There was a sharp pause. A muttered oath of offense. Pocketing the money in front of him, Thomas pushed back from the table, his chair legs screeching against the wooden floor. As he gained his feet, he stumbled, upsetting a few of the cards and knocking over his empty glass as he caught himself against the table’s edge.
Fiddlestone jumped up to assist, grabbing ahold of Thomas’s elbow. “Easy there!” he said as he steadied Thomas.
Enraged by his own fumbling, Thomas shoved off the magistrate’s touch. “Get your hands off of me, man!”
At that, Barric shot up out of his seat, grabbing Thomas by the collar. “Perhaps I ought to sober you up myself,” he suggested, dragging his cousin closer. He’d sooner force his cousin’s head into a bucket of cold water to sober him up than allow him to insult the guests at his own table.
From over his shoulder, Barric heard poor Sir Anthony observe the squabble with some distress. “Well, I’ll be…”
Thomas did not drop his eyes from Barric’s, his insolent gaze all but begging Barric to take a swing, until at last Fiddlestone placed a steadying hand on Barric’s shoulder. “It’s all right,” he said, his tone deliberately flat, obviously affronted but not wishing to make a scene of it. “I think it’s time we all turned in.”
Thinking this was a fine suggestion, Barric relaxed his fingers, allowing Thomas to jerk back and straighten his jacket.
Naturally, Thomas was the first to leave. Without making his excuses, he slammed out of the room, followed closely by the nervous Sir Anthony. Only Fiddlestone lingered at the door, turning back briefly to meet Barric’s tired eyes.
“I’ll see to it he gets home,” he promised, then pulled the door shut behind him.
Barric let go of a heavy breath. The whole point of this miserable card game had been to put well enough behind them; instead, matters had been made much, much worse.
He started when he heard the sound of someone’s throat being cleared on purpose and whirled around, surprised to find that William still remained. Standing by the window, the steward crossed his arms and narrowed his expression pointedly, eyes shifting to the door. “They won’t keep this to themselves.”
“No, they won’t, but I know you to be a discreet man.”
There was a question there, unspoken, and William eyed him with a measure of surprise. “You know I am.”
Barric tipped his glass, swallowing the rest of his brandy in a swift punch. “Good,” he said, setting the glass back on the table. “Because I need your advice.”
“Absolutely not.” William shook his head, pacing back and forth across the carpet as he grappled with what Barric had just said. “You cannot lodge her. Not on your own property. Not after she’s lived in that brothel.”
“Is this a general rule of yours, then? Not helping people who have lived in brothels?”
William flattened Barric’s wry humor with a rebuking glance. “Come, now, Barric, you know exactly how it would look.”
Barric sighed and shifted back to lean against the windowsill, feeling the cool gusts of wind as they battered against the casement. Of course he knew. Well before he’d even set the matter to William, Barric had already known exactly what the steward would say. Wasn’t that why he’d asked him in the first place?
But why, then, did the parson’s request keep niggling at him?
When Barric didn’t speak, William met his eyes. “It would look like you are setting up your mistress,” he clarified with an accusatory frown. “You’d appear to be worse than Charlie. At least he has the decency to carry on abroad.”
Barric scowled at the mention of his younger brother and glanced distractedly out the window. Usually, he couldn’t stand when people dragged his brother’s name into casual conversation. Yet again, this conversation was far from casual, and the fact they’d known each other since boyhood had always granted William certain leniency.
“The parson is worried about her,” Barric explained. He watched as a particularly rough gust of September wind blew against the stalks of waiting grain. “Perhaps he is right to be worried. The girl has no one here to turn to.”
“Why should that matter to either of us?” William challenged, half wincing at his own reply. He tried again. “Surely you’ve done your Christian duty by her. We both have.” When Barric didn’t answer, he drew closer, placing a hand on Barric’s shoulder. “The cottage is at the center of your property, Barric. Everyone will think you are bedding her. What was the phrase Thomas used? A transaction?”
Barric certainly didn’t like hearing this word in his steward’s mouth. Irritated, mostly because he knew William was right, he lifted his chin and pinned his steward’s gaze with his own.
