A Christmas In Bath Read online

  "Later, love."

  "Will you give me a piggy-back ride?"

  He proceeded to hike her upon his shoulders, careful not to lose his grip of her tiny hands, and began to walk from the morning room to the drawing room to the dinner room, then back to the porter's hall.

  There, Joy's exasperated nurse stood, giving the child a mock glare. "I've been looking all over for ye! It is time to take yer nap, pet."

  Joy's lower lip protruded. "I don't want to!"

  "If you go along with Nurse like a good little girl," Jonathan said, "I shall give you a sweet when you awaken." He set her down, and she walked obligingly to her nurse.

  After seeing if any post had come for him—and finding that none had—Jonathan began to mount the stairs to the library. On the stairs a young woman was coming down. He gave her a curt nod, said "Good day," and continued on.

  "Mr. Blankenship!"

  By God, he recognized that voice! It sounded like Miss Arbuckle, though the woman he had just passed bore no resemblance to her. He stopped dead in his stride and pivoted toward the lady, whose progress had also been halted.

  They stood there staring at one another. He was powerless to keep his lazy gaze from moving to the Grecian style of her dark, fetching hair, along her sweet face with its eyes as black as currants, then to her. . . bosom. My God, Miss Arbuckle was possessed of a bosom! And a very womanly bosom at that. For some confounded reason, he could barely catch his breath, and against all his control, this . . . this attractive Miss Arbuckle had a profound effect upon him. Below the waist.

  He was not at all pleased. "What the devil's happened to you?"

  "Glee has taken it into her mind that I must take more pains with my appearance."

  "There was nothing wrong with your appearance before," he snapped, his mouth settling into a grim line.

  "But, you must own, I have failed to attract a husband."

  Glee came rushing down the stairs. "But now that Miss Arbuckle is having her hair styled to go along with her stunning new dresses, she has any number of suitors." Glee came to hug him. "Good day, dear Jonathan. We are so thrilled you've come for Christmas. Your presence will make it our happiest yet."

  He nodded curtly to Glee, then turned back to Miss Arbuckle. "How can you see without your spectacles?"

  The lady shrugged. And he noticed her shoulders were exposed. Creamy, silken shoulders. No wonder she had suitors knocking down her door! He did not like this transformation that had come over his old friend. Why could she not be content with life the way it was?

  "I mostly need them to read," she answered.

  "Speaking of reading, I was on my way to the library to peruse the new edition of the Edinburgh Review. Have you seen it?" He knew the lady's widowed mother was unable to pay for subscriptions to the publications her scholarly daughter enjoyed reading. Miss Arbuckle was the only person he had ever known whose reading interests so closely mirrored his own. He was even closer to her than he was to Melvin Steffington, whose interests channeled into classicism, while he and Miss Arbuckle were keenly interested in political thought.

  "No, I haven't had the opportunity," she said.

  "Why do you not join me in the library?" He felt awkward asking such a . . . a voluptuous woman to come sit beside him. Oddly, he had a compulsion to peer at the tops of her generous breasts. Why had he never before noticed that Miss Arbuckle was. . . womanly? Damn those suitors!

  A knock upon the entry door distracted him, and he turned to see who was there. The butler took a small bouquet, nodded, and said, "I shall see that Miss Arbuckle gets these."

  Jonathan glared as Hampton moved toward Miss Arbuckle and presented her with the nosegay.

  Her dark brows rose in query. "Are you certain these are for me?"

  "Indeed," the butler said.

  She took them, then found a piece of folded-up paper pinned to them. After unfolding it, she read the brief note. He tried his demdest to see the signature of the man who sent the flowers, but she quickly refolded the note, tucked it into a pocket, and then shoved her nose in to the white blooms. "Are they not lovely, Mr. Blankenship?"

  "Daresay the fellow's got a hot house. How else could blooms like that be procured in December?" If the fellow had a hot house, that could mean he was possessed of a fine house. And wealth too, most probably. A wealthy man would not mind that Miss Arbuckle had no dowry.

