The door to his old room opened on another shrine. This time, his. The wooden bed dented from battles with dragons occupied one wall. His desk stood guard by the mullioned window, marred by the obligatory initials of boredom carved by generations of Wanstead lads with varying degrees of artistic merit. He ran his thumb over his own effort, recapturing his satisfaction that his grooves were deeper than any of the others and thus more permanent. The diamond windowpanes never allowed in much light even on the brightest day, he recalled, hence the buildup of candle wax on the desk. A black stain on the Turkey carpet reminded him of the day, at the age of thirteen, when he’d toppled the inkpot because his knees no longer fit beneath the desk. His tutor had called him a great ox.
If he thought about it hard enough, he could feel the sting in the seat of his britches for that piece of clumsiness.
He strode to the window and stared down at the ordered rows of vegetables in the walled garden below. A movement on the unkempt grass beyond the wall caught his eye. The unmistakable and toothsome widow was frolicking on his lawn with her daughter.
Frolicking. Now there was a word you didn’t expect to use at the Grange. Even from this distance, he could see the laughter on their faces as she spun the child in her arms, her skirts molding to long, strong legs and full curvaceous hips.
A stirring in his blood caused him to frown. He had no business noticing her curves. He should turn away, not intrude on her privacy. He watched as she put the child down. Noticed how their long shadows stretched across the waving grass as hand in hand, they strolled toward a lake burnished by the sun to the color of copper. Lust, urgent and sharp, bit at his flesh. By thunder, he would do something about this disturbing woman and the child who called up memories too painful to bear. He wanted the pair of them gone.
The chill emptiness in his chest seemed to expand.
He turned from the view outside to stare at his old bed and inhaled the smell of mildew. Not that it mattered. As earl, he would use his father’s chamber.
He closed the door on his childhood with a firm click.
• • •
“You wish to buy back Mrs. Graham’s lease?” Young Mr. Brown, a somber man of about thirty with an open expression and fine brown hair flopping onto his forehead, stared at him agape. Of middle height and weight, he stood in front of Hugo’s desk as stiff as a squaddy on parade. Unlike a private in His Majesty’s army, however, his voice held a tone of distinct animosity.
Hugo lifted a brow. Most of his erstwhile troops would have recognized the gesture as a herald to frosty anger. Apparently, Mr. Brown thought nothing of it, for he continued speaking.
“She paid in full for a year, with an option to renew. I would be going back on my word.”
“A word you gave without consulting me,” Hugo responded in a voice as mild as scabbarded steel. “You exceeded your authority.”
Brown visibly swallowed, his prominent Adam’s apple bobbing above his stock. “I did what I thought best for the Grange, my lord, which I believe is my responsibility. Mrs. Graham is one of your best tenants.”
The rush to defend the woman took Hugo aback. Did the steward have more than a professional interest in the young widow? Hugo discovered he didn’t like the idea. “Is that so?”
“Indeed, my lord. She has even taken up teaching at the Sunday school in the village.”
And Hugo was the ogre for tossing her out of her home. “I am quite prepared to give her time to find a new property to rent.”
Brown’s lips thinned. “Meanwhile, where does your lordship suggest I obtain another tenant willing to pay such a high price for a house with so little to recommend it?”
Sarcasm? By Hades, this self-righteous young man needed some army training. Perhaps then he’d learn the wisdom of obeying a direct order without question. What the hell had happened to England these past few years? Hugo glared. “The same place as you found Mrs. Graham, I presume.” He laced his voice with enough ice to freeze the Thames.
The intrepid Mr. Brown took a step closer to the desk. “Her husband was killed in the war. She came here for peace. Surely you of all people can understand.”
The words rocked Hugo back. A soldier’s widow? He got up and went to the window. He stared at the tangle of weeds in the middle of the drive. In his mother’s day, it had been a rose bed. “I see.”
“She thought Blendon an ideal place to raise her daughter.”
Hugo turned and caught raw condemnation in the fellow’s eyes. Young Mr. Brown, the son of the steward who had served his family for years, found him lacking. No doubt he’d also found the old earl lacking. He narrowed his eyes. “Just what is your connection with Mrs. Graham?”
