What Ales the Earl

by Sally MacKenzie

  “I think it’s time we left.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Pen walked along the path by the stream, Harriet’s hand in hers.

  Harriet’s other hand was in Harry’s, and she was chatting away at him, hopping and skipping and telling him everything the ducks had done while he and Pen had been talking. And he was telling her about the ducks—and other animals—he’d seen in Lisbon and Paris and Vienna.

  He was charming and funny and Harriet was enchanted.

  Pen was, too.

  She’d wanted to plead work and flee back to the hopyard after their disastrous conversation. Harry would have welcomed her departure. Talk about looking daggers at someone! By rights she should be stretched out on the ground, pierced in so many places she looked like a pincushion.

  But she couldn’t do that to Harriet. Yes, it was getting very near the harvest. Yes, she had to keep a close eye out for bugs and blight. But she’d checked the plants before she’d gone down to the cottage this morning, and she would check them again when she and Harriet got back to the Home.

  Harriet needed tending, too. She’d waited so patiently by the pond while Pen and Harry talked. And she was so obviously delighted to have both her parents together. Pen could afford these few hours to make her happy.

  And, to be brutally honest, make herself happy. She wanted to be with Harry. She wanted to gather memories—the warmth in his eyes when he looked at Harriet, his smile, the sound of his voice—to store away for the long winter when he was gone, married to Lady Susan and doting on his heir. He’d only be here another day or two, after all.

  And then perhaps fate would smile on her and the duke would send the village a vicar that was willing to take on a nine-year-old girl, a man who wasn’t looking for a grand passion but just a comfortable, accommodating female to marry.

  She looked at Harry and her heart cramped. He was smiling at Harriet as he listened intently to her convoluted story about Farmer Smith’s piglets and Bessie the cow. The sad truth—the thing Pen hadn’t admitted to him by the pond—was that she was very much afraid she’d never love another man, at least not the way she’d loved Harry—still loved him. She might respect someone else, value him, grow fond of him, perhaps even enjoy her marital duties. But feel the deep, consuming love she felt for Harry?

  No.

  Perhaps it was just as well. Maybe such a fierce emotion was destined to burn itself out. If she could have Harry forever, she might grow to hate him as passionately as she loved him now.

  It was better to choose a diet of ale and mutton than to try to live on champagne and comfits.

  “Why, if it isn’t Lord Darrow. Look, Letitia. We’ve finally run him to ground.”

  Pen happened to be looking at Harry when he heard those words, so she saw him stiffen, shock freezing his features. But then, in a blink, he was relaxed and smiling, though this smile was formal and cold—very different from the one he’d just been sharing with Harriet.

  “Lady Susan. Letitia. How”—he paused significantly—“odd to see you here.”

  And then Pen looked at the women—two exquisitely gowned females who were as out of place on this country path as Harry’s Ajax was in the stall next to Bumblebee.

  “Who are they, Papa?” Harriet’s young voice was clear as a bell.

  Surprise and, at least in Lady Susan’s case, distaste twisted the women’s expressions when they heard “Papa,” though they must have discerned the situation the moment they’d seen Harry holding Harriet’s hand—or, more to the point, when they’d seen Harriet’s hair. After carrying crab apples, her bonnet had been relegated to the picnic basket.

  Pen’s hackles rose. If either woman said even one unkind word to Harriet, she would regret it—deeply regret it.

  Is Harry going to claim Harriet? If he doesn’t—

  That would be a good thing. If Harry disavowed their daughter, Pen would be completely cured of her feelings for him.

  But Harriet would be crushed. She couldn’t let that happen.

  She forced a smile and leaped into the conversational breach.

  “Welcome to Little Puddledon.” She let go of Harriet’s hand and stepped forward to shield her from the women. “I’m Penelope Barnes, and this is my daughter, Harriet.”

  Letitia’s face had gone carefully blank. Ah. Right. Her husband’s proclivity for extramarital affairs must have caused her to be surprised by silver-blazed bastards all too often.