  Jonathan found himself regretting that he'd left Bath several weeks earlier. Had he known Miss Arbuckle was going to go about displaying her . . . her fleshy bits and her milky shoulders, he would have stayed here and put his foot down! She obviously needed a steadying presence such as himself. Certainly not Glee!

  Was Miss Arbuckle not going to tell him who her admirer was? He did not like this at all. He and Miss Arbuckle never kept secrets from one another. When Jeremy Bentham had quietly come to Bath for the waters, she was one of the few who had learned of the great philosopher's secret presence in Bath. Though she had been told to tell no one, she found it impossible to conceal Mr. Bentham's presence from him, a huge admirer of Bentham's for the greater good political teachings.

  She shared many other things with him. She was the first to suspect that Glee was increasing with their son, and she shared that too with him. And of all their mutual acquaintances, he was the only one who knew what a fine poet she was. For she shared her impressive works only with him.

  And now she was being courted. He swallowed. Would he lose her friendship?

  The very notion put him in a foul temper.

  "I do hate to disappoint you," Glee said to him, "but Miss Arbuckle must rush home to prepare for the Assembly Rooms tonight."

  He glared at Glee, glared at Miss Arbuckle. "Then I shall see you—and your suitors—there." His fists clenched, he pounded up the stairs.

  Chapter 2

  Though it was against her nature to show anger, Miss Arbuckle could not conceal her displeasure with Glee Blankenship. Miss Arbuckle had ever so much wanted to go into the library with Mr. Blankenship.

  Once he had slammed the library door, she directed a shocked gaze at Glee. "You've gotten me in a fine fix! What shall I do at the Assembly Rooms tonight? Mr. Blankenship will be expecting me to have admirers, and you know I have none."

  Glee gave a smug smile. "I am not above inventing admirers for you. Was that not clever of me to have those flowers sent to you?"

  Miss Arbuckle frowned. "At first I was foolish enough to believe I actually had an admirer, then I realized how cunning you can be. I am mortified, I assure you, by all this."

  Glee continued to descend the stairs. "My carriage should be here now. Come, Miss Arbuckle, allow me to take you home. It's beastly weather for you to be walking in."

  After they both wrapped themselves in warm garb, they got into the fine Blankenship coach, sitting opposite each other. "Did you notice how Jonathan could not remove his eyes from your very fine breasts?"

  There went the scarlet—this time colouring Miss Arbuckle's entire face. "I have never been so embarrassed."

  Glee turned a shocked gaze upon her. "You cannot be serious! Do you not realize it is a very good thing when a man becomes aware of a woman's sexuality?"

  Oh, dear. No one had ever uttered the word sexuality in front of Miss Mary Arbuckle before. And to think it was being used in connection with her! She was truly mortified. "I shall die if Mr. Blankenship thinks me fast."

  Glee began to giggle. "You and I must be vastly different. I wanted Blanks to think me fast so he would want to bed me—then fall in love with me. Men have much more prominent sexual desires than women, you know. They often fall in love with women who satisfy their primal needs."

  Miss Arbuckle clapped her hands over her ears. "I cannot listen to such talk." Truth be told, she did not believe Jonathan Blankenship like other men. A man possessed of so fine a mind would not be interested in carnal pleasures. Never had a single breath been uttered that linked him to brothels or doxies or other such pursuits many other y
oung men were attracted to.

  Before today, he had never shown the slightest sign that he thought of her as anything other than a dear friend. Exactly as he felt toward Dr. Melvin Steffington.

  Yet today, when his simmering gaze had so slowly raked over her breasts, she felt as if she had stood there completely naked. He had never looked at her in such a way before.

  "I hope you do not mind," said Glee, "if we go by Blanks's solicitor's place of business."

  "I am just happy for a warm, dry ride."

  "I don't know about it actually being warm. I wish I'd brought my muff."

  Miss Arbuckle thought of Glee's ermine muff. But without envy. She had long ago schooled herself not to want for that which she could not have. She stuffed her gloved hands into the quilted silken muff she had made for herself with scraps given her by Glee's sister, Felicity.

  "I am sure I will be warm enough when you go in to see the solicitor."

  "Oh, I'm not going to actually see the solicitor. I just want to see that the little urchin there is warm enough. And his mother, too. I told you about her sad condition before, did I not?"