Brown frowned. “I don’t understand, my lord.”
“How shall I put it, Brown? You er . . . seem very interested in this woman.” There. Cards on the table. He preferred to do business that way. No sneaking around picking up gossip and rumor.
Brown stepped back, his jaw slack. “My lord?” The color ebbed from his face, and indignation shone in his eyes. “Mrs. Graham is a gentlewoman. The estate needed the rent to pay the servants and buy supplies.”
“How can that be?”
“Because your father decided to invest his money at the racetrack.”
Apparently, Brown didn’t soften his punches either. Hugo took the blow in the soft place in his gut, felt the sickness of lack of air, and breathed deep. Damn. What the hell had Father done? Well, no one ever accused him of being unfair. Strict about discipline, hard on liars and laggards, but never unjust. If Brown was telling the truth about the desperate state of affairs, then he had been right to lease the Dower House. Hugo didn’t suspect him of lying for a moment. “Very well. I will accept your advice.”
Brown blinked. “My lord?”
“However, please inform Mrs. Graham that she and her child are to stay out of the woods and off my property.”
The tension in Brown’s shoulders dissipated. A cautious smile broke out on his face. “I will make your wishes known, my lord. I am sure you will not regret your decision.”
One less regret would not make a ha’porth of difference. “I am sure she will be grateful for your powers of persuasion, Mr. Brown. Now sit down and give me the rest of the bad news.” He gestured to the chair in front of his desk. “Tell me why there are no crops or animals in my fields.”
Color leached from Brown’s face. He dropped into the chair. “As I understand the matter, not long after you joined the army, his lordship suffered a financial reversal on some horses he bought.”
Horses. His father’s passion. “I see.”
“Yes, my lord.” Brown inhaled. “Apparently, he tried to recoup his losses at the Newmarket races.”
With a strong sense of worse to come, Hugo rolled his shoulders. Did he really want to know? “What happened?”
Brown tugged at his collar. “Badly dipped, the fear of your demise and a dislike of your cousin drove him to the marriage mart. He entertained lavishly in London, my lord, with a view to finding a bride.”
Hugo sat bolt upright. “What?”
The steward swallowed. “He paid out a lot of blunt on the enterprise. I understand negotiations were all but complete when . . . when he . . .”
“Dropped dead. Served him bloody well right.” A chill settled over the room. Feeling as if he had been punched in the gut, Hugo collapsed against the chair back. He leaned back and stared at the low wooden ceiling embossed with sixteenth-century coats of arms of every noble house in England. “You old dastard,” he murmured, when he managed to catch his breath. “Knowing what could happen and still . . .” He shook his head.
“I beg your pardon, my lord?”
Hugo brought his gaze back to the steward. “Now what the hell do we do?”
The man gave an embarrassed cough behind his hand. “His lordship might have been on to something, my lord. There are City gentlemen, bankers and such, or manufacturers from the north country, who would be only too
glad to embrace a scion of English peerage in their families, along with a golden handshake, so to speak.”
Hugo stared at him. “You would sell me off, like some prize bull? No, Brown, I think not.”
The steward looked distinctly disappointed. “I am sure we could get a very handsome settlement. You being a war hero as well as an earl.”
Hugo brought his fist down on the polished wood. “No,” he roared. “Mention it again and I’ll be looking for a new steward. Understand?”
Looking suitably crushed, Brown ducked his head. “Yes, my lord.”
At last the fellow was listening. “Good.” He snatched up the decanter and slopped brandy into a glass. He swallowed it in one swift gulp. Raw heat burned his gullet. “Now tell me just how badly off I am. Straight from the shoulder.”
“It’s difficult for me to say, my lord. Not being privy to all of his lordship’s dealings.” His ears turned red at Hugo’s sharp stare. “I believe there may be some debts of honor outstanding.”
“I see.” He had come home for peace, only to discover he’d been unknowingly involved in a war at home. Father, it seemed, had won the first battle.
“I could sell off my carriage horses. Trent is bringing them down. I’ll let the hunting box go. There may be some jewelry of my mother’s to be sold.”