  Lady Susan’s face, on the other hand, was not blank. Her nose wrinkled in distaste. From her expression, one would think the woman had encountered a talking dunghill.

  “And my daughter, too,” Harry said from over Pen’s shoulder, amusement in his voice.

  Make that a talking dung mountain.

  “Pen, as I’m sure you’ve guessed, this is my sister-in-law, Lady Darrow.” Harry gestured to the shorter, plumper woman on the right. “I don’t know if you ever encountered her when you lived on the estate.”

  She would kill with kindness. “I don’t believe so, but I do remember when you married the previous earl, Lady Darrow. Everyone celebrated for days.”

  To her shock, Letitia looked at her and smiled—and Pen noticed the sadness in her eyes.

  Oh. How could she have forgotten that Walter died just a little over a year ago? Letitia must have only recently put off mourning.

  Perhaps they were not so unalike. They’d both lost the men in their lives suddenly, though of course Letitia’s loss was far greater. And although Letitia wouldn’t ever have to rely on her wits to survive the way Pen had—Harry would see that his sister-in-law and nieces were well taken care of—she must feel uncertain about her place in the world now. She was the Countess of Darrow, the mistress of a large estate, but the moment Harry married there’d be a new countess. Letitia would have to leave the homes she’d managed for years and make a life somewhere else.

  Worse, her daughters would have to leave the only homes they’d ever known.

  Letitia might be of the nobility, but she was also a mother. Like Pen.

  “I’m very sorry for your loss,” Pen said sincerely.

  Letitia’s eyes brightened. “Thank you.”

  “Lady Darrow!” Lady Susan said in shocked tones. “I can’t believe you are talking to That Person.”

  “And this,” Harry said, an edge to his voice, “is Lady Susan Palmer.”

  The witch—that is, the woman Harry was going to marry.

  Remember—kill with kindness. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Lady Susan.” A barefaced, but polite, lie.

  Lady Susan never even looked Pen’s way. Instead, she scowled at Harry and said, “I cannot believe you just introduced me to your wh—”

  “Heavens, look at the time!” Pen said loudly. Thank God she’d anticipated something like this might happen.

  She kept talking, her words coming so fast no one, especially the deplorable Lady Susan, could get a word in edgewise. “I’m so sorry, ladies, Lord Darrow, but I’m afraid I must get back to work. Here, give me the basket, my lord. Come along, Harriet. Pardon us.”

  While she spoke, she grabbed the picnic basket from Harry, took Harriet’s hand, and stepped around the two women.

  Fortunately, Harriet didn’t dig in her heels and argue.

  Unfortunately, Harriet’s compliance was probably because she sensed Lady Susan was about to insult them further. Harriet was a good judge of character, after all.

  Pen walked briskly—as quickly as she could and not be running—down the path, her goal to get Harriet out of earshot as fast as possible. Harriet had to trot to keep up.

  “Is that the lady Papa is going to marry?” Harriet asked in a small voice once Pen finally slowed down.

  “Yes.” How could Harry bear to spend one minute with that shrew, let alone a lifetime?

  “I don’t like her.”

  Pen snorted. “I don’t like her either.”

  “Why does Papa want to marry her?”

  “She’s very
pretty.”

  “So are you!”

  Pen smiled. “I think you may be slightly prejudiced, Harriet. But Lady Susan is also an earl’s daughter. She’ll know how to manage his household. It makes perfect sense.”

  Harriet scowled. “I don’t think so. She’s mean. She was going to call you a”—Harriet’s voice faltered—“a wh-whore, wasn’t she, Mama?”

  “Yes.” She’d heard that word more in the last few days than she had in her entire life.

  “And she looked at me like I was a . . . a slug, ugly and slimy and d-dirty. Like I didn’t belong here. Like I didn’t belong anywhere.”

  Anger so intense it took Pen’s breath away surged through her. How dare that woman make Harriet feel the smallest moment of discomfort! She wanted to go back, grab Lady Susan by the throat, and squeeze until the she-devil’s face turned blue.

  Instead she dropped the basket and pulled her daughter into her arms.