“So, you’re saying you refuse?”
There was a brief pause, the crackling fire the only sound for several moments.
“We both know I would do anything you asked of me.” William dropped his hand from Barric’s shoulder. “So I’m asking you, as a friend, not to ask me. Your peers will rip you apart if you step any closer to the girl than you already have. And I’ve no interest in getting my daylights darkened just because I have to roll up my cuffs and defend your blasted honor.”
Barric snorted. “I don’t need anyone fighting for me. Least of all my steward.”
“Just…give this some time,” William pleaded with a sigh. “Let things be as they are for a spell. The girl will survive.”
When Barric made no reply, William lowered his eyes, murmuring something under his breath, which sounded an awful lot like “stubborn blighter.”
When William turned toward the door, Barric’s gaze flicked down to the ledger now tucked tightly beneath his steward’s arm. He felt his lip cut up into a tight, familiar smirk. “Retreating, are you?”
William’s hand was already on the doorknob. “Has it not occurred to you that your good name is my good name? Think about it, Barric. Part of my job is making sure you don’t make yourself out to be an utter fool.”
Barric smiled ruefully, even as he waved a careless dismissal at his mouthy steward. “I’ll not say you’ve done a tremendous job of that thus far.”
The line of laborers moved at a grueling pace. Scythes in hand, a group of seven men tore through the wheat. Behind them, men and women raked up the fallen crops, then bound them into thick sheaves with scraps of straw. An unbreakable rhythm was set by the steady swoosh of blades leveling one row of crop and the next and the next. The workers left behind them barren, stubbly ground, with bound sheaves propped up in strange, tented structures—called stooks—to be dried by the sun and later hauled for threshing.
Behind the fieldworkers, Rena stooped to gather any scattered kernels of wheat, then slipped them into her bag. She gathered quickly. Stooping, then rising, careful to keep her face angled down toward her hands. The workers pretended not to watch her progress, but Rena felt their gazes, could hear the whispers which followed her movement.
With a sigh of embarrassment, she sidestepped briefly into a patch of shade, closing her eyes against the bright afternoon sky as she swiped a few beads of sweat from the side of her face. Though she was no stranger to warmer climates, she was unused to toiling in open fields or feeling the relentless press of sunlight against her neck and shoulders.
Several workers made throated sounds of relief as two women appeared at the end of the next row and hastened toward them with large buckets of water balanced at the hip. One by one, the men halted their reaping, thrusting aside their tools into the fallen stalks as they waited for the women to reach them. Those who bound also set aside their sickles, watching the sloshing buckets with hopeful eyes as everyone stepped away from their work.
Flitting from worker to worker, the women ladled out water in tin cups. The workers drank quickly, water trailing down their throats.
At last one of the women neared Rena. She held out the cup to a thin worker beside her, who drank deeply, chugging off its contents. Swiping a sleeve against his mouth, the man nodded his gratitude a
nd handed the cup back to the woman as he bent again to his task.
The back of Rena’s dress stuck to her shoulder blades, and her throat was scratchy, but she ignored the women and doubled back toward the nearest stooks, crouching low to gather some kernels of wheat which had been dropped there. She refused to think of the women with their buckets of water, or any of the field hands who had already quenched their sandpaper throats.
Rena turned in surprise as one of the women approached her, ladling a cupful of water and holding it out to her. Rena stared at the cup thirstily, but she did not move at once to take it. The woman would not meet her eyes but stared somewhere over Rena’s shoulder.
Rena’s fingers lifted toward the cup, but another worker shoved through those gathering up their tools. “What do you think you’re doing?” he demanded of the water woman.
The woman blinked, lowering the cup slightly. “We are all thirsty.”
“Sure, sure,” he agreed. “But the water is for the workers. Those who contribute.” He turned his eyes on Rena. “And how do you contribute?”
Rena stared at the man’s grubby smock and scrawny frame and could not help thinking such a man would never have been admitted into her father’s house. He was too dirty, too coarse…and yet there she was, fated to stand beneath such a man when it counted most.