Brown shook his head. “I believe the jewelry is gone. As for the horses, the fastest way for a gentleman to let the world know he is in dun territory is to get rid of his stable, my lord. Something your father discovered.”
A feeling of impotence welled up in Hugo. He slammed his fist down on the desk. “Dammit. Don’t sit there telling me what can’t be done; offer me something useful.”
Brown looked thoughtful. “You need an infusion of funds. That was one reason I leased the Dower House to Mrs. Graham. She paid the lease a year in advance. More tenants like her would be a godsend.”
“Mrs. Graham seems to be a paragon of all virtues.”
Brown pressed his lips together.
Hugo raised a hand. “Never mind.”
“If your lordship would consider taking out a loan?”
“More debt?”
Brown grimaced. “If the money is used wisely, if we have a good harvest . . .”
“None of it a certainty.” Hugo rubbed the back of his neck. “How much would it take? Do I have credit at the bank?”
Brown pushed a document from the corner of the desk to the center. “A year ago, I prepared a report for your father, my lord. He refused to look at it and became quite incensed when I suggested that we let a couple of fields to the squire for hay and another to Mr. Masters at High Acre for grazing sheep. I believe he didn’t want it known he was badly dipped.”
Written in a neat careful hand, most of the figures on the paper were red, all except the number beside Mrs. Graham’s name. It wasn’t a question of tolerating her presence, for Christ’s sake. He needed her money. A powerful blow to his pride. He felt like an idiot. Heat scalded his face as he stared at the damning numbers. He straightened his shoulders. “Very well, Brown. I appreciate your honesty and your help. Take me through your suggestions.”
• • •
Lucinda grasped her umbrella tightly in one hand and Sophia’s little fingers in the other, all the while valiantly ignoring the damp creeping up her skirts and the wet petticoat wrapped around her calves.
“Sophia, darling, try not to step in the puddles.” She guided the child onto the dryer verge while sheltering her from the rain.
The little girl peeked up from beneath her pink bonnet with a mischievous grin.
“I mean it,” Lucinda said with a shake of her head. Unfortunately, she could not resist a smile of her own. Sophia loved to splash in puddles. Sad to say, these puddles were filled with bottomless mud and stretched the half mile between her and the row of stone laborers’ cottages huddled at the end of Mile Lane. His lordship really ought to do something about this lane. It needed drainage. Never had she seen anything so ill-kept on her father’s estate. She peered through the drizzle at the leaden sky, half-minded to turn for home. The other half of her mind, the half that knew where duty lay, pressed her forward.
The sooner she accomplished the task of bringing succor to those less fortunate, as the vicar had phrased it, the sooner she could go home to a nice hot cup of tea and a warm fire. Flaming June had forgotten to blaze.
With mud increasingly heavy on her half boots, she plodded on. Only the first cottage in the terrace showed signs of occupation, she realized as she neared her goal. The others seemed to have been abandoned, shutters swinging free, doors open to the weather. A waste of perfectly good housing when there were so many homeless in the city. She rapped on the wooden door. A young lad of about thirteen with a shock of red hair, a freckled snub nose, and big green eyes opened the door a crack. An odor of musty damp wafted out along with a trickle of smoke.
The boy’s eyes popped open as he took in his visitors. Sophia ducked behind Lucinda’s skirts.
“Is Mrs. Drabet home?” Lucinda asked.
“Yerst,” the boy said.
“Good,” Lucinda replied. “I am Mrs. Graham. The vicar asked me to call to see how your mother does. May we come in?”
“Who is it, Tom?” a tremulous voice called from inside.
“Some lady from the vicar,” the boy called back, seemingly reluctant to open the door any wider. “She wants in.”
It wouldn’t take much strength to push past the boy, who had arms and legs the circumference of willow twigs and a painfully thin chest. But even the poorest of folk were entitled to believe their homes were castles, Mother had always said.
“I brought gifts for the baby,” she said with a smile at the lad. “And bread and cheese for your mother.”
The boy’s face lit up like a candle in a well. Bribery worked so much better than force.
