tea made of maple leaves and goldenrod the others served. Even the most patriotic among them didn’t turn away her tea with their complicated arithmetic of whose taxes paid for it.

  “Don’t go to Ireland.” Sarah handed the sugar to Frances, who leaned over her belly to scoop three times.

  “Och. This is good. My mother-in-law tells me not to drink tea and to cut back on sweets. I told her it keeps my choler balanced, which is better for everyone. And by everyone, I mean her.”

  “Have you chosen names?”

  Henrietta let her mind travel out the door and up to the roof of her house. She heard Marcus slide his toolbox around. She imagined looking up, and he’d look down on her and smile. The want of it nearly crushed her. His smile. He gave it easily, and to everyone he met. She reminded herself, where he was concerned, she was no one special.

  “Do you see this? She’s not listening!”

  Henrietta forced herself back into the conversation. “I’m sorry. I thought I heard something.”

  The hammering ceased. What she heard was a lack of something. They held their collective breaths, waiting for the racket to resume. A full minute passed.

  “What do you think he’s doing?” Mrs. Moskowitz whispered loud enough for him to have heard.

  Above them, Marcus warbled out a song about a sailor lost at sea and all the magical fish he met on the way to his watery grave.

  Mrs. Medina squinted, studying the ceiling. “Is he a drunk?”

  “I don’t think so.” Besides the fact that he was once her friend and didn’t kiss her back, he could be anyone now. Embarrassment coiled tight around her middle.

  Mrs. Gittel pulled a face. “Only a meshugenah would go on the roof to drink.”

  “He didn’t seem like a meshugenah.” Mrs. Moskowitz turned her gaze back to the room. “But you never know.”

  Henrietta didn’t know the Yiddish they tossed around, but she could follow their meaning.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Henrietta protested. “He seemed professional. He had a big toolbox.” It took careful balance to defend Marcus in the same breath as defending her choice to hire him . . . mostly free of charge.

  “He has a donkey named Slow Dick,” Mrs. Moskowitz reminded her.

  Henrietta flinched. “You heard that?” The others laughed.

  “Buggering balls!”

  “We heard that too.” Sarah giggled, turning bright red.

  A sickening thud landed in the yard.

  For the slowest beat of her heart, no one moved. Then they all scrambled for the door.

  Chapter 4

  Henrietta found Marcus in the boxwoods. Her mind emptied of everything but anguish. He could be dead. This was all her fault.

  Mrs. Moskowitz approached Marcus and laid a hand on the rise of his chest. “He’s still warm.”

  “Of course he is.” Frances waddled through. “He’s been on the roof in the sun.” She pressed her fingers to his neck. “He’s alive. I have to leave. This is too much for me. I love you, Hen, but your drama is going to make this baby drop out of the hatch, and I’d rather be in my bed when it happens.” She threw her arms around Henrietta in an awkward, sideways embrace. “I’ll send word when the baby comes.”

  “I’m taking you home,” Mrs. Moskowitz commanded.

  “Marcus? Can you hear me?” Henrietta decided if the others could touch him, she could too. She needed to know he was not dead. His head lay at an odd angle amidst the foliage. She cupped his face and rolled it to center. It lolled to his shoulder again, propped by dense branches. He was a well-built man, broad and muscular, with hands that could hurt her as much as not.

  “I’ll run into town and send for a doctor.” Mrs. Medina kissed her above her ear before taking off.

  Henrietta bit her lip. Looking over her shoulder at Mrs. Gittel and Sarah, she said, “What do I do?” He seemed whole, and yet his eyes remained closed.

  They exchanged a look. Mrs. Gittel smirked. “In the stories, a kiss always revives the princess. Try it. What can it hurt?”

  She’d kissed him once, and nothing happened. He stayed as still as a frozen pond.

  “Go on.”

  Standing beside the hedge, Henrietta placed a shaking hand on his shoulder. If she were to lean over to kiss him, she didn’t want to lose her balance or push him further into the bush. She angled toward him. He sank a little. With her lips inches from his, she marveled at their dusky color and bowed shape. She miscalculated the final distance. His weight shifted, her lips grazed his, he groaned, and then they were falling through the branches. Limbs tangling, Henrietta and Marcus landed hard on the slate path leading to the front door.

  Marcus howled. Henrietta howled.

  “That’s it. He’s alive. We’re going. Come, Friend Sarah. You shouldn’t watch this mishegoss.”

  Crushed under Marcus, Henrietta panicked. His eyes bugged, and veins throbbed in his red, angry face
. He was a beating husk of heat and bottled violence. She shoved him away with all her strength.

