What Ales the Earl

by Sally MacKenzie

  Pen laughed. “Well, perhaps not that early.” She smiled up at Harry. “Shall we say nine, Lord Darrow?”

  Ah. Hearing Pen use his title sent his good spirits plummeting.

  He’d got used to people calling him Darrow. After all, he was indeed the earl now. He might never have wanted the title, but he had to accept it. Yet, Pen . . . She was from his past, from the time when he was just Harry, just the second son, free to go where he wished and do as he willed without having to worry about tenants and roofs and the House of Lords.

  “Very well.” He tried to keep his voice light. “Nine it is.”

  “I think you should stay at the cottage, Papa, instead of the inn,” Harriet said as she skipped down the path ahead of them, “and Ajax can stay with Bumblebee.”

  “Er, Bumblebee?” He looked at Pen for enlightenment, but Harriet answered before Pen could.

  “That’s Miss Jo’s horse.” She looked earnestly back at him. “You’ll be closer to the Home if you’re at the cottage, Papa, and maybe I can visit you. Mama won’t let me go to the inn by myself. She says too many of the men end up in their cups”—she grinned—“which is good for us because that means they are drinking lots of our ale.”

  Pen shrugged a bit helplessly. “I just don’t believe inns are proper places for young children.”

  “I’m not young!” Harriet said. “I’m nine.”

  “Ancient.” Pen gave Harriet a semi-stern look. “And you have no reason to go to the inn, do you?”

  “I do now if Papa’s there.”

  He would agree that an inn, even a small local inn such as the Dancing Duck, wasn’t the best place for a young girl. “I assume there’s a bed in the cottage?”

  “Yes, in the loft,” Pen said, “though I’m not certain what condition the bed is in.”

  “It’s fine,” Harriet said. “I checked before I went to the waterfall.” She grinned at Harry. “I was going to move there myself, Papa, but I’ll give up my plans for you.”

  “What?!” Pen was almost sputtering. “I would never let you stay alone at the cottage, Harriet. What were you thinking?”

  Harriet stopped—they’d reached the edge of the woods—and scowled at her mother. “I was thinking I’m tired of Verity and the other girls teasing me. And pinching me. It’s bad enough during the day, but at least then I can see them coming and get away. But at night, once the candles are snuffed . . .” She shuddered. “It’s horrible.”

  Harriet’s words made Harry remember the dormitories at Eton, the lack of privacy, the constant feeling of being at the older boys’ mercy.

  Harriet was his daughter. She should have a room of her own. He would definitely talk to Pen about moving to Darrow and taking that empty house.

  “I’ll have a cot put up in my room for you,” Pen said. “You will stay with me until the situation is resolved.”

  “All right.” Harriet grinned at Harry. “So, you can stay at the cottage, Papa!”

  Chapter Seven

  Pen stood with Harriet at the edge of the drive to the Home and watched Harry walk down the road to the village. In just a few minutes, his long stride had carried him around the bend and out of sight.

  She felt oddly bereft.

  Silly! He’ll be back tomorrow.

  Yes, but for how long? After tomorrow’s tour, he’d have enough information to assure the duke that they had an important, thriving business here.

  I cannot allow myself to feel . . . anything for him.

  He’d been very good with Harriet, though. He hadn’t talked down to her the way so many adults did when addressing children. He hadn’t lied to Harriet about why he’d come to the village, though she could see he’d been tempted to do so. And he’d supported Pen, both in agreeing that it would have been difficult for a letter to have reached him on the Continent and in putting off his tour of the Home until tomorrow.

  And he’d moderated his tone—and not snapped back at her—when she’d called him out for speaking sharply to Harriet. Her own father would have given her the back of his hand for that.

  Harry would be a good father to the children—the legitimate children—he’d have, likely with Lady Susan Palmer.

  “I like him, Mama,” Harriet said, giving the little skip she did when she was especially happy.

  Pen’s heart clenched. Oh, no. She couldn’t allow Harriet to form an attachment to Harry.

  “He’s nice,” Harriet said, doing another little hop-skip.