“Can she come in, Ma?” he yelled. “She brought sommat for the baby.”
After a short pause, the voice came back in a weak whisper. “Yes. Yes, I suppose so.”
Not a very warm welcome, but a welcome nonetheless.
The boy threw back the door. Lucinda ducked beneath the lintel and stepped inside. The cottage was very similar to those on her father’s land, a single living room downstairs sporting a few sticks of homemade furniture, a curtained-off scullery at the back, and a ladder leading to the family sleeping quarters in the loft.
Mrs. Drabet, a woman who had been pretty in her day, sat on a low stool by a pitifully small fire in a blackened hearth. Cradled in her arms, she held an infant, red of face and wrinkled beneath tufts of orange hair.
A truly beautiful sight.
Lucinda’s arms had never felt so empty, useless appendages on an equally useless body. The room blurred as if a fog had rolled in from outside or the chimney had started to smoke. Liar. Babies always brought forth her tears. She blinked hard.
Finger in her mouth, Sophia crept forward. “Baby,” she whispered. She touched the baby’s head with her other hand. “Pretty,” she whispered. Beside Sophia’s healthy pink skin, the infant looked a little blue.
“How do you do, Mrs. Drabet. I am Mrs. Graham.” Lucinda smiled at the wilted mother. “And this is my daughter, Sophia. The vicar asked us to call in. He wanted to come himself, but he had an urgent call to Mr. Proudfoot.”
The woman raised her gaze from the child in her arms and nodded. “Old man Proudfoot won’t be pleased for the reminder he ain’t long for this world, but it’s a good thing, the vicar callin’ in an’ all.”
Lucinda glanced around for somewhere to deposit her basket. Despite signs someone had tried to sweep the dirt floor recently, the cottage definitely smelled of damp. Too damp for a baby and a new mother. She frowned at the water trickling down alongside the window.
“The roof only leaks when it rains,” Mrs. Drabet said. “I usually sweeps in here every day. Dick said he would bring ’ome fresh straw later, if he could filch a bit from the Red Lion stables.” She
gasped and covered her mouth with her hand. “I mean borrow it.”
“Does Lord Wanstead know your roof leaks? Surely he will have someone make the repairs?”
The woman shook her head. “My Dick told Mr. Brown about it last winter, but he couldn’t do naught. His lordship’s orders. I mean the old earl, like. Dick said it were better to say naught to the new lord, in case he says we can’t stay here no more.” The words contained no rancor, only dull resignation.
Lucinda stared at her. “Not stay here? Isn’t Mr. Drabet employed by his lordship?”
Mrs. Drabet shrugged and hugged the baby close as if to protect it from bad news. “There’s been no work for nigh on two years. No pay, neither. Everyone else left and went up north, but Dick was hoping sommat would come along.” The baby gave a thin wail, and she rocked it. “I couldn’t travel, not expectin’, I couldn’t. Dick’s been helpin’ out at the Red Lion. Puts a bit of bread on the table for the lad here.”
No wonder the vicar had been so anxious for someone to visit this family today.
“We ain’t seen hide nor hair of his lordship since he came back,” Mrs. Drabet said.
Nor had anyone else. Since her encounter with Lord Wanstead in the woods three weeks before, no one in the village had seen his lordship. Not even in church. He seemed to have gone to ground. The gossips hinted he didn’t like company. Some even said he was a bit of a hermit. How dare he leave his people to starve? Especially such a tiny baby. She swallowed her words. Railing about the lord of the manor would only serve to upset the fragile Mrs. Drabet.
“Do you really have bread and cheese in there?” the Drabet boy asked, staring at the basket.
She set the basket on the plank table pushed against one wall. “I do, and a few little gifts for the baby. I hope you do not mind, Mrs. Drabet? Miss Crotchet made a nightdress, and there are some nice bits of flannel for swaddling, and a knitted blanket from Annie Dunning. The bread is fresh baked this morning. The vicar sent a round of cheese and Mrs. Peddle a flagon of stout. That last is for you, Mrs. Drabet, to set you up.”
The Lady Flees Her Lord Page 5