  “No!” she cried.

  Marcus reared up. Henrietta blocked her face with her arms. She didn’t want her friends to hear, or worse, her neighbors to speak of it to Sam’s uncle.

  Just as quickly, the weight of Marcus’s body vanished. Henrietta dropped her arms. Swiping tears from her cheeks, she found him rolled on his side, three feet away. She scooted further back.

  “Christ, Hen.” Anguish deepened the tenor of his voice. “I’m not going to hurt you. Christ. Bloody fuck.” He sat up, body contorted with pain.

  Henrietta worked at swallowing the thick saliva coating her tight throat. “I-I’m sorry.”

  He had his back to her and waved a hand at his side, either an invitation to sit beside him or to wave off her guilt. Both were impossible.

  Henrietta stayed where she was. “Where are you hurt?”

  He dragged himself around. The features of his face were tense. “You act like I would do you harm for falling off your roof. Where are you hurting?”

  Henrietta pressed her mouth in a firm line.

  “Never mind.” He held up his right hand to wave away the soreness between them. A large red welt swelled on his palm. “A bee stung me. I slipped.” His gaze traveled from the line of the roof down to the ground. “I think I broke my ankle.”

  “Oh.” Henrietta gathered her skirts and came to him. With the legs of his linen trouser rucked up, it was easy to see which was beginning to bruise.

  “You know how they say you can’t feel pain in two places at once?”

  She nodded, still not ready to look at him.

  “They’ve apparently never broken a bone and been stung by a bee at the same time. Christ.”

  She kept her gaze fixed on his leg. “Mrs. Medina is sending a doctor. Shall I try to get you inside?”

  ~ ~ ~

  Marcus lay on his back, looking at the sky. His ankle throbbed something fierce. He’d never broken a bone before, which he viewed as an accomplishment, considering all the crackbrained things he’d done in his life. He’d heard it snap, or felt it, so he knew. Years ago, he had a cousin who fell in a ditch and broke his leg. Not a week later, he was dead from gangrene.

  Now wouldn’t be a good time to die. For one, Henrietta would never forgive herself. In light of her reaction to his fall, he owed her the peace of mind to kick off elsewhere. And, as he hadn’t had a chance to redeem himself from the half-wit he was at sixteen, he should at least wait until he had the chance to steal back the kiss she stole from him.

  Henrietta let out a huff. “I’m stronger than I look.”

  “I’m heavier than I look.”

  Her gaze swept his body, exposing him to a new kind of heat. It wasn’t a particularly bad feeling, just inconvenient.

  She huffed and disappeared into her house.

  Marcus bent an arm to cradle his head from the hard slate path and threw his other arm over his eyes to block the sun. His hand both itched and hurt. His leg pulsated with each heartbeat. Pain radiated from some deep root in his bones to his toes and up to his thigh like poisonous talons raking his muscles. He remembered at ten, gliding on the pond without skates, chasing . . . who was it? Right. Henrietta’s brother, Caleb. His foot hit a rough patch, and he slid on his chest, wrenching his wrist in the process. He hadn’t broken it, but since that day, he could sense a coming rain by the way it ached.

  Below his knee hurt a hell of a lot more than that ever did.

  “Here. Drink this.”

  Henrietta sat beside him and pressed a flask into his hand. The monogram wasn’t hers.

  “How did he die?”

  She glared at him before answering. “He asked too many questions.” Cradling his head, she helped him take a sip.

  Brandy. It warmed his belly but bolstered no defenses against pain. He drank more. “I feel wretched. I might ask you all the questions.”

  She frowned. “Then it won’t be on my conscience.”

  Marcus inched his shoulders away from her to look her square in the face through squinted eyes. The sun was unspeakably bright. “The only part that should be on your conscience is inviting me into your viper den. Where did you meet such unscrupulous women?” Mouse, as the tamest, was no consolation at all. He adored her as if she were his own mother, but his own mother wasn’t nearly as frightening.

  “Careful. They’re my friends.”

  Marcus gave her a look that said his mind wouldn’t be changed.

  “The lending library.”

  A rough laugh grated across his throat. Except for the bee sting, he was starting to feel a little better.

  The sound of horse hooves and carriage wheels up the road interrupted his bemusement. The conveyance came to a halt, and a moment later, a gentleman dropped from the cart, brushing dirt from his coat.

  “I am Dr. Andrew Nealy. I understand you are in need of a physician?”

  Dressed all in black, he even wore black stockings. In the hot sun. Clearly a charlatan.