  "The woman whose life is governed by gin?"

  A look of incredible sadness passed over Glee's face. "For four years now we've been trying to bring Mrs. A. into service for us. Then I would know her little Archie is being properly cared for."

  "But she knows she is unable to give up her wicked liquid sustenance?"

  Glee nodded solemnly. "At the time we married, Blanks swore that she had one foot already in the grave, but she's still alive—though I declare you've never seen anyone who's more thin than she is."

  Moments later, Miss Arbuckle was able to verify the veracity of Glee's statement when the carriage pulled up in front of the establishment where Mrs. A. cleaned. When Mrs. A. was lucid enough to know where she was supposed to be.

  Miss Arbuckle sickened as she watched the frail young woman come ambling down the front steps, her young son attempting to hold her up. Miss Arbuckle had never seen a skinnier woman. Her arms—even though covered by many layers of tattered clothing—were barely bigger around than a billiards stick, and her face so thin it more closely resembled a skeleton than a woman in her twenties. Her hair was filthy, like the rest of her, and it was difficult to speculate what colour it had once been. Perhaps a dark blonde? Upon her feet were a man's boots that were not only much too large for her, but they were also punctured by holes.

  So young to die, Miss Arbuckle thought of the young mother.

  "I am pleased to see Archie wearing the warm boots and coat I bought for him, but his mother must have sold the woolen cape I got her."

  Miss Arbuckle could not bear to look at the unfortunate woman. She turned back to Glee and spoke somberly. "Sold it to buy gin, no doubt. Will you get her another?"

  "I can't have her freeze to death."

  The coach continued on. "I don't need to stop," Glee said. "I was worried about Archie, but I'm satisfied his mother didn't sell his warm coat."

  "You surely did not expect a mother to deprive her child!"

  Glee answered with a morose nod. "It wouldn't be the first time. She sold his coat last winter. I wanted so gravely to bring the lad to live with us, but he's . . ." She sadly shook her head. "He's very attached to her. It's more like she's his child—rather than the other way around."

  Seeing the plight of little Archie and his mother reinforced Mary's gratitude that she had been born to a middle-class family, reinforced her contentment with her meager lot in life.

  She wiped the fogginess from the window and peered out as the coach rattled along in front of Bath Cathedral.

  "You will never guess who I saw in Bath yesterday," Glee exclaimed. "Well not to where I'd speak to him—which I wouldn't—but from a distance."

  "I know of no one whom you excessively dislike."

  "Yes, you do, but she will be in prison for a very long while. In fact, she's fortunate she wasn't hanged."

  Miss Arbuckle's eyes widened. "You must have seen that evil Miss Johnson's father, but did you not know she died in prison? In childbed."

  “She was married?”

  “No. It is my understanding that her wickedness extended to other forms of loose conduct.”

  “Did Mr. Johnson get the babe?”

  “The babe died too.”

  “I know I shall sound wicked, but I am not sorry Betsy Johnson is dead. Not after all the pain and financial loss she caused my brother.” A look of disgust flashed across Glee's face. "I thought her father had left England after the shame of his daughter's trial and conviction."

  "I thought so too." Miss Arbuckle found herself looking along the streets for signs of Mr. Johnson. "I always felt rather sorry for him. It wasn't his fault his only child was so wicked."

  "I cannot feel sorry for him after the way he tried to bribe the jury. As a parent, I understand wanting to help your child, but a parent also has the responsibility to allow children to be punished when they've done bad things."

  "True."

  "Now, for something less melancholy. . . " Glee began. "I am certain my plan is working. Could you not hear the angry inflection in Jonathan's voice when he was informed of your suitors? I vow, he was not pleased to see how pretty you look for he doesn't want other men to notice you."

  "The only reason other men would notice me is because you've got me spilling out of Lady Sedgewick's dresses!"

  "You mustn't say that."

  "But my . . . " (Miss Arbuckle simply could not refer to that part of her anatomy), "I am spilling out."

  "What I meant is that you must not call your gown Sally's. All of them are now yours."