  “Y-yes, but remember, he’s leaving soon. Perhaps as early as the day after tomorrow. Or perhaps even tomorrow. I can’t imagine he’ll need to tour the Home for very long.” She forced herself to smile. “He’ll want to get back to report to the Duke of Grainger. And we do need Lord Darrow to give a good report as soon as possible. We depend on the duke’s generosity to keep the Home running.”

  Harriet might not have been listening. “He said he might stay a week or more. He wants to get to know me.” She gave Pen a sly little smile. “I think he likes you.”

  What was this? Surely Harriet understood the situation. “Er, yes. We were friends when we were children.” And obviously very friendly when they were more than children or Harriet would not be here.

  “No. I think he likes you.” Harriet’s smile widened into a grin. “I think he wants to marry you.”

  “Harriet!” Pen stopped and took a calming breath. She needed to nip this fantasy in the bud at once. “Lord Darrow is not going to marry me. I thought I explained the matter to you. Earls do not marry farmers’ daughters.”

  Harriet shrugged as if Pen had said something completely inconsequential. “You’re a hop grower now.”

  “They don’t marry hop growers, either.” Blast. That had come out more harshly than she’d intended.

  She must remember Harriet had grown up in this little village. She’d never been around the nobility.

  “Earls marry ladies, Harriet. Women of noble birth. According to the newspapers, Lord Darrow has been on the verge of offering for Lady Susan Palmer, the Earl of Langley’s daughter, all Season. He was supposed to attend a house party with her at the Duke of Grainger’s just a few days ago.”

  And now he’s here—on the duke’s business . . .

  Dear God, he’s probably already betrothed.

  Her stomach sank.

  Harriet grinned and started skipping up the drive to the house. “So, you like him, too!”

  “What?” How in the world had Harriet reached that conclusion?

  Harriet looked over her shoulder at Pen, her grin widening. “You wouldn’t have been looking through the papers for his name if you didn’t like him.”

  Pen caught up with her. “I was doing no such thing.”

  “Oh? Who else did you read about?”

  Harriet was getting too smart for her own good.

  “Lord Darrow is your father. He also happens to be the only peer of my acquaintance. I was simply interested to see how my old playmate—” The memory of a shockingly erotic bit of sexual play popped into her thoughts. Lud! Fortunately, Harriet was too young to know about such things—or to notice Pen blushing. “How my old friend was doing.”

  Perhaps Harriet had noticed Pen’s flushed cheeks. She giggled. “I think you like him. You look at him the way Miss Avis looks at Billy from the butcher shop when he comes with our delivery, before she takes him back to the larder.” Harriet frowned. “Miss Dorcas always laughs after Billy leaves and asks Miss Avis how she liked the sausage—and I don’t think she bought any sausage. What do you suppose she means by that?”

  “I have no idea.” Surely the Almighty would forgive her this one small untruth. “You should not be loitering in the kitchen, Harriet. Leave Miss Avis and Miss Dorcas to do their work.” She really did need to get Harriet out of the Home, but how was she to manage that now that marrying Godfrey was not an option? There were no other suitable single men in the village.

  Harry’s face popped into her thoughts, but she banished it immediatel
y. She’d told Harriet the truth: earls did not marry so far beneath them, and, even more to the point, chances were good that Harry was no longer single, but betrothed to Lady Susan.

  Time to focus on more practical matters. “I will talk to Miss Jo at once about moving you in with me, Harriet.”

  The Home was crowded. Most women had to share a room, and the girls were all housed in what had once been the Long Gallery. But Pen—and Caro—each had her own room, partly because they’d been there the longest, but also because they had no separate office and needed the extra space for a desk and shelves to keep their papers organized.

  Adding a cot for Harriet would take up almost all the available floor space—she and Harriet would have to climb over each other constantly. It wasn’t a permanent solution to the problem.

  “Oh, I do wish we could live somewhere else,” Pen said.

  Harriet frowned and pulled a face. “You aren’t going to marry Mr. Wright, are you?” She sounded angry and, well, frightened, too.

  Pen put her arm around her and gave her a quick hug. “No! Definitely not. You were correct about him. He is horrible—a wolf in sheep’s clothing if ever I met one.” Thinking about what had happened in that clearing made her furious again.