  “Bit of a rough morning, Doc.”

  “I am Mrs. Caldwell.” Henrietta stood to introduce herself. “Thank you for coming. Can you help me carry him inside?” Henrietta kneeled at Marcus’s shoulders. “A bee stung him and he fell from the roof. He might have a broken leg.”

  “Ankle.” Marcus felt the need to be specific.

  “Well, I don’t . . . I usually . . . This is . . .” He stared at Marcus, his black-gloved hands flailing about. Was he afraid to dirty them?

  After a huff, Dr. Nealy removed his hat and tossed it to the cart. And missed. The hat landed in the street in a puddle left over from last night’s rain. “Drat.” The gloves went into his pocket.

  “Harsh language,” Marcus murmured. Henrietta scowled. Those twin vertical lines formed again between her brows. He tried to shrug, but she chose that moment to scoop her hands into his armpits. The doctor took his legs. Marcus howled.

  “You might have said which leg, man!” Dr. Nealy shouted.

  “You might have taken care!” Marcus hollered back.

  The doctor and Henrietta exchanged incredulous looks. As if he weren’t suspended between them with Henrietta’s fingers digging deeper into his armpits and the doctor mismanaging his feet.

  “The doorframe!”

  Once inside, they brought him to a settee in the parlor and laid his leg atop a wooden chest. The swelling was worse. Might have been brandy on an empty stomach, but he wasn’t feeling well either. Clammy sweat coated his skin.

  The doctor stood with his back to him, unpacking items from his bag. Some clinking of glass, some clanking of metal. A strong astringent bit the inside of his nostrils.

  “I say, let’s bleed you first to expel the bee toxin.” The doctor’s soothing voice came with a slight Scottish burr. Probably educated in Edinburgh. Come here to fix all the colonial maladies, starting with bee stings and ending with rebellion.

  “Is that necessary?” Henrietta asked as if she’d missed the gentleman’s title. Marcus found Henrietta inspecting what the doctor laid out from his case, vials and instruments alike.

  Dr. Nealy pushed his round spectacles up his sloping nose and eyed her suspiciously. “If it were not necessary, I would not have suggested it. As it is, I haven’t suggested marmalade on toast, have I?” He rolled up Marcus’s sleeve.

  “I was stung on the other hand,” Marcus told him. To Henrietta, he said, “I am not partial to marmalade.”

  Henrietta crossed to stand beside Marcus. “How can you not like marmalade?”

  “Toxin from the bee offsets your humors, which is a whole-body phenomenon. As the blood from your hand has already moved through your heart and back again by now, it makes no difference which arm I bleed. This arm i
s convenient for me.” Dr. Nealy paused and looked to Henrietta. “Would you please move?”

  “Marmalade is not sweet enough.” Marcus was losing his patience and braced himself to rise from the settee before any bleeding could begin. “As you have paid little mind to my ankle, I’ll remind you it is broken.”

  The doctor pressed him back into the seat.

  “Not you, me.” Henrietta gasped. “Honey!” She came around the settee like a vulture circling its supper. “My mother used to put it on bee stings. That’s sweet enough.”

  Dr. Nealy made an incision on Marcus’s arm. Marcus hissed. The doctor set a metal bowl beneath his arm to catch the purged blood. “If you broke your ankle, I’ll be the one to make that determination. Honey is the salve of witches.”

  Marcus’s patience dripped away with his blood. Logic, no matter how antiquated, was sure to work with this dupe. “I’ve seen Henrietta’s mother fall into the irrigation pond. If it weren’t for my expedience, she would have drowned. Ergo, she’s not a witch.”

  Too late, he remembered he’d used her familiar name without permission. Did he need it? He’d known her since she was five or ten. Who could remember?

  Henrietta laughed. “You remember that?”

  Dr. Nealy harrumphed. “Mrs. Caldwell, if you don’t mind, I’m trying to assess your husband.”

  “Oh, he’s not my husband. Mr. Caldwell is dead.” Pink blossomed on Henrietta’s cheeks. “This is Mr. Marcus Hardwicke, a friend. That is, you see—”

  There was no coming back from the indecent corner Henrietta was talking herself into. A widow alone with a man only meant one thing.

  “—he was here to—my friends were here—”

  The lady doth protest too much.

  “Nothing improper is going on. I came to fix her roof and fell when a bee stung my hand. Please see to my ankle. I’d prefer to know sooner than later if I shall lose my limb.” Marcus grabbed the closest rag, which was silk edged with lace, and staunched the bleeding, much to the doctor’s and Henrietta’s huffs of annoyance.