  Miss Arbuckle was still upset about going to the Assembly Rooms that night. "I cannot go tonight."

  "Why do you say that?"

  "Because I have no men in a queue to dance with me."

  "I shall take care of that."

  "Oh, dear."

  A moment later, Miss Arbuckle was being deposited at her modest home. "Since it's so cold," Glee told her, "we will call for you tonight."

  "I cannot go."

  "Do not fret about what to wear. As we speak, my maid is finishing the adjustments to the gown you'll wear tonight. I'll send it along."

  "Mr. Blankenship will see that I am still a wallflower."

  "Oh, no, he won't. I have a plan."

  * * *

  He disliked going to the Assembly Rooms, but when in Bath it was a necessary evil. Only at the Assembly Rooms was he assured of meeting with his friends. Unlike his popular brother, though, Jonathan only had two friends in Bath: Miss Arbuckle and Melvin. The lady was, in fact, the only female friend he had ever had.

  Sadly, his friendship with Melvin had changed considerably since Melvin had married this past year. Jonathan was still scratching his head over Melvin’s marriage. His friend—unlike Melvin’s twin, Sir Elvin, and Sir Elvin’s friend, Appleton—had never been in the petticoat line. Not ever.

  It was still a complete mystery to Jonathan how that Mrs. Bexley had captured his friend’s heart—which is certainly what she had done. The transformation that had come over Melvin was elliptical. He had gone from total disinterest in women to being besotted over the lady.

  Jonathan could not understand what there was about the former Mrs. Bexley to have so thoroughly ensnared Melvin. She was not nearly as intelligent nor as well read as Miss Arbuckle. He must own that she would be considered pretty, but previously Melvin had never taken notice of such, much less succumbed to something as fleeting as beauty.

  Jonathan could not understand how his friend could prefer to be with his new wife and not come to Blankenship House for one of their lively discussions on the ancient philosophers. One would think the man would get tired of so unvarying a relationship. Women—except for Miss Arbuckle—were so deadly dull.

  Now Jonathan had but one friend who remained unencumbered by marriage, and it was looking as if that too would soon be snatched away from him. How could Miss Ar
buckle not be content to continue on with her widowed mother? It was so unlike her to want to become someone’s wife.

  He frowned. What would he do if she should marry? He did not think he could come to Bath again, for being with her was one of the largest enticements to coming to this city. Were she to marry and be put into her husband’s pocket, Jonathan would be robbed of his dearest friend.

  As the Blankenship coach pulled up in front of Miss Arbuckle's house that night, he pictured her as she had looked that afternoon. He most certainly hoped she did not continue displaying herself in such a revealing manner! No wonder the men were likely making cakes of themselves over her!

  In the coach she sat beside him, opposite his brother and Glee. He was unable to determine what she wore, for a rather thick cape enveloped her. She had once again left off her spectacles, and her hair looked as it had that afternoon. Did not suit her at all. Miss Arbuckle’s neat little dark brown bun at the nape of her neck was as much a part of her as her keen intelligence. Why did she have to go and try to fancy herself up? These new, spiraling tresses—like her new manner of dress—were entirely too provocative.

  “Do you not think Miss Arbuckle’s hair becoming?” Glee asked him.

  He grunted. “It’s so different from what I’m accustomed to.”

  “You’ll get used to it,” Glee said.

  He turned to Miss Arbuckle. “Surely you’re not going to persist in fancying yourself up.”

  “Your sister-in-law says I must,” Miss Arbuckle answered in her meek little voice.

  “Don’t know why you think you have to be married. What will your mother do without you?”

  “I hope I will be able to continue living in Bath—after I am wed.”

  Hearing her discuss her nuptials oddly made his stomach drop. He would not like it at all if she were to marry. And what man could be worthy of someone with all her attributes? Melvin was the only one he knew, and he was already married!

  Then it struck him that she might already have someone. One man upon whom she had bestowed her affections. And his stomach felt as if he had eaten something rotten.

  When they reached the Assembly Rooms, he assisted in removing her woolen cape. When he saw that she wore an elegant ivory gown with a very, very low-cut neckline, his stomach once again plummeted.