  Harriet gasped and sniffed, fighting off tears. “Everyone will look at me that way, won’t they, Mama? Because I’m a b-bastard.”

  “No. Not here in Little Puddledon.” Elsewhere, though ...

  She wouldn’t worry about that now. Harriet wasn’t going anywhere. They weren’t going anywhere.

  “You are none of those things, Harriet. Of course you aren’t.”

  “But people will say it. People will think it.”

  Yes, they might. Some probably will . . . Definitely will.

  Despair threatened to swamp her. Hopelessness—

  No. I can’t give in to that. I can’t give up. I have Harriet to take care of.

  When she’d created her fictional husband years ago, it had been to protect Harriet, but the story had also protected her. As the years had gone by, she’d been lulled into a false sense of respectability. She’d come to care what people thought of her.

  But I’m not respectable. I can never be. I gave that up forever when I loved Harry.

  So what? Was she—and Harriet—supposed to crawl into a hole somewhere so respectable people needn’t encounter them?

  Being with Harry again had reminded her that once upon a time for a short while she’d been fearless. It was time to be fearless again—

  But I’m a mother. I have to protect Harriet.

  She looked down at the top of her daughter’s head and her heart swelled. Perhaps teaching Harriet to be strong and fearless and independent was better than protecting her. If Harriet learned those skills, she could protect herself.

  Pen held her daughter away from her and looked into her eyes. “Harriet, Lady Susan can call us whatever she wants. We don’t have to care what she—what anyone—thinks of us.”

  Harriet did not look convinced.

  “To some people—well, most people—I am not a proper person. When I chose to love your father without the Church’s blessing, I broke one of society’s biggest rules. I knew it and I knew what the consequences were, but I did it anyway. I loved your father that much.”

  Harriet frowned. “But Papa did it, too, and no one calls him a whore.”

  That made Pen laugh. “True. But the rules are different for men, especially noblemen.”

  “That’s not fair!”

  Good. Some of Harriet’s spirit was coming back. Pen smiled. Nothing could keep her daughter down.

  “Many things in life aren’t fair, Harriet.” Though in this situation, the inequality was grounded in some hard truth. If a woman’s misbehavior resulted in a child, she was the one literally left holding the baby—Harriet, in Pen’s case.

  But if I hadn’t misbehaved with Harry . . .

  “I told you before that I’m sorry you weren’t born in a marriage, but I am not sorry at all that you were born. If I hadn’t broken the rules with your papa, I wouldn’t have you.”

  She hugged Harriet so tightly then, Harriet might have trouble breathing—but Harriet hugged her back just as tightly.

  Lord, if I hadn’t had Harriet, what would have become of me?

  Likely I’d be some farmer’s wife, living a boring, dependent, loveless existence.

  Ugh.

  “You know what, Harriet? I’d do it all over again. Every minute of it.” It was true. She’d not trade her life here, with all its . . . complications and challenges for anything. “So if the Lady Susans of the world want to judge me for loving your father or you for being your father’s daughter, they are free to do so. We will thumb our noses at them.” And she suited her actions to her words.

  Harriet giggled, and they started walking again, but in companionable silence this time. They were almost at the Home before Harriet spoke once more.

  “You and Papa didn’t seem very happy this morning. I thought when you got back so late last night, it would be like our picnic at the orchard, but it wasn’t.”

  Lud! She’d thought she’d come in quietly enough that she hadn’t wakened Harriet. “No, it wasn’t.”

  “Did he ask you to be his mistress?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you told him no, didn’t you?”

  Harriet sounded more disappointed than angry.

  “Yes. I’m sorry. I know you wanted to live close to him. And having a house to ourselves would be nice. But . . .”

  Perhaps meeting Lady Susan, as painful as it had been, had been good. Now Harriet must understand better how Society worked.

  It was one thing to be defiant about a fact you couldn’t change. It was quite another to ask for more abuse.

  “You don’t want to be anywhere near Lady Susan, do you?”

  Harriet shook her head vehemently—and then her eyes filled with tears again. “So is Papa going to leave and never come back? Will I not see him again?”