“It’s only a drink,” she said stiffly, and at last took the cup from the woman’s hand.
Before she could lift the tin to her lips, the man knocked it from her hands. Rena watched, crestfallen, as the water splashed against the brittle stubs of ground where wheat had grown just that morning.
“I think we all agree you’ve taken plenty enough of what isn’t yours,” the man replied coolly. The other workers watched the humiliating exchange, though no one came to her aid. One of the men had the decency to yell something out to the man—about “letting the poor lass alone”—but the rest were empty whispers. Nothing of substance. Nothing that helped.
Rena felt her fingers curl into tight fists. She wanted to lash out at the man, to strike him as hard as he had struck this rising chord of shame within herself. When had she become dirt beneath a field hand’s shoe?
With a satisfied smile, the man shrugged at her empty expression and stalked away. Rena swore under her breath, a feverish release of pressure, and bent back to her task. Her fingers were caked with dirt, each nail coated in filth. She thought, again, of her father. Would she have been admitted into his house if she had looked this way? Certainly not. She would have been shut out by a servant before she could ever have announced who she was.
Out of the corner of her eye, Rena saw another cup of water extended toward her. Unsure if she should expect another round of mockery, she settled on her knees and glanced up, but it was not the same woman who had filled her last cup. The other girl had been simply dressed, hem lined in dirt the same as Rena’s; this one wore a clean, high-necked cotton gown, fashionable in its tight bodice and wide crinoline. The dreamy blue fabric stood stark against the brown and gold colors of encroaching autumn.
The young woman did not attempt a smile, but neither did she glare like so many others. “So,” she said, not quite able to hide her curiosity, “you are the one they’ve been talking about.”
Rena didn’t quite like this introduction. “I suppose I would be, yes.”
The girl nodded, then gestured for Rena to rise. Rena did as she was instructed and stood, then took the offered cup. “Thank you,” she said, and took a deep drink.
Shifting back on her feet, the girl cleared her throat. “My brother could have gotten into a nasty bit of trouble for helping you,” she said, half-accusatory. “Letting you steal from Lord Barric’s field like he did.”
Lowering the now-emptied cup, Rena studied the girl, recalling the young man who had first let her pick from the field. Of course they were siblings. Brother and sister shared the same eye color, a royal English blue, which seemed to outrank them slightly. And though this girl’s hair was much curlier than her brother’s, an unruly tumble pulled into a loose bun, it was the same shade of dusty blond. She was a pretty girl, perhaps only a year or two older than Rena.
“It was not my intention to get him into trouble. But I thank you for the water—” Rena hesitated, realizing she didn’t know how to address the girl. She was well above Rena in station, squarely middle class if her spotless dress indicated anything.
“Miss Wilmot,” the girl finished for her, her eyes creasing at the corners as if strained by the introduction.
“Miss Wilmot,” Rena repeated, and handed the cup over. “I thank you.”
Rena turned away with every intention of returning to her work.
“There is a lot of talk,” Miss Wilmot put in quickly, “about why Lord Barric lets you pick from his fields. The talk will only get worse if you stay here. There isn’t an eligible woman from here to Liverpool who hasn’t set her cap at Lord Barric.”
Rena had never heard this phrase, “set her cap,” but she gleaned the meaning of it from Miss Wilmot’s suspicious eyes—the women of Abbotsville were jealous of Rena. She turned to face Miss Wilmot, her voice hardening. “Then I wonder that he hasn’t married one of them.”
Miss Wilmot went on as if she hadn’t heard her, “He is an earl, a gentleman of fortune and property.”
Rena sighed and shook her head. “You may rest assured I have no design upon Lord Barric. I have a husband. He may be dead, but he is still mine. As such, any man in Abbotsville would find me a fairly sad conquest.”
Miss Wilmot’s mouth clenched into a tight frown. “Yes,” she conceded, “but even a sad conquest can be beautiful.”
CHAPTER 5
Barric rode Samson idly through town, removing his hat for the chirping ladies who stepped out of storefronts to greet him.
“Good morning, Lord Barric,” said one lady.