  And because she was the mother of a daughter, it also made her think. She wouldn’t go into the gory details, but she did want Harriet to be prepared should she ever find herself in such an unfortunate position.

  “He’d heard the story about your birth, Harriet, and, just as you predicted, he didn’t think well of me. In fact, he seemed to believe it somehow gave him permission to take whatever liberties he liked with my person. He tried to force me—” She caught herself.

  Remember, Harriet is only nine.

  Now that her daughter was getting older and seemed so mature, Pen found herself treating her a bit too much like a confidante.

  “He tried to kiss me.” That was enough to get her point across. “I had to object. Vehemently.”

  Oh, there was no point in beating around the bush—Harriet might need the information someday. She was not a gently bred miss, protected and coddled by an army of footmen and other servants.

  Pen looked Harriet in the eyes. “Harriet, it’s very important to be careful around men, even at your age, but especially when you are older. Never go off alone with one. And if you find yourself having to, er, discourage some fellow who doesn’t understand ‘no’ or a stinging slap to his face, a knee thrust sharply between his legs will usually do the trick. Men’s Achilles heel is their male bits.”

  Harriet’s eyes had got rather round. “Miss Webster says all men are beasts. But then she says we are all going to burn in hellfire, so I never believed her about the men.”

  Muriel Webster was a very plump, rosy-faced, white-haired woman who lived in the village. She looked quite jolly—until you spoke with her.

  “Miss Webster does subscribe to a very dark view of the world. I don’t think you need to go that far. Just be sensible and you’ll be fine.”

  Harriet nodded and gave Pen a nervous look. “Papa doesn’t seem like he’s a beast.”

  Oh, dear. She’d never meant to give Harriet that thought. “He’s not. Of course, he’s not. Your father is a very fine man.”

  “So, he didn’t . . .” Harriet looked down and drew a circle with her toe in the dirt.

  “What is it, Harriet?” Anxiety started to tighten Pen’s chest. Her daughter usually came right out with whatever she wanted to ask.

  “Papa didn’t r-rape you to get me, did he?” Harriet finally asked in a small, wavering voice.

  Pen felt as if she’d been kicked in the stomach. How had they got to this? “No! Of course, he didn’t. What makes you ask that?”

  Harriet shrugged one shoulder as she stared at the dirt. “You said Papa wouldn’t even consider marrying you, and you were shocked when I said Verity had called you a whore. And you just warned me not to be alone with a man.” She looked up at Pen. “If he didn’t r-rape you and you aren’t a wh-whore nor married, how did you get me?”

  Lord!

  “Harriet, I—” Pen wished Harriet were still little enough that she could say “because I did” and be done with it. How could she explain the physical . . . hunger she’d felt for Harry?

  It hadn’t been just physical.

  She’d loved Harry. She’d start there.

  “Lord Darrow and I grew up together, Harriet. We played together as children and then, as we got older . . .” She shook her head. “I knew I wasn’t his social equal, but I loved him—and I think he cared for me. I—” She looked away. She hadn’t thought about this in a long time—or maybe at all.

  “I didn’t have much love in my life, Harriet. My mother died when I was very young and my father . . .” She swallowed. “My father was not a nice man. I don’t know if he loved me. I suppose maybe he did, in his own twisted way. And I wanted to love him, but—” She shook her head sadly. “I think I mostly hated him.”

  She felt Harriet’s fingers wrap around hers, and she smiled.

  “But I did love your father—desperately. I loved him so much that I didn’t care about anything else. I knew he wouldn’t marry me. I knew he was leaving Darrow in just a matter of weeks. I didn’t even think about the risk I was taking—that I might conceive—but if I had, I probably wouldn’t have let it stop me.”

  She put her hands on Harriet’s shoulders and looked directly into her eyes. “I’m sorry that you weren’t born in a marriage, Harriet, but I’m not sorry at all—not the least little bit—that you were born. I love you and I’ll take care of you.”

  And then she hugged Harriet tightly, and Harriet hugged her back. They were both a little teary-eyed when they started up the drive again.