  Pen put her arm around Harriet’s shoulders. “Oh, Harriet, no. He’ll be back. He told me so this morning very clearly. He said that no matter how many children he might have in his marriage, you will always be his firstborn. He won’t abandon you.”

  Harriet blinked away her tears, but she still didn’t look happy.

  “I wish he’d marry you.”

  Lord! Pen’s heart fluttered with—what? Longing?

  No point in encouraging that fantasy—either hers or Harriet’s. “The earl’s not going to marry me. I’ve told you that before.”

  Harriet scowled. “You’d make a much better wife than that mean Lady Susan.”

  Pen forced herself to laugh. “No, I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t have the first idea how to manage his houses, and I certainly wouldn’t know how to go on in his social circle. Can you imagine me at a London ball?”

  “Yes.”

  Harriet must have a very vivid imagination. Pen couldn’t picture it.

  Well, that wasn’t completely true. She could picture it—and it was a nightmare. The thought of attending a Society event made her blood run cold. She wouldn’t know how to behave, how to dress, what to say. She wouldn’t even know the steps to the dances. And that wasn’t taking into account the way all the noble lords and ladies would sneer at her. Lady Susan’s contempt had been just a small taste of what would be in store for her if she did try to rub elbows with the ton.

  She’d be miserable, and Harry would be mortified. She never wanted to put herself—and him—in that position.

  “I would be very much a fish out of water, Harriet. I’ve never been to London—or to any city at all.”

  “Then we could stay at Darrow when Papa went to London.”

  Harriet was not going to let this go easily.

  Of course she wasn’t—she wanted it too badly.

  “Your father is an earl, Harriet. He has to spend weeks in London when Parliament is in session. I think he’ll want his wife to come with him, don’t you?”

  Harriet frowned and shrugged.

  “And staying at Darrow wouldn’t answer anyway. I suspect the people there would be even more displeased to have me installed as countess than to have me living in the village as your father’s mistress.” She gently smoothed a stray hair back from H
arriet’s face. “I’m sorry, Harriet. Sometimes the thing we most want is impossible.”

  “It’s not impossible,” Harriet said, stomping her foot. Then she turned and ran off toward the house.

  Pen just stood where she was. She knew brangling with Harriet, especially now, wouldn’t help matters, but that wasn’t what kept her rooted to the spot. No, it was something far worse.

  She’d known she couldn’t marry Harry. She’d listed all the reasons why. But apparently, she hadn’t truly convinced herself, not deep in her heart.

  Now, after seeing Lady Susan’s disdainful face and explaining matters to Harriet, it finally—finally—hit home.

  The one thing she most wanted—to be Harry’s wife and be a family with him and Harriet—was completely, absolutely, beyond her reach.

  * * *

  Pure, unadulterated rage roared through Harry as he watched Pen hustle Harriet away. He couldn’t even look at Lady Susan or Letitia for fear he’d explode. What the hell were they doing in Little Puddledon?

  There was only one explanation he could think of—they’d managed to discover his whereabouts from someone in Grainger’s household and had come after him.

  Had Grainger himself betrayed him? If he had, Harry would have a word with him when next he saw him—or, even better, go a few bouts with him at Gentleman Jackson’s. Grainger was reputed to be an excellent fighter, but so was Harry. He might take a few hits, but he’d land some blows himself.

  The thought was intensely satisfying.

  And then Lady Susan sniffed, and his eyes reflexively looked her way. Her mouth was pinched, her nose in the air as if she’d caught a whiff of something vile.

  His rage went from hot to ice cold. Lady Susan was going to be very, very sorry she’d had the temerity to pursue him to Little Puddledon.

  “I cannot believe you just introduced me to your whore and your bastard, Lord Darrow,” she said in outraged tones.

  He clenched his jaw to keep from treating the spoiled spawn of Lord Langley to a long and vivid string of curses. If looks could kill, she’d be stretched out lifeless in the dirt.

  Lady Susan is a female. I must remain civil.

  Letitia didn’t know him well, but she could recognize cold fury when she saw it.