“How long it has been?” lamented another, who was usually as chatty as a church bell in town but deliberately shy in his presence.
Her mother hovering close at her hip, Lady Angelina was made bolder than the rest. Wearing an impossibly purple gown, belled wide around her legs, she drew close and placed a gloved hand on Samson’s black snout before tipping her head up to meet Barric’s gaze. “I hope you have had a successful morning shooting,” she said, discreetly eyeing the gun which now rested flush across his legs. He had been out partridge shooting with Roger Fiddlestone since dawn, a successful outing, and now had three brace of the unfortunate birds bound to the side of Samson’s saddle.
“And won’t you join us for our dinner party next week, Lord Barric?” Lady Angelina sought to sway him with a cloying smile. “We have not yet received your reply.”
In general, Barric had no wish to attend dinner parties. The ladies who arranged them were easily as skilled at hunting men as he and Fiddlestone were at hunting partridges. Still, he often attended for the sake of connections, or even hosted his own at Misthold to placate Uncle George, who often criticized him for being too withdrawn with his father’s title.
He made some noncommittal reply to Lady Angelina’s invitation, smiling drolly as he signaled Samson to ride on. Eventually, of course, he would have to marry one of them. He was nearly thirty, already older than his father had been when he had asked for his mother’s hand. It seemed impossible to imagine another mistress of Misthold—even more impossible to imagine himself focusing his attentions anywhere but on his land.
Still, he had no interest in marriage, at least not pressingly. Charlie had once joked that Misthold was always to be Jack’s mistress, and he was probably right. Barric worked the land, or at least saw to its workings, more often than he entertained society or women. And after years of watching Charlie fumble, Barric had seen exactly the kind of trouble a woman might bring.
“Curious, are you?”
Barric pulled back on the reins as he heard his cousin’s voice behind him. The two had not spoken since the disastrous card game, and Barric had hoped to keep it that
way. Sighing deeply as he braced himself for another confrontation, he angled in the saddle, reluctantly allowing Thomas to catch up.
“And what is it I am supposed to be curious about?” Barric asked blandly.
Thomas extended a dramatic arm to the red door directly to Barric’s left. With wary eyes, Barric read the weathered sign hanging over the entry: THE GILDED CROWN.
His hands tightened. He had not intended to ride so close to the edge of town, nor had he realized he was so near to the inn.
Thomas didn’t even have the dignity to lower his voice as he crowed, “Couldn’t stay away, could you?”
In truth, Barric had not allowed himself to think about that door or the girl who lived on the other side of it. Instead, he had taken William’s advice and agreed to remove himself from the situation. He didn’t even frown when he found her gleaning in his field but made himself tend to his ledgers or the other workers instead.
But now she was not so easy to think away. The door shot open with a clatter, and a man stumbled down the two front steps, openly drunk, his smug eyes squinting against the morning light. Barric’s insides twisted. Rena walked through that same door every day. She called it home. She lived in the smoky noise, where men like this drunkard either wanted her favors or scorned her presence. He realized he had been staring too long at the door when he heard Thomas snort with amusement.
“I hear from a few of my gaming mates she’s found work outside of your fields.” Thomas nodded to the man who had just left. “Of course, you aren’t the only man with deep pockets, and the Gilded Crown is ripe with opportunity. It makes sense that she would follow the money.”
Barric wanted to believe his cousin was lying, wanted to spit the lie right back in his face, but he also realized he had no way of knowing for certain that Thomas wasn’t right. Barric still kept an eye out for Rena in the fields, but he never spoke to her. Never approached. Never asked how she fared or tested her desperation to see how deep it ran.
Just then, Sir Ellis came sauntering down the road, a self-satisfied smile plastered on his lips. He wore a ridiculously dandyish suit, with a gaudy orange waistcoat and narrow trousers cut of checkered tweed. Sir Ellis tipped his head as Lady Angelina paused with her mother to greet him. Lady Angelina proffered a white-gloved hand, all but preening as Sir Ellis bent over her fingers. No doubt she was extending the same dinner party invitation Barric had brushed off, and judging by her answering smile, Sir Ellis had accepted.
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