  “If you don’t mind about not being married,” Harriet said, “maybe you could be Papa’s mistress.”

  Pen stumbled. “What?” She must have misheard.

  But no, Harriet repeated the words. “Maybe you could be Papa’s mistress. Then we would have a place to stay—mistresses have houses, don’t they?—and I could see Papa.” Harriet smiled. “And you could see him, too. Wouldn’t that be grand?”

  It would be grand—and horrible. “But the earl has to marry, Harriet. He needs an heir. I doubt Lady Susan or whoever becomes his wife would be very happy about him having a mistress nearby.” That wasn’t the only problem. “And I can’t leave Little Puddledon. Miss Jo needs me to tend the hop plants.”

  Harriet smiled up at Pen. “Papa can buy us a place in the village—old Mrs. Baker’s house has been empty ever since she moved away to stay with her son. We could live there. Then you could still grow hops, and we wouldn’t be near Papa’s wife. Papa could visit us as much as he liked.”

  Harriet was too young to understand the emotions—and the physical relationship—involved in such an arrangement.

  “I doubt very much your papa’s wife would wish to share his attentions, even without us being right under her nose.”

  “I don’t know about that.” Harriet shrugged. “I heard Miss Rosamund say that London ladies are happy when their husbands have mistresses. It means they don’t have to have them in their beds so much.”

  Harriet frowned. “Though I would have thought London ladies could have their own beds, if they wanted them. They live in big houses, don’t they? Houses even bigger than this one.” They’d just reached the front steps of the manor. “We’re crowded now, but before Miss Jo opened the Home here, there were separate bedrooms for the master and mistress, weren’t there?”

  “Well, yes.” Pen sighed. She really needed to get Harriet away from Rosamund and the Home. “But it’s more complicated than that.” Though from what she’d read about Lady Susan, she suspected the woman was indeed more interested in being the Countess of Darrow than Harry Graham’s wife.

  Poor Harry. He deserves to have someone who loves him for himself, not for his title.

  “It seems simple to me.” Harriet grinned. “Papa’s wi
fe gets what she wants—her own bed—and we get a house.” Her grin wobbled and she sounded rather wistful. “And I get to be with Papa.”

  Pen’s heart hurt. I’d do anything for Harriet.

  But this?

  No, she couldn’t be Harry’s mistress, even for Harriet. If she let Harry back into her life that way, she’d lose her self-respect, her independence, her pride.

  She’d lose everything.

  The hard truth was she was the one who didn’t want to share Harry.

  She forced herself to smile. “Harriet, this is all beside the point. Lord Darrow hasn’t shown that sort of interest in me.”

  Harriet opened her mouth as if to object, but Pen hurried on. “And I would not accept it if he did. It would be most inappropriate.”

  Harriet still looked like she would argue, so Pen put a period to the discussion.

  “Now go along. I have to find Miss Jo and tell her to expect Lord Darrow’s visit tomorrow.”

  Harriet grinned at the thought of seeing the earl again and ran off. Pen, however, stood on the steps a few more minutes before she collected herself enough to go looking for Jo.

  * * *

  On his way back to the village, Harry stopped by the cottage to confirm it would indeed be a suitable alternative to the inn. He hoped so. He’d like to spend as much time with Harriet as he could while he was here.

  And with Pen . . .

  He paused with his hand on the door latch.

  Dear God, Pen. What was it about her that drew him so? It wasn’t her beauty—though she was beautiful. It certainly wasn’t her birth—she was the daughter of a drunken farmer, for God’s sake. And it wasn’t her brain. She might know a great deal about growing hops—he assumed she did—but he’d be shocked if she could discuss literature, art, or politics. Lord, apparently, she hadn’t even been able to read until after she’d left Darrow. They had nothing but their past in common.

  And Harriet.

  He still found it difficult to believe he had a daughter.

  He stepped through the cottage’s door—the place seemed sadly empty without Pen and Harriet there—and went over to the hearth. Someone—Harriet?—had left a tinderbox on the mantel as well as a candle. There was even coal in the coal box, though it was August. He likely wouldn’t